In depth and detailed summary notes for OCR Religious Studies: Meta ethics. Made by an A* student who is now studying at Oxford. Comprehensive notes perfect for essay plans.
-Cognitivism/naturalism: moral values can be derived through sense experience.
-Non-cognitivism/non-naturalism: moral values cannot be derived from sense
experience.
-Moral realists: moral properties (good/bad) are objective and can be found in the world.
-Moral anti-realists: there are no objective moral facts (good/bad.)
-Realism vs anti-realism: which one is more convincing.
-Cognitive vs non-cognitive: which is more convincing.
NON-COGNITIVISM VS COGNITIVISM
Non-cognitivism is supported by: Hume’s theory of motivation: moral judgements cannot
be caused by reason, as reason does not have control over emotions, so cannot cause
moral judgements.
P1. Moral judgements are motivating
P2. Reason and belief are not motivating.
C1. Reason cannot create moral judgements.
C2. Moral judgements express non-cognitive states.
Counter: Jonathan Haidt: supported by Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics:
-Human reason can control general behaviour despite their emotion (e.g. getting them to
revise)
-People have a degree of rational autonomy and can cultivate our emotional reactions
and habits towards flourishing (eudaimonia).
Counter to the counter: Haidt and other virtue ethicists fail to consider that our rational
cultivation of emotions could itself be driven by desire.
-During the cultivation of virtue, we desire to control our desires.
-The foundational root of all human behaviour is still desire and therefore ethical
language is non- cognitive.
Cognitivism is supported by Mackie’s error theory: (against Hume, Ayer and Hare):
people think good/bad objectively exist and so talk about it in this way. This makes
ethical language cognitive, as it is expressing a belief about reality.
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