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Meta-Ethics summary for Ethics A-level
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Meta-ethical theoriesAbsolutism The view that morals are fixed, unchanging truths that everyone should
always follow
Relativism The view that moral truths are not fixed and are not absolute. What is right
changes according to the individual, the situation, the culture, the time and
the place.
Naturalism Ethical theories that hold that morals are part of the natural world and can
be recognised or observed in some way. Morals are fixed truths.
Naturalists include: F.H. Bradley and Phillippa Foot. Linked to absolutism.
Intuitionism Ethical theories that hold that moral knowledge is received in a different
way from science and logic. Moore rejects Naturalism’s presumption that
you can simply see what is right and wrong. Includes Prichard and W.D.
Ross.
Vienna Circle A group of philosophers known as logical positivists who rejected claims
that moral truth can be verified as objectively true. Empiricists. A.J. Ayer,
also an emotivist, drew from Hume’s ideas.
Emotivism Ethical theories that hold that moral statements are not statements of fact
but are either beliefs or emotions. Therefore, they have no fixed meaning.
Relativist theory.
Hume's Law Cannot go from an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’.
Naturalistic G.E. Moore’s argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms with
fallacy reference to other properties.
For relativists, moral statements might be practically useful, cultural practices, personal
opinions or just preferences. For absolutists, moral statements say something real about the
world, something solid that does not change.
If killing a person is wrong, then for an absolutist, it is always wrong to kill a person but for a
relativist who believes that moral truths are not fixed, then it changes depending on the
person, situation, culture, time and place.
Meta-ethics relates to the modern philosophical debate surrounding the language of ethics. It
is concerned with whether morals are fixed, or can change and how we come to know these
morals.
Naturalism
Ethical naturalists are absolutists. They hold the belief that evil and goodness are absolute
facts of the natural world and therefore do not change according to the situation etc. Morals
are objectively true; not based on opinion. So, when someone says ‘euthanasia is evil’,
naturalists believe they are expressing a moral truth, not an opinion.
F.H. Bradley
Bradley claimed that our duty is universal and concrete. Ethics is something that can be
explained by the concrete absolute reality we observe, in the same way we observe other
things in the universe. The particular focus is on the place we have in society and how it
directs us in what we should do.
Theological naturalists, like Aquinas, link goodness to divine will and the kind of creatures
God has made humans to be. Hedonic naturalists link goodness to pleasure or happiness;
the thing that causes happiness is right.
Bradley claims that morals are observable. The social order and your position in that social
order decides your moral duties – the position you hold in a community is not an incidental
, thing. However, the twentieth century saw the roles of men and women change. Therefore,
Bradley’s fixed moral social order is questionable. However, social orders fixed to absolute
right and wrong seem to remain a feature of much of the rest of the world, apart from the
Western world, whose breakdowns in society are linked to the family breakdown and to
marriage breakdown. In this way, naturalism sustains absolutism as it labels these
breakdowns as moral failures.
Empiricist challenges to naturalism
David Hume argued that moral claims are derived from reason, but rather from sentiment.
He rejected the idea that moral good or evil can be distinguished using reason. They are
explained by the sentiment of the observer, not their reason. He went on to say that the rules
of morality are not the result of our applying our reason – when we observe something and
conclude that it is wrong, the ‘wrongness’ comes from our sentiment, not our observations.
Hume observed that writers on morality often move from ‘is’ statements, statements of fact,
to ‘ought’ statements, statements that prescribe what to do. Hume’s Law – cannot go from
an ‘is’ to an ‘ought’. If we see someone lie, then naturalists would suggest ‘you ought not to
lie’. Hume argues that this move creates an entirely unjustified new relationship between the
words – they assume facts.
Phillipa Foot
However, Hume can also be challenged. Phillipa Foot suggested that moral evil is ‘a kind of
natural defect’. She argued when we call someone ‘just’ or ‘honest’ we are referring that
someone recognises that qualities such as promise keeping are things that are powerful and
compelling reasons to act. Therefore, a moral person is someone who keeps promises
(etc.); they have certain qualities which are reasons for their actions, which can be observed.
We can observe if someone cannot keep a promise, therefore, there may be some absolute
morals after all.
Foot argues that there are virtues, characteristics and behaviours that aim at some good.
She believes that these virtues can be observed by how a person acts. The person who acts
in consideration of honesty does honest things and the honest things can be identified
through observation. In this way, we can perceive the moral absolutes that empiricists argue
we cannot measure.
Foot argues that we can look at the natural world and establish norms. For example, we can
establish that deer are quick. If a deer is slow, we can say that it is a defective deer. For
Foot, there is no difference between saying a living thing has ‘good roots; and saying a
human being has ‘good disposition of will’.
Humans have developed ways to live well together and have developed rules (moral rules)
to ensure that everyone can live happily together. These rules are natural and absolute, and
whether or not people follow them can be observed.
J.L. Mackie
Mackie found difficulty with claims about absolute or natural approaches to morality. He
argued that the injunction do not break promises depends on the rules of the institution
having already being accepted. The rules themselves are not hard and fast facts; they are
accepted to varying degrees by all those inside the institution.
The degree to which moral rules should be applied can be disputed, depending on our
relationship with the people affected. We might be more inclined to keep promises to friends
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