context

• The Enlightenment led to the birth and gradual refinement of the scientific method
• Large swaths of the Northern European Church split off from Rome after 1517
• The Enlightenment emerged partially as a result of the pre-reformation renaissance periods rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman learning
• Relativism and consequentialism were rejected in Medieval Europe
• Medieval Europe accepted traditional beliefs about the origins of the world, universe, and humanity derived from scripture and traditional Church teachings
• Hume believed ethics emerged from our emotional attachments to others and rejected notions of moral truths inherent and logically derivable from nature
• The Linguistic Turn marked a shift in European thought towards examining the meaning and status of accepted beliefs and 'facts' previously accepted as self-evidently true
• The Enlightenment emphasized rational discourse, mathematics, and Aristotelean investigation of the world
• Post Enlightenment, philosophers and ethicists continued to develop theories of knowledge and normative ethical theories
• Utilitarians Bentham and Mill sought to anchor ethical norms in the apparent universal human dislike of pain and desire for pleasure
• G.E. Moore's 'Principia Ethica' published in 1903 questioned the whole metaphysical basis of ethics
• 'The Vienna Circle' led by Moritz Schlick attracted young philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein for a time
• G.E. Moore's work signalled the end of all serious Normative Ethical discussions for the next fifty years
• Ludwig Wittgenstein studied under Bertrand Russell and both inspired the 'Logical Positivist' movement
• The view that morals are fixed, unchanging truths that everyone should always follow
• You cannot go from an 'is' (a statement of fact) to an 'ought' (a moral)
• Moore's view that we can say that something has a natural quality, such as pleasure, yet we can still significantly ask whether that something is good
• A group of philosophers known as logical positivists who reject claims that moral truth can be verified as objectively true
• The meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false, and known factually, which noncognitivists deny
• Ethical theories that hold that morals are part of the natural world and can be recognised or observed in some way from things such as pleasure or love
• Theories of ethics that give guidance (norms) on how we should behave and/or the character traits we should develop
• The belief that the good is real but not a natural fact, grasped by an intuition of the mind. An ethical theory supported by Moore, Ross and Prichard, among others
• That which can be perceived / experienced by the five senses and can therefore be validated as a way to discover factual knowledge, rejecting all
• A movement that claimed that assertions have to be capable of being tested empirically or logically if they are to be meaningful
• Meta-ethical discussion was fuelled by the carnage of WWI, as growing atheism and agnosticism blossomed and old ethical norms were rejected as part of the problem that led to the bloodshed
• Ethical theories that hold that moral statements are not statements of fact but are either beliefs or emotions
• The study of the meaning and justification of moral terms. The focus is on the analytical investigation underlying ethical concepts
• G.E. Moore's 'Principia Ethica' published


  1903
• Ethical theories that hold that moral knowledge is received in a different way from science and logic. Good is believed to be real but not a natural fact and is instead grasped by an intuition of the mind
• 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
• The belief that pleasure is the good and nothing else is the good. 'Good' and 'pleasure' are interchangeable terms
• The principle that states there are only two ways to validate a proposition that makes a factual claim, either by empirical observation or logical deduction
• Gewirth's term, in 'Reason and Morality', for the principle that human life necessarily requires treating everyone else as having the same rights and duties as I find necessary for myself
• G. E. Moore's argument that it is a mistake to define moral terms such as good, with reference to natural properties (a mistake to break Hume's law)
• The meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false, and are not factual
• The Vienna Circle focused on the nature of factual knowledge and science
• Value - Principles / Standards & behaviour, judgement of what is important in life
• Facts & Metaphysical Beliefs: Religious Language

  • Understanding valid facts have enabled us to dismiss false ideas about the world around us
  • The relationship between religious & scientific facts & truths has had a long & evolving history
• Meta-Ethics

  A discussion about the very foundations of ethical dialogue, what the terms we use mean & how they get that meaning
• Facts, Beliefs, Values & Moral Truth: Witch Trials

  The connection between accepted moral & scientific facts has had a profound impact on people's lives