Meta E

• Metaethics

  About what moral judgements mean and what (if anything) makes them true or false
• Main debate in metaethics

  • Moral realism: Mind-independent moral properties exist
  • Moral anti-realism: Mind-independent moral properties do not exist
• Second debate in metaethics

  • Cognitivism: Moral judgements express beliefs, aim to describe reality, and can be true or false
  • Non-cognitivism: Moral judgements express non-cognitive mental states, do not aim to describe reality, and are not capable of being true or false
• 5 specific metaethical theories

  • Moral realism: Naturalism, Non-naturalism
  • Moral anti-realism: Error theory, Emotivism, Prescriptivism
• Realist theories argue that mind-independent moral properties such as 'right', 'wrong', 'good', and 'bad' exist
• Ethical naturalism

  Moral properties are natural properties
• Ethical non-naturalism

  Moral properties are non-natural properties
• Utilitarianism as naturalism

  Utilitarianism says 'good' can be reduced to pleasure, and 'bad' can be reduced to pain, which are natural properties
• Virtue ethics as naturalism

  The function of human beings is to use reason, which is a natural fact
• Problems for ethical naturalism

  • The naturalistic fallacy
  • The is-ought problem
  • The verification principle
• Ethical non-naturalism

  Moral properties are non-natural properties that cannot be reduced to anything simpler
• G.E. Moore's 'naturalistic fallacy'

  The fallacy of equating goodness with some natural property
• Moore's 'open question argument'

  If 'good' and 'pleasure' were the same thing, it would not be an open question whether pleasure is good
• Moore's intuitionism

  We can directly reflect on the truth of moral judgements through rational intuition
• Problems for ethical non-naturalism

  • Arguments from queerness
  • The verification principle
• Error theory

  Moral judgements are cognitive statements but moral properties do not exist
• Emotivism

  Moral judgements are non-cognitive statements that express feelings of approval or disapproval
• Prescriptivism

  Moral judgements are non-cognitive statements that are intended as instructions
• Mackie's 'argument from relativity'


  The variation in moral beliefs between cultures suggests moral realism is false
• Mackie's 'argument from queerness'

  Moral properties would have to be metaphysically and epistemically 'queer' or strange, which suggests they do not exist
• Problems for error theory

  • Arguments for non-cognitivism
  • Moral nihilism
  • Moral progress
• It's not possible for objective, physical, objects to relate to human motivations in this way (scientifically, metaphysically, or otherwise)
• Mackie's arguments are primarily directed at the idea of non-natural moral properties
• Moral facts

  How moral facts relate to natural facts
• It's not clear what the property of 'wrongness' adds to the natural facts of a situation
• Mackie argues that the queerness of moral properties – both epistemic and metaphysical – is evidence that moral properties do not exist
• Problems for error theory

  • Arguments for non-cognitivism
  • Moral nihilism
  • Moral progress
• Non-cognitivism

  All non-cognitivist theories are anti-realist, but not all anti-realist theories are non-cognitivist (i.e. error theory)
• Non-cognitive mental states


  Moral judgements such as "murder is wrong" express non-cognitive mental states that do not aim to describe reality and so are not supposed to be taken as either true or false
• Non-cognitivist metaethical theories

  • Emotivism
  • Prescriptivism
• Emotivism

  Moral judgements express (non-cognitive) feelings of approval or disapproval
• According to emotivism, "murder is wrong!" means "boo! murder!" and "giving money to charity is good" means "hooray! Giving money to charity!"
• Hume argues that moral judgements can motivate action while judgements of reason cannot
• Hume argues that moral judgements are neither relations of ideas nor matters of fact, and therefore are not judgements of reason (i.e. moral judgements are non-cognitive)
• Is statements

  Factual claims about what is the case
• Ought statements


  Value judgements about what should be the case
• Hume argues that you cannot logically derive ought statements from is statements, which is evidence for non-cognitivism
• Ayer argues that moral judgements fail the verification principle and are therefore meaningless
• Prescriptivism

  Moral judgements express (non-cognitive) instructions that aim to guide behaviour
• Hare argues that the main point of moral judgements is to guide conduct, not just to express attitudes