Meta Ethics (Ethical naturalism)

Question 1

what is ENs main suggestion?

Answer 1

everything arises from natural properties and causes, morals are fixed absolutes

Question 2

what does F.H. Bradley believe?

Answer 2

morals can be perceived in the world in the same way that other features of the world are identified.

Question 3

what are evil/good?

Answer 3

facts of the natural world

Question 4

morals are not about your opinion but what?

Answer 4

Objectively true

Question 5

for EN are ethical statements and non ethical statements the same?

Answer 5

yes,

Question 6

give an exmnaple to prove for EN that ethical statements and non ethical statements are the same?

Answer 6

Hitler was a leader of the nazis (non-ethical)

hitler was a bad man (ethical statement)

Question 7

what does EN advocate about factual statements ?

Answer 7

belief that a statement could only be factual and have meaning if it can be empirically verified

Question 8

ethical statements express prepositions, what does this mean?

Answer 8

prepositions are made true by objective features of the world, Independent of human opinion

Question 9

who was a defender of EN ?

Answer 9

Phillipa foot

Question 10

who was a critique of EN?

Answer 10

hume

Question 11

quote from Foot?

Answer 11

“the fact that a human action of disposition is good of its kind… [is] a fact about a given future”

Question 12

what does Foot suggest ?

Answer 12

when we call a person a ‘just man’ or an ‘honest women’ we are referring to something- some evidence backs it up

Question 13

how do we see virtues for foot?

Answer 13

observed by acts

Question 14

what does an honest person do according to foot?

Answer 14

honest things= observed, perceive moral absolutes

Question 15

what does Hume suggest against EN?

Answer 15

moral good and evil cannot be distinguished using reason

Question 16

for Hume we cannot move from what to what?

Answer 16

objective factual statement based on observations of the world to subjective moral statements

Question 17

what example does Hume give to support his argument?

Answer 17

forensic= a man is dead= verified but cannot find evidence of wrongness of murder.

Question 18

what is human law quote ?

Answer 18

“is does not imply ought”

Question 19

what is ‘is’ and what is ‘ought’

Answer 19

Is= fact 
ought= moral behaviour

Question 20

what does Hume say about fact?

Answer 20

no amount of fact is ever sufficient enough to lead to an ethical conclusion

Question 21

what does Hume say in ‘A treatise of Hume’?

Answer 21

“tis the object of feeling not of reason. It lies in yourself not in the objects”

Question 22

what are 4 weaknesses of EN?

Answer 22

• right and wrong are subjective not objective
• Mackie ‘rules themselves are not hard facts’
• do ethical moral situation have evidence
• regardless of whether a situation may have evidence to support that its right, it may still break the laws