Lecture 5 Ethics 1

Question 1

what are the two ethics forms?

Answer 1

• Normative ethics: the theory about what makes certain actions right or wrong -> tries to figure out what the correct moral principles are and what grounds them
• Metaethics: the theory of what it means for something to be right or wrong -> theory of our moral thought and language and its relationship to the world

Question 2

subjectivism 1: egoism info

Answer 2

• ethical egoism: the morally right action is whatever action maximizes the individual’s own self-interest

implies:
- consequentialism: the right action is determined by its consequences
- no moral objectivity: there is no objectively right or wrong action in any given case -> relative to each individual’s interests

Question 3

Subjectivism 2: relativism info

Answer 3

what’s right or wrong is determined by cultural beliefs

why accept:
- can easily account for diversity of moral opinions
- naturalized account of morality
- coheres with tolerance for cultural diversity

can’t account for moral progress
moral normativity is lost:
- (i) murder is wrong becomes (ii) murder violates our norm that forbids us from doing it
-> the fact that an action violates some culture’s norms is not always a strong reason not to commit the action
-> if comply because wanna respect culture -> prudential reason, not a moral reason

Question 4

subjectivism 3: emotivism info

Answer 4

moral judgments are not descriptive true/false judgements -> expressing emotions towards the action

denies descriptivism:
- moral statements are neither true nor false
- function of moral talk is to express our emotions, rather than to describe our emotions or describe the world
- expressing emotions can regulate behavior

cannot account for the normativity of moral reasons and reasoning

if S feel negatively toward X, that is only a reason for you not to X provided you care about how S feels about X

Question 5

Moral realism info

Answer 5

moral realism: moral judgments can be objectively true or false.

Question 6

error theory info

Answer 6

Agrees with the realist on the fact that moral language tries to be objective -> aims to state truths
error theorists claim all these attempts fail -> every positive moral statement (X is wrong) is actually false

amoralist about objective moral properties
all claims are in error

Mackie’s “Queerness” argument: moral facts, were they to exist, would be totally unlike anything else in the universe:
(i) objective and
(ii) intrinsically motivating

moral facts would be very weird things, so that’s some reason to be skeptical of moral realism