Meta ethics Flashcards
(26 cards)
What is meta ethics?
Fundamental questions about the meaning of ethics and the concepts of good, bad, right, and wrong.
What is normative ethics?
First order ethical questions about how we should behave and what ethical norms to follow.
What is applied ethics?
Applying normative principles and arguments to particular areas such as medical ethics, animal ethics, and business ethics.
What is moral realism?
The belief that right and wrong objectively exist independent from the mind.
What is moral anti-realism?
The belief that right and wrong do not objectively exist independently from the mind.
What is cognitivism?
The view that moral statements are subject to being either true or false.
What is non-cognitivism?
The view that moral statements are not subject to truth or falsity.
What is naturalism in ethics?
The belief that moral values can be defined by observation of the natural world.
What is intuitionism?
The belief that moral truths are indefinable and self-evident.
What is emotivism?
The view that moral statements are indicators of emotional states rather than statements of fact.
What is the naturalist fallacy?
The criticism that we cannot assume that just because something is natural, it must be good.
What is the Open Question Argument?
G.E. Moore’s argument questioning whether what is natural is good.
What does Aquinas’ Natural Moral Law represent?
An example of theological naturalism where moral values are derived from understanding God’s purpose.
What did Bentham and John Stuart Mill believe about morality?
They believed that humans can discern right and wrong by discovering what actions lead to pleasure and pain.
What is Hume’s is-ought distinction?
The idea that we cannot derive moral judgments from empirical observations.
What are the strengths of naturalism?
It makes morality objective and universal, providing a set of absolutes.
What are the weaknesses of naturalism?
Hume’s is-ought distinction and G.E. Moore’s naturalistic fallacy.
What is the core idea of intuitionism?
Moral truths are self-evident and cannot be defined.
What did G.E. Moore argue regarding intuitionism?
He argued that goodness is a simple idea that cannot be broken down into parts.
What are the strengths of intuitionism?
It presents morality as objective and avoids the naturalistic fallacy.
What are the weaknesses of intuitionism?
Different ideas of the good exist, and some argue it is a result of social conditioning.
What is emotivism’s view on moral statements?
Moral statements are expressions of emotion and not factual.
What is the Verification Principle?
A principle suggesting statements are only meaningful if they are analytic or can be verified by senses.
What is a key critique of emotivism?
Geoffrey Warnock believed it is absurd to reduce morality to emotions.
