Meta Ethics (Ethical naturalism) Flashcards
(22 cards)
what is ENs main suggestion?
everything arises from natural properties and causes, morals are fixed absolutes
what does F.H. Bradley believe?
morals can be perceived in the world in the same way that other features of the world are identified.
what are evil/good?
facts of the natural world
morals are not about your opinion but what?
Objectively true
for EN are ethical statements and non ethical statements the same?
yes,
give an exmnaple to prove for EN that ethical statements and non ethical statements are the same?
Hitler was a leader of the nazis (non-ethical)
hitler was a bad man (ethical statement)
what does EN advocate about factual statements ?
belief that a statement could only be factual and have meaning if it can be empirically verified
ethical statements express prepositions, what does this mean?
prepositions are made true by objective features of the world, Independent of human opinion
who was a defender of EN ?
Phillipa foot
who was a critique of EN?
hume
quote from Foot?
“the fact that a human action of disposition is good of its kind… [is] a fact about a given future”
what does Foot suggest ?
when we call a person a ‘just man’ or an ‘honest women’ we are referring to something- some evidence backs it up
how do we see virtues for foot?
observed by acts
what does an honest person do according to foot?
honest things= observed, perceive moral absolutes
what does Hume suggest against EN?
moral good and evil cannot be distinguished using reason
for Hume we cannot move from what to what?
objective factual statement based on observations of the world to subjective moral statements
what example does Hume give to support his argument?
forensic= a man is dead= verified but cannot find evidence of wrongness of murder.
what is human law quote ?
“is does not imply ought”
what is ‘is’ and what is ‘ought’
Is= fact ought= moral behaviour
what does Hume say about fact?
no amount of fact is ever sufficient enough to lead to an ethical conclusion
what does Hume say in ‘A treatise of Hume’?
“tis the object of feeling not of reason. It lies in yourself not in the objects”
what are 4 weaknesses of EN?
- 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
