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Flashcards in The denial of moral truth Deck (31)
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1
Q

What is a moral judgement? Give an example.

A

A moral judgement is a statement that entails a normative ethical stance on an issue, for example the statement “murder is wrong”.

2
Q

What is moral cognitivism? What is moral non-cognitivism?

A

Moral cognitivism: a view of that entails moral statements contain a truth value to them, they can be either right or wrong. “murder is wrong” falls into this category, regardless if murder is wrong or not it can be contradicted without a logical problem.
Relativism and moral realism subscribe to this.

Moral non-cognitivsm: ethical statements contain no truth value, they can be neither true nor false. For example “boo muder” is a statement containing no truth value, there is not opposite to this statement.
Emotivism and prescriptivism subscribe to this.

3
Q

What is moral realism? What is moral anti-realism?

A

Moral realism is a cognitive view of morality that entails moral truths are objectively true, regardless of time, situation or personal judgment.

Moral anti-realism is any view of morality that does not entail an objective moral truth.

4
Q

What does it mean to say that a moral judgement is ‘objective’? And subjective?

A

An objective moral truth entails that morality is an absolute truth, independent of human existence or opinion. In any given situation there are right and wrong actions, Rorschach is an example of this.
A subjective moral truth is a moral truth that is determined by individuals, or by a culture, and is relative to those individuals or cultures. In this case everybody has their own ethical views, and all are right relative to themselves.

5
Q

What does it mean to say that moral judgements are ‘descriptive’? ‘Non-descriptive’?

A

Descriptive moral judgements relate to the function of the statement, they give a description of ethical judgments. What do people think is right?

6
Q

What is meta-ethics? How does it differ from normative ethics?

A

Meta ethics is the view that the truth or falsity of a moral judgement is relatively determined, according to either individuals or by a cultural framework. It studies what does right even mean?
Normative ethics studies how people should act.

7
Q

What is the ‘is/ought’ gap?

A

Saying you ought not to do something, such as murder, does not equate to “is”. The “is” facts are morally neutral, despite the opinion that you ought not to do it.

8
Q

How would an emotivist understand the moral judgement ‘murder is wrong’?

A

An emotivist would analytically reduce the statement murder is wrong to “boo muder”, or “eugh murder”. To an emotivist there is no loss of meaning in this reduction, as moral judgements are non-cognitive, they are merely an expression of our emotions.

9
Q

What observation does emotivism make about the verification of moral
judgements, and what conclusion do they draw from this?

A

Emotivism rose from logical positivism, and thus agrees with the principle of verification, which entails that if a statement is not verifiable it is not meaningful. Moral judgments are not verifiable, as they must either be analytically true, which they are not, or empirically verifiable, which they are not. Emotivists therefore make no truth claims about moral judgements.

10
Q

What point does Ayer make about the ‘three types’ of ethical statement, and what does it show?

A

Relation of ideas – propositions that define terms and unpack the meanings of words, for example cruel means wilfully causing pain to others by definition.
Matters of fact – Propositions about the phenomena of ethical experience, for example “this family believes that murder is wrong.”
Subjective emotional expression – Propositions of moral judgements, eg murder is wrong.

11
Q

What point does Hume make about the omniscient being, and what does it show?

A

Hume shows that there is no objective morality in the world, as an omniscient being (all knowing) would not find any evidence of any kind of ethical judgment, or anything that would logically imply such a judgement.

12
Q

Why is emotivism a ‘non-cognitive’ moral theory?

A

Emotivism is a non cognitive theory of morality as it does not assert any truth value. Emotivism analytically reduces any moral statement such as “murder is wrong” to “boo murder”. This claim has no truth value as it can be neither true nor false, it is merely an expression of feeling.

13
Q

Why is emotivism a rejection of moral realism?

A

Emotivism rejects moral realism as moral realism asserts that there is an objective moral truth, a moral truth that is independent of individual or cultural opinion, and is true at all times regardless of situation. Emotivism does not assert that there is either an objective or subjective moral truth, merely an expression of our emotions.

14
Q

Why does emotivism lead to ‘subjective’ moral judgements?

A

Moral judgements are now reduced to merely an expression of our own feelings, which are subjective. Although there is no moral truth, moral judgements are now a subjective matter, there is no reason why your emotions or moral judgement hold more weight than mine, or vice versa.

15
Q

Why is emotivism a ‘non-descriptive’ approach to morality?

A

Emotivism is a non-descriptive approach to morality as it posits that moral judgements do not contain any descriptive information about the ethical experience at the time. “Boo, murder!” contains no information about the nature of murder at all.

16
Q

Why does emotivism arguably resolve the problem of moral motivation for the moral agent quite convincingly?

A

Moral motivation becomes a matter of expression and emotion, which accounts for why we often feel so strongly about moral judgements. When I say “boo murder”, I have a deep emotional disgust for murder, and will do all that I can to convince others to agree with my point of view. It is convincingly as it is very applicable to how we view morality.

17
Q

What is descriptive ethical relativism?

A

Descriptive ethical relativism is the empirical observation that ethical judgements differ between cultures and individuals. It does not necessarily lead on to normative relativism.

18
Q

What is meta-ethical relativism?

A

Meta ethical relativism is the view that the truth or falsity of a moral judgement is determined relative to some kind of conceptual or cultural framework (conventionalism and subjectivism are the two branches of this.)

19
Q

What is meta-ethical conventionalism? Normative ethical conventionalism?

A

Meta ethical conventionalism is the view that moral judgements are justified or made true by their cultural acceptance. For example relative to America in 1920 rascism was morally justified.
Normative ethical conventionalism is the view that we should act by what is justified by the accepted cultural norm.

20
Q

How would a meta-ethical conventionalist understand the judgement ‘murder is wrong’?

A

They would understand it to be “murder is wrong in relation to this culture at this point in time.”

21
Q

What is meta-ethical subjectivism? Normative ethical subjectivism?

A

Meta ethical subjectivism is the view that moral judgements are justified or made true by virtue of an individual’s viewpoint. For example relative to Ted Bundy murder and rape was morally justified.
Normative ethical subjectivism is the view that we should act by what is justified by our own viewpoint.

22
Q

How would a meta-ethical subjectivist understand the judgement ‘murder is wrong’?

A

They would understand it to be “murder is wrong relative to this person at this point in time.”

23
Q

In what sense is ethical relativism a cognitive and descriptive approach to ethics?

A

It is cognitive as it asserts a truth value, although it is not objectively true or false, relative to the individual or culture it is possible to be right or wrong. For example “I believe murder is wrong” asserts a truth claim, it can be true or false that I believe that to be so.
It is descriptive as it recognises that ethical judgements do differ between cultures and individuals.

24
Q

In what sense is it not? (Distinguish between the ‘societal’ and the ‘global’ realms).

A

It can be described to not be a cognitive and descriptive account of ethics as a global community, there is no cultural norm, the vast numbers of conflicting subcultures and societies makes it hugely difficult to actually define the culture. This means that in fact one cannot maintain that it is cognitive, and it is not made true or false by one culture.

25
Q

Why is ethical relativism a denial of moral realism?

A

It is a denial of moral realism as moral realism asserts that there is an objective moral truth, however ethical relativism puts forward an idea of a subjective moral truth.

26
Q

Why is it a denial of emotivism?

A

Emotivism does not does assert any moral truth, it is non cognitive, however ethical relativism is a cognitive subjective approach to moral truth, thus they conflict.

27
Q

The specification asks you to know about the following ‘issues’:
‘The possibility of judging the abhorrent practices of other cultures/individuals’ – in what way is this a criticism of these theories?

A

If there is no objective moral truth, then how can we ever make a judgement on individuals or cultures that cause abhorrent harm to others, we can never correct others. This problem applies to meta ethical relativism, however Emotivism can reply that we still have motivation to act with moral judgements, however our views will be no more justified than anybody else’s.
However a rejecting of moral truth does not necessarily lead to tolerance towards others and their personal views on morality, particularly with emotivism, we are driven by our emotions to disagree with others, even though we may not be justified in doing so. Tolerance itself is a moral value, which you can choose to disagree with; we are not compelled to be tolerant just because we have a subjective view of morality.

28
Q

‘The possibility of moral progress and moral mistakes’ – in what way is this a criticism of these theories? We cannot make objective progress if we deny moral truth.

A

Although our collective views of morality have changed over time, we have no objective moral grounds for saying this is genuine progress, only progress with respect to our relative current views.
Although this is true, we have become more rational than in the past in our moral decision making. For example people were racist towards many groups of people, such as the Jews in Germany, because they were not seen as a person. So in context morality is now being based from facts more than in the past, moral progress can never mean being more “true”, only being less ignorant and more rational.

29
Q

‘The extent to which we can value what we like’ – in what way is this a criticism of these theories?

A

Moral judgements are now equal to a particular type of judgement, regardless as to whether or not it is necessarily a judgement we would consider a moral one. We can assign value to anything we choose. An example of this would be that imagine Hot Fuzz, where people believe in winning the village of the year award. If this is there centre for morality, they will do anything to achieve their goal, by murdering and deceiving etc. To them this is perfectly moral, “for the greater good” of the town.

30
Q

Give a criticism of emotivism.

A

One of the most commonly used is the claim that if no moral knowledge can be had, and so no rational agreement is possible, then there would be no point in having moral debates anymore, and that morality is reduced to the volume of one’s ‘boo!’ in a statement like “boo, murder!”.
Another notable criticism of emotivism is similar in that if emotivism is true, then morality simply becomes a matter of taste, and that we cannot meaningful (objectively) punish people for being ‘immoral’, prison sentences therefore only reflect the sentiment of the judge and jury at the time, and taking it to its logical conclusion, we can’t expect others to find value in our ethical judgements, so anything goes. On this basis, a judgement that holds no objective sway is one that isn’t worth making.

31
Q

Give a criticism of relativism.

A

It is incredibly difficult to actually define the culture that one is in, and therefore it isn’t practical to proportion one’s actions to the accepted cultural norm. For example, a radical cleric living in Britain may not be acting morally by encouraging terrorist acts according to the general opinion of the British population, but according to the radical cleric culture that they associate themselves with, they are actually morally right. The difficulty in categorising culture leads to a slippery slope of further subcultures until we have to take the slope to its logical conclusion – subjectivism.