Meta Ethics

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Ethical naturalism

  • Ethical naturlaism holds that moral statements and judjements are factual and can be verified to be correct or incorrect. Moral facts exists, equal to maths and science. 
  • It is therefore cognitive( relates to thinking) and objective ( unbiased).
  • Moral statements and judjements are factual through wanting what is natural for us. 
  • An example of naturalism is hedonism: This is known as pleausre seeking and we naturally want pleasure to happen to us so goodness comes through the consequence of pleasure and bad comes through pain where it is intrinsically not valuable.
  • Another example of naturalism is the principle of utility: Good is the greatest level of pleausre for the greatest number of people. For example, in regards to the trolley problem, the principle would demand to kill the one person as it maximises pleasure for the most (saving 5 lives).
  • Goodness= Pleasure
  • Bad= Pain
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Ethical non-naturalism

  • Moral statements and Judjements do exist but us as humans cannot define them.
  • We understand moral judjements throuhg our own perceptions and the supernatural. We cannot use these to define moral statements and rules. 
  •  Ethical sentences express propositions. Some such propositions are true. Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of human opinion.
  • An example of understanding moral statements through perceptions is intuitionism: We know what is right and wrong through what we see and using our reason. This is backed up by G.E Moore: 'Good is good'
  • An example of undertsanding moral statements through the supernatural is the Divine Command theory: Good is what is commanded by God. We cannot undertand the nature of God, we are just told what to do.
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What is Goodness?

  • A key way of seeing good is expressed by G.E Moore, where he stated "If I am asked "what is good?", my answer is that good is good and that is the end of the matter."
  • He compared the concept of good to the colour 'yellow' , "Just as as you cannot, by any matter or means, explain to anone who does not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good is either."
  • This supports intuitionism as people generally know what god is through experience and education and we dont need a definition for what good is.
  • Aristotle sees goodness edaimonia as the highest form of good and actions are good if they lead to eudaimonia. 
  • Aquinas sees good as an act following the pirmary precepts and Fletcher sees good as agape love and as consequences of actions being loving.
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Hedonism

  • Bentham beliefs about pleasure and pain makes him a hedonist, meaning that he believes that humans are motivated by feeling pleausre, and avoiding pain. 
  • This is also known as ethical naturlaism: the belief that what is right is what causes pleasure and what is wrong causes pain because this is part of the natural order of the natural world. 
  • Bentham stated that " Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure: It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong , on the other the cahin of cause and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we day, in all we think."
  • Bentham then began to dveelop the utilitarian principle of ethics meaning that the rightness and wrongness of an action is decided by its usefulness in causing happiness and pleasure.
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Divine Command theory

  • Divine command theory suggests that moral commands come from God, so it is a religious theory of ethics. It is our duty to obey rules that are commanded by God and any acts that are forbidden by God are necessarily wrong. 
  • DCT is a non-naturalistic approach to ethics as moral facts are not found in nature or by human nature.
  • Gods commands muts be good because he is the source of all goodness, so he must forbid what is evil too.
  • It does leave the question of how do we know what God commands and forbids?
  • There are religions with different views of God, hwo do we know which one is right? For example, Judaism says meat must be killed in a soecial way to make it halal and christianity has no restricitons on eating meat.
  • With the problem of abortion DCT would be against it as the command "Be fruitful and multiply" from God promotes reproduction and an act against repduction is forbidden as it is not commanded by God.
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John Calvin

  • Uses the DCT to justify pre-destination, by following DCT we are pre-destined to go to heaven.
  • DCt is a natural result of the absolute power and soverignity of God anf there is nothing more powerful and sublime than Gods will, whatever he commands must be obeyed.
  • DCT teaches that moral truth doesnt exist independantly of God and morality is determined by divine commands. 
  • God is the supreme authority and you cant ask God of anything.
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Karl Barth

  • All questions about God and evil were settled by the death and resurecction of Jesus.
  •  What God commands, therefore, is that human beings confirm in their conduct what they already are by virtue of God’s grace to them. 
  • Human beings confirm grace in their conduct by performing actions that correspond to grace, so that the moral life is lived as a human analogy to divine grace.
  • The problem with Barth’s divine command ethics is that the claim that grace is the norm of human action fails to do justice to human beings as creatures
  • It follows that the human creature exists for the actualization of grace, not grace for the perfection of the creature.
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Strengths of Divine Command Theory

  • Metaphysical and objective: God is the origin and regulator of morality. Surely there is no better source for deciding what is right and wrong than God's unchanging law.
  • God knows us best: God is objective, as well as our creator. We may think that things are good for us, such as having an affair, but God's law is against this for a reason
  • Absolute rules: the laws we have to stick by are often clear, such as the Ten Commandments
  • Takes away human responsibility: goodness isn't subject to our misunderstanding of situations - our reasoning is fallible, and so following God's law safeguards against this
  • God is inherently good: the Bible describes God as 'holy', meaning separate from sin. Therefore, what he commands must be good
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Weaknesses of Divine Command Theory

  • The Euthyphro Dilemma: provides two problems - if morality stems from God, then is it arbitrary? Or if he makes these laws because what they teach is good, it implies there is an external standard of goodness therefore challenging his omnipotence
  • God Contradicts: An example would be the commandment don't kill being broken directly by God during the Battle of Jericho.
  • Religious pluralism: how do we know which rules are right? The rules of Hinduism, such as Ahimsa and so eat vegetarian meals, but Leviticus teaches to eat (certain kinds of) meat
  • Belief in God: dependent on whether God exists. You can't expect an Atheist to accept the teachings of a being they don't even accept as real
  • In conflict with modern life and human law: for example, Leviticus teaches not to lie with man as with woman, but our human laws protect the rights of all citizens including homosexuals/transsexuals etc.
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Utilitarianism

  • Focues on the results and consequences of actions, by good actions being ones that produce the most happiness. 
  • Good result= Good actions
  • It applies to everyone to seek pleasure and avoid pain= hedonistic
  • An example of Utilitarianism is in British politics with general elections being the party with the most votes being in power so the party in power bring happiness to the greatest number. 
  • It treats intentions as irrelevant and only focuses on the consequences of actions.
  • It contradicts egosim, which is eveyone is ought to pursue their own moral good, wheras utilitariansim is other regarding where we should ursue pleasure not just for ourselves but for as many other beings as possible.
  • The Utilitariansm thought is summed up in the principle of utility where we should always act to produce the greatest good for the geatest number. 
  • Act (classical) Utilitarianism says we should always act to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Killing 1 innocent life to save 5 other for transplants is producing the greatest good for the greatest number.
  • Rule Utilitarianism states we ought to live by rule that in general are likely to lead to the greatest good for the greatest number.
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Hedonic Calculus

  • The hedonic calculus was developed by Bentham as a way of calculating the amount of total happiness: pleasure minus pain. Something is only deemed pleasureableif it maximises each of these calculi:
  • Intensity: Stronger happiness is better than weaker
  • Duration: Longer lasting pleasure is better than brief.
  • Certainty: An act that will definitely produce pleasure is better than one which only possibly produces pleasure. 
  • Propinquity: The more immediate in space or time the anticipated pleasure, the more relevant it should be to the decision.
  • Fecundity: A pleasure that leads to more pleasure is of greater value than a pleasure that does not lead to more, similarly a pain that leads to more pain is worse than a pain with no painful after effects.
  • Purity: A pleasure with no pain mixed in, is the greatest pleasure.
  • Extent: The more people sharing the pleasure, the better.
  • An act that maximises each of these is the most pleasurable. 
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Intuitionism

  • We know what is right and wrong based on our intuition.
  • Moral concepts we know to be right: Saving a good life, passing exams, donate to charity, Human life is precious.
  • Hume argues humans 'just know' that it is right to help people in need. All humans have a faculty of sympathy, which means that they all intuitively know the moral truth that they should help others. 
  • Hume argues that if we see someone in need such as a beggar on the street or someone who has been attacked we have a natural desire to come to their aid and help them. This shows our intuition encourages us to help others.
  • Strengths: Everyone has moral intuitions and we use them for moral decisions; intuitionsim solves the problems faced by ethical naturalism, that there are so many confliciting defintions of the good that they cannot all be correct; It is realistic in explaining our moral intuitionism not being perfect as each situation is different. 
  • Weakness: Does not give a satisfactory answer as to how we have moral intuitionism. 
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Strengths of Ethical Naturalism

  • Ethical propositions are true because they are factual. It gives factual basis for morality.
  • Right and wrong are objective: They exist in the world outside of ourselves and we know whether we are doing right or wrong.
  • Ethical propositions can give us solid rules and gudelines to follow ,as with rule utilitarianism, for example Benthams pleausre calculus where pleausre is measured on intensity, certainty, proximity, duration, productiveness, purity and extent. 
  • We can be judged by our compliance with rules. It gives us a way of measuring moral worth of people.
  • Most people tend to follow naturalistic theories. For example, UK politics uses utiliarian in its nature such as general elections. 
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Weaknesses of Ethical Naturalism

  • Happiness varies between people so is impossible to define. Some people see pleausre as inflicting pain which is not seen as good so happiness is subjective.
  • It requires us to second guess the future but we can never be sure of the consequences of our actions so any decision may turn to pain rather than pleasure.
  • It allows us to do evil to potentially bring about good,
  • It is too impartial: The burning house dilemma, if a house is burning down and contains your mum and a cancer specialist who is about to develop a cure for cancer, who should you save? It would have to be the cancer specialist especially for a utilitarian.
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Strengths of intuitionism

  • It does not seek to define an undefinable concept, it simply accepts that goodness is goodness.
  • Ross' prima facie guide helps us understand what constittues moral behaviour gicing us a practical guide to use in everyday life. 
  • Saying that we can 'just know' if a consequence is right and wrong is subjective and hard to measure 
  • Intuitionism allows for moral duties and obligations and so satisfies a moral absolutist
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Weaknesses of Intuitionism

  • It is very hard to define what actually constitutues 'good' as it is unfair to compare goodness with natural facts and properties.
  • It is not clear if goodness is deontological or teological: Moore suggests teleological and Ross suggests deontological.
  • Intuitionism does not propose a subjective or emotive approach to ethics but it does not avoid the problems of identifying ethics with a natural property.
  • It is difficult to specify exactly why the wrongness in some actions is actually wrong. Rather we interpret it through a moral sense, not a list of moral definitions. 
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Strengths of Utilitarianism

  • Happiness -- It seems right that happiness is given intrinsic value. How can happiness be a bad thing?
  • Harm – Utilitarianism seems to be in line with our intuitions that harming people is intrinsically wrong.
  • Greatest good – It does follow from the above that the right course of action is the one that leads to the most happiness and least harm. It makes sense.
  • Democratic – The fairest way to run a country is to balance everyone’s differing interests. We see this happening in all modern democracies – governments use the principles of Utilitarianism to determine what is right.
  • Objective – The positive and negative consequences of our actions can be measured. This gives us an objective, independent way of deciding on what is right and wrong.
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Weaknesses of Utilitarianism

  • The ends don’t justify the means – Imagine I killed one healthy person and gave their organs to save 5 others. The balance of happiness over harm supports doing this, but we know that it is not right.
  • Unpredictable – You can’t actually know what is going to happen in the future, so it is wrong to base our ethical choices on what may or may not come about in the future.
  • People can’t be trusted – If you get rid of rules and allow people to choose to act in the greater good, they will actually act selfishly, then try to justify their actions by claiming they were in the greater good.
  • Wrong – Utilitarianism is just wrong about ethics. Eg. a group of policemen passed around photos of an abused woman for their own enjoyment. When it was exposed, the consequences were very bad. But would it have been right if no one else found out? It wasn’t the bad consequences that made it wrong, it was the act itself.
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