Meta-Ethics

[Petros Agapetos]

I am a moral non-naturalist, realist, and cognitivist.

non-naturalist = moral properties are dependent on natural properties but supervene on them rather than being identical to them. Implication is that science alone cannot be sufficient for morality.

realist = there are such things as moral truths, not just opinions, but moral facts.

cognitivist = moral statements express moral propositions, rather than being emotional attitudes or dispositions. Moral statements can be true or false. Like facts can exist and not exist, like state of affairs that can obtain or fail to obtain.

[Petros Agapetos]

bump

[Aodhan]

Interesting

[Petros Agapetos]

Moral Anti-realism
Traditionally, to hold a realist position with respect to X is to hold that X exists in a mind-independent manner (in the relevant sense of “mind-independence”). On this view, moral anti-realism is the denial of the thesis that moral properties—or facts, objects, relations, events, etc. (whatever categories one is willing to countenance)—exist mind-independently. This could involve either:

(1) the denial that moral properties exist at all, or
(2) the acceptance that they do exist but that existence is (in the relevant sense) mind-dependent. Barring various complications to be discussed below, there are broadly two ways of endorsing (1): moral noncognitivism and moral error theory.

Proponents of (2) may be variously thought of as moral non-ojectivists, or idealists, or constructivists. Using such labels is not a precise science, nor an uncontroversial matter; here they are employed just to situate ourselves roughly. In this spirit of preliminary imprecision, these views can be initially characterized as follows:

Moral noncognitivism holds that our moral judgments are not in the business of aiming at truth. So, for example, A.J. Ayer declared that when we say “Stealing money is wrong” we do not express a proposition that can be true or false, but rather it is as if we say “Stealing money!!” with the tone of voice indicating that a special feeling of disapproval is being expressed. Note how the predicate “…is wrong” has disappeared in Ayer's translation schema; thus the issues of whether the property of wrongness exists, and whether that existence is mind-dependent, also disappear.

The moral error theorist thinks that although our moral judgments aim at the truth, they systematically fail to secure it. The moral error theorist stands to morality as the atheist stands to religion. Noncognitivism regarding theistic discourse is not very plausible (though see Lovin 2005); rather, it would seem that when a theist says “God exists” (for example) she is expressing something that purports to be true. According to the atheist, however, the claim is untrue; indeed, according to her, theistic discourse in general is infected with error. The moral error theorist claims that when we say “Stealing is wrong” we are asserting that the act of stealing instantiates the property of wrongness, but in fact nothing instantiates this property (or there is no such property at all), and thus the utterance is untrue. Indeed, according to her, moral discourse in general is infected with error.

Non-objectivism allows that moral facts exist but holds that they are, in some manner to be specified, constituted by mental activity. The slogan version comes from Hamlet: “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Of course, the notion of “mind-independence” is problematically indeterminate: Something may be mind-independent in one sense and mind-dependent in another. Cars, for example, are designed and constructed by creatures with minds, and yet in another sense cars are clearly concrete, non-subjective entities. Much careful disambiguation is needed before we know how to circumscribe non-objectivism, and different philosophers disambiguate differently. Many philosophers question whether the “non-objectivism clause” is a useful component of moral anti-realism at all. Many advocate views according to which moral properties are significantly mind-dependent but which they are loath to characterize as versions of moral anti-realism.

[Petros Agapetos]

Are you a moral realist or anti-realist. Are moral properties mind-independent or dependent? Are there such things as moral truths that one can discover or other merely cultural constructs of our socio-biological spin offs?

[Petros Agapetos]

Meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the four branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being descriptive ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics.

While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should I do?", thus endorsing some ethical evaluations and rejecting others, meta-ethics addresses questions such as "What is goodness?" and "How can we tell what is good from what is bad?", seeking to understand the nature of ethical properties and evaluations.

Some theorists argue that a metaphysical account of morality is necessary for the proper evaluation of actual moral theories and for making practical moral decisions; others reason from opposite premises and suggest that we must impart ideas of moral intuition onto proper action before we can give a proper account of morality's metaphysics.

[Petros Agapetos]

According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of meta-ethical problems, or three general questions:

1. What is the meaning of moral terms or judgments? (Moral semantics)
2. What is the nature of moral judgments? (Moral ontology)
3. How may moral judgments be supported or defended? (Moral epistemology)

A question of the first type might be, "What do the words 'good', 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' mean?" (see value theory). The second category includes questions of whether moral judgments are universal or relative, of one kind or many kinds, etc. Questions of the third kind ask, for example, how we can know if something is right or wrong, if at all. Garner and Rosen say that answers to the three basic questions "are not unrelated, and sometimes an answer to one will strongly suggest, or perhaps even entail, an answer to another."

A meta-ethical theory, unlike a normative ethical theory, does not attempt to evaluate specific choices as being better, worse, good, bad, or evil; although it may have profound implications as to the validity and meaning of normative ethical claims. An answer to any of the three example questions above would not itself be a normative ethical statement.

[Petros Agapetos]

Do you believe that moral truths exist, independent of opinion? Do you believe in objective moral values and duties? If you do, could you give examples of these?

[Petros Agapetos]

Moral relativism may be any of several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different people and cultures. Descriptive moral relativism holds only that some people do in fact disagree about what is moral; meta-ethical moral relativism holds that in such disagreements, nobody is objectively right or wrong; and normative moral relativism holds that because nobody is right or wrong, we ought to tolerate the behavior of others even when we disagree about the morality of it.

[Petros Agapetos]

Moral Relativism - What's It All About?
Moral relativism is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of right or wrong are culturally based and therefore subject to a person's individual choice. We can all decide what is right for ourselves. You decide what's right for you, and I'll decide what's right for me. Moral relativism says, "It's true for me, if I believe it."

Moral Relativism - Is It Really Neutral?
Moral relativism has steadily been accepted as the primary moral philosophy of modern society, a culture that was previously governed by a "Judeo-Christian" view of morality. While these "Judeo-Christian" standards continue to be the foundation for civil law, most people hold to the concept that right or wrong are not absolutes, but can be determined by each individual. Morals and ethics can be altered from one situation, person, or circumstance to the next. Essentially, moral relativism says that anything goes, because life is ultimately without meaning. Words like "ought" and "should" are rendered meaningless. In this way, moral relativism makes the claim that it is morally neutral.