IB Philosophy of ethics: Metaethics
- Created by: Milly
- Created on: 16-04-13 18:11
View mindmap
- Ethical language
- Emotivism
- AJ Ayer
- Ethical statements are purely an expression of emotion you feel about an ethical issue
- Stevenston
- Ethical statements are both an expression of emotion and an expression of belief
- Ethical statements are meaningless as they are effectively reduced to noisy shouting matches - hurray boo
- Strengths
- An instinctive responce can be right because it is your first opinion without it being masked or influenced by others
- If moral judgements are simply someonelse's opinion rather than your own, then there is no point in holding one
- Weaknesses
- There is much more to moral statements than just simply an expression of feeling
- Moral judgements appeal to reasons just as reason issued from other judgements
- Moral judgments require reasons or else they are unjustifies
- Reduces moral discussions to nothing
- Hard to define emotions as they become too subjective
- Justifies certain adhorrent actions, eg ****
- It becomes too subjective and difficult to adhere to - implications for judicial system
- James Rachel's thought that ethical judgements made on basis of reason too
- Need to abandon all normative/naturalist ethical systems to adopt emotivism
- No consistency in ethical judgments - affected by mood, hormones etc
- AJ Ayer
- Perscriptivism
- RM Hare
- A n ethical statement is an expression of opinion with an element of persuation
- Ethical statements are meaningful as they are more than just expressions of emotion
- Strengths
- Decision making is easier - clear rules for everyone
- More consistent and structured than emotivism
- Upholds Christian maxim of love thy neighbour as it promotes equality
- More practical on larger scale application
- Delves deeper into the met-ethics explaining how moral judgements guide our behaviour- well reasoned
- Weaknesses
- Mackie - moral relativism- morality is subjective so rules cannot apply to all
- Foundations of perscriptivism are still based on emotive responces
- Rules are still derived from individual judgment
- Cannot base ethical judgments on one scholars views/policies
- How can moral judgments be generalized and applied to everyone - everyone has varying opinions
- One answer cannot be suited to all circumstances
- RM Hare
- Intuitionism
- GE Moore
- HA Prichard
- WD Ross
- You can work out what is right and wrong using your moral intuition
- Morality is objective as intuition can be well tuned or not
- Ethical statements do have meaning as they do not try to define good in other terms
- The truth or falsity of ethical statements can be checked against well tuned instincts
- Defined by WD Ross against Prima Facie duties
- The truth or falsity of ethical statements can be checked against well tuned instincts
- Emotivism
Comments
No comments have yet been made