Meta-ethics and Naturalism

What lies beyond?

(10 mins)
Meta-ethics ME1.P1

•Normative ethics
 Derives idea of goodness from somewhere (eg from experience)
 Applies these ethical theories
 What we practically ought to do
Meta-ethics
 Meaning of the good
 Moral language
 Meta- beyond (foundation of ethics eg is it observable?)
What Does Good Mean?

 “For consider - a judgment must be true or false, and its truth or falsehood
cannot lie in itself. They involve a reference to a something beyond. And this,
about which or of which we judge, if it is not fact, what else can it be?”
(1883:41)
FH Bradley (1846 – 1924)
What Does Good Mean?
Does good mean the same thing?

• A good guitar is one that makes a good tune (function is to produce good
music). This can be tested objectively.
• A good kettle boils quickly and efficiently. This can be tested objectively.
• A good book is one that the reader finds satisfying in some way. Is this
more subjective?
• A good person is…….. What? What would a utilitarian say? Is this
objective?
A mindmap

• The following slide is a mindmap of the naturalistic / non-naturalistic

debate.
• We are only required to study natural law, utilitarianism, situation ethics,
Kantian ethics, plus intuitionism and emotivism
Mindmap - Is Moral Argument Possible?
Meta- Ethics

Non-
Cognitive
cognitive

Non- Non-
Naturalism
naturalism naturalism

Utilitarianism Kant Emotivism

Natural Law Intuitionism Prescriptivism

Situation
Ethics

Virtue Ethics
 Naturalistic Goodness

Naturalistic goodness
 Linked to Eudaimonia (flourishing) in Natural Law.
 Linked to pleasure and happiness in utilitarianism.
 Linked to agape love, in Situation Ethics.
 So - linked to some idea of a human’s proper purpose, true function, or
activities which benefit measurable goods - health, pleasure, fulfilment, long
life.

Non-naturalistic goodness
 Linked to an a priori method of reason in Kantian ethics
 Linked to a non-definable property by GE Moore
 Summary - What is Naturalism?

Ethics as an empirical science. Ethical statements are reduced to the natural

sciences (physical or social), and ethical questions are answered on the basis of the
findings of those sciences.
 Moral facts (pleasure and pain)
 Empirical tests (measuring hedons)
 Some identifiable property (pleasure)
 Some idea of natural rational purpose (Aristotle’s final cause)

Note: the idea of a moral ‘fact’ means different things in naturalist theories of
natural law, utilitarianism and situation ethics
 Naturalistic Fallacy – What Hume Said

•“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have
always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the
ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or
makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am
surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations, is, and is not, I
meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an
ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last
consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new
relation or affirmation, it’s necessary that it should be observed and
explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for
what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a
deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.” (Hume,
1739, p. 468)
Naturalistic Fallacy – What Moore Said

•“When a man confuses two natural objects with one another, defining the one by
the other, if for instance, he confuses himself, who is one natural object, with
pleased or with pleasure which are others, then there is no reason to call the
fallacy naturalistic. But if he confuses good, which is not in the same sense a natural
object, with any natural object whatever, then there is a reason for calling that a
naturalistic fallacy; this specific mistake deserves a name because it is so common.”
(Moore, Principia Ethica)
 Is the Naturalistic Fallacy itself a Fallacy?

The Naturalistic Fallacy asserts that we cannot go from description to prescription

without supplying a missing premise ( a stage of the argument eg telling us why
pleasure is so morally good). But here (below) is a way of going from ‘is’ to ‘ought’.,
argued by John Searle.
 Brian promised Sue he would pay back £100 she lent him (description).
 Brian therefore has an obligation, recognised in the idea of promising, to
pay the money back.
 Therefore Brian ought to pay the money back (prescription, with the
word 'ought' or 'should'.
Missing premise – promising entails an obligation to pay. This is included in
the idea of a promise – part of the logic of promising.
 Review

 On a piece of paper write down and explain one form of naturalism.