All ethical language is meaningless PDF

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“All ethical language is meaningless” Meta ethics tries to make sense of the terms and concepts used in ethical theories. Some people believe that ethical language is extremely meaningful as they argue it is essential to be able to define terms such as “good” and “bad” before we can even begin to discuss ethical theories. However others disagree with this and argue that moral statements are subjective so are meaningless, as they cannot be described as either true or false. Those who hold cognitive theories about ethical language would argue that ethical statements are not meaningless as they are about facts, and can therefore be proved true or false. Ethical Naturalism is a cognitive theory of meta ethics which holds the belief that ethical statements are the same as non ethical ones, so can be verified or falsified in the same way. For example, a non-ethical statement such as “the dog is in the garden” can be verified by evidence. Cognitivists would then use this to suggest that ethical statements such as “murder is wrong” can be verified by the evidence that someone is dead, and people are unhappy so therefore it is wrong. F.H Bradley said that we discover moral obligation from society. He said that moral activity is finding out you position in society and carrying out your duties. In contrast to this G.E Moore argued against Ethical Naturalism, as he believed that defining concepts such as ‘good’ are impossible and any attempt to define ‘good’ is to commit The Naturalistic or Is/Ought Fallacy, the fallacy that a moral prescription, an ‘ought’, can be derived from a natural property, an ‘is’. The Naturalistic Fallacy is one of the main criticisms of Ethical Naturalism and would therefore suggest that ethical language is meaningless, as it cannot be correctly defined, given that one cannot derive any moral statements from natural facts. Another type of cognitivist theory is intuitionism. The three main teachings of this state there are real objective moral truths that are independent of human beings. These fundamental truths cannot be broken down into parts or defined by reference to anything except other moral truths. Moreover human beings can discover these truths by using their minds in a particular, intuitive, way. The idea is that we can establish what is right or wrong, meaningful or not through our inner voice, which naturally knows, it is something we don’t need to be taught. However the main problem with intuitionism is that it is subjective. My intuition could be completely different to someone else’s, which then makes it impossible to decide who’s views are meaningful, and who’s are not. Other flaws with intuitionism are that it does not explain how our knowledge of moral facts can motivate us to act morally. Also according to logical positivists, our intuitions cannot be tested which makes them meaningless. Some non-cognovits consider themselves to be logical positivists. They refuted the idea of certain knowledge about good and bad, instead they say that empirical science is the main source of knowledge. However, their argument begins to fall apart when they claim that statements only have meaning if they can be tested, ad

moral statements cannot be tested so logically they have no meaning. The problem is that their view is not analytic or empirically verifiable so it is meaningless on its own terms, therefore nothing has been achieved. Emotivism agrees with the statement as it identifies that ethical statements are more statements of opinion and can never be of fact, which therefore makes them meaningless. A.J. Ayer devised the ‘Boo Hurrah’ theory in which he states that when someone says murder is wrong they are simply saying ‘Boo’ to murder. This meant that when someone says that being kind to other is good, they are saying ‘Hurrah’ to kindness. To Ayer this meant that saying things are good or bad does not refer to anything in the world, but are only a mere expression of individual feelings and opinions. In conclusion I agree with the statement as I believe ethical statements are subjective and can only be meaningful to the person who holds that opinion. I side with A.J. Ayer and emotivism as I believe it is a more rational way of looking at things rather than making the jump from being able to prove that a dog is in the garden by seeing it to proving that murder is wrong by seeing that people are upset. To me, this is an illogical jump which lacks justification....