meta ethics essay PDF

Preview

Summary

essay for meta ethics topic wjec...

Description

Explain the meta ethical approach of emotivism, including reference to A.J Ayer. 20 marks Emotivism is an non cognitivist ethical approach which claims that its ethical propositions are just expressions of approval or disapproval. This means that to an emotivist such as Ayer or Russell moral terms don’t function as statements of facts but are instead used as ways of expressing an attitude. Although being influenced by previous philosophers such as Hume and Russel, Ayer is recognised as the primary philosopher of Emotivism mainly due to his book ‘Language , truth and logic’ where he sated that his aim was to “show what people are doing when they make moral judgements'' and “nothing more”. Ayer had never intended to produce his own theory as his original intent was to prove the meaningless of Intuitionism and Naturalism. Ayer proposed through his Hurrah/Boo theory the idea that all moral judgements are just the individual expressing whether we agree or disagree with a moral action. Ayer believed that these moral statements were insignificant as they had no way of being verified and were a “worthless test of a proposition's validity” as they are in no way scientific and convey no knowledge. Stevenson was the philosopher who fully substantiated the theory of emotivism as he rejected the Hurrah/Boo theory and made a distinction between propositions of belief and attitude. This distinction allowed Stevenson to argue that ethical debate could still be meaningful as long as they are based on beliefs in the world. For example the belief that abortion is either good because it is legal in the UK. By still accepting the use of dynamic moral terms Stevenson showed how Emotivism could still provide ethical debate with “affective responses”. In conclusion Ayer’s original criticisms of other meta ethical theories produced a somewhat weak version of Emotivism which had many criticisms for rendering ethical debate meaningless and having a more egalitarian view which allows no actions to be deemed as wrong. However Stevenson later strengthened the theory of emotivism.

‘Moral terms, like right and wrong are no more than expressions of our emotions’ Evaluate this view. 30 marks Whether morral terms are no more than expressions of our emotions is a key debate in meta ethics. Philosophers like Ayer would argue that they are nothing more than our own expressions which would lead them to have no value, rendering them useless. Others would then argue that they have to mean more otherwise there is no purpose in ethical debate. In this essay I will come to the conclusion that moral terms are not just expressions of our emotions and that they can convey knowledge. The theological naturalist Aquinas would argue that there is no involvement in human emotions

when it comes to moral terms as It is God who puts meaning into the natural world and dictates what is right and wrong. Aquinas would believe that “there is no” human “explanation necessary” for moral terms as they are seperated from our human emotions and based on God’s omniscience. This could be seen as a weak argument as it requires the belief in God to be true and still means that ethical statements are unverifiable. Ayer purposefully left the idea of ethical language to the more scientific disciplines of psychology and sociology as he believed it was not a philosopher's job to explain why and individual should or shouldn’t feel a specific way about an ethical action as it would “need to be calculated” in a way that allows the judgement made to be verified. This could be seen as a weak argument as it allows overlooks the fact that ethical language has a different role than expressing emotions and can also be used in a dynamic and persuasive way *ran out of time* In conclusion, it is my belief that although moral terms do convey human emotions they are also expressions of knowledge that are useful in ethical debate and to separate the objectiveness from the subjectiveness would lead to great difficulty....