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Meta Ethics (Perscriptivism (R.M. Hare) (Ethical language is non-cognitive…

- - - - Moral language can be verified empirically
    - - Enlightenment era criticized many traditional views
      - Developed from empiricism
    - - Goodness is linked to Gods will
      - God commands morals
    - - Goodness is a fact of pleasure or happiness
  - - - Statements are either analytic or synthetic (Hume's fork)
      - Ethical statements are neither so are therefore meaningless
      - Going from an 'is' statement to an 'ought' statement is fundamentally illogical (Hume's is-ought gap)
      - E.g. "Humans have canines, therefore you ought to eat meat"
      - Moral language is therefore subjective
      - "Just because something is the case doesn't mean we ought to do it"
    - - Philosophers (Naturalists) that attempt to define goodness through nature are wrong
      - These people commit the naturalistic fallacy
      - Good cannot be defined in terms of natural phenomena
      - Definitions of natural terms produce 'open questions'
- - - - Can be broken down into simpler ideas
      - E.g. a horse can be broken down into a mammal, quadruped etc.
    - - Cannot be broken down
      - E.g. Good, bad, yellow
      - We intuitively know what the color yellow is when we see it
      - Goodness is undefined and unanalyzable