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META ETHICS (COGNITIVE (NATURALISM (NATURALISTIC FALLACY (MOORE: 'Good…

- - - - Morals are fixed, unchanging truths that everyone should follow. Moral knowledge can be seen in the facts of the world- senses.
    - - MOORE: 'Good isn't a natural property, unlike colour, texture etc.
        'if he confuses good...with any natural object...naturalistic fallacy'.
      - We cannot go from description to prescription without supplying a missing premise.
  - - - G.E. MOORE
        
        We have an infallible intuitive knowledge of good things, e.g i don't need to observe a murder to know killing is wrong.
        
        Good isn't definable but known intuitively.
        
        Problems
        
        What happens of someone's intuition is genocide?
        
        'That may be your intuition, but is it good?'
        
        Goodness isn't simple but complex. Its more like a 'colour'- many subdivisions.
      - WD ROSS
        
        We know what is good prima facie (1st glance)
        
        There are many goods- 'prima facie duties'
        
        2 'goods' may conflict . Gives example of: promising to meet someone but then finding someone else, e.g. old lady fallen over. Have to break promise to 1st person.
        In this case we know what prima facie duties are & which more impor.
        
        List of 'goods' or duties
        
        fidelity
        
        reparation
        
        gratitude
        
        justice
        
        beneficence
        
        self-improvement
        
        nonmaleficence
      - PRICHARD
        
        Moral obligations are obvious & indefinable as good.
        
        2 types of thinking: reason & intuition . Reason looks @ facts & intuition decides what to do. in a situation.
        
        Some people's intuition is better developed than others.
- - - - Application to relativism
        
        Logical positivists are relativists, they reject the existence of things that cannot be known through verifiable science.
        
        Moral truths aren't fixed or absolute.
      - A.J.AYER
        
        'presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content'. E.g saying I acted wrong by killing someone doesn't state anything more than saying I killed someone.
        
        Verification Principle: moral statements aren't verifiable by observation. Moral statements only evince a 'feeling', like exclaiming 'yay'.
        
        Were saying more than evincing a feeling- were expressing beliefs or making ref to goals.
        
        Vp is neither analytical or synthetic & therefore is it meaningless?
        
        Words like good are meaningless
      - CL STEVENSON
        
        Emotive meaning of word is a tendency of a word, arising through the history of its usage to produce affective responses in people
        
        ethical statements are attitudes based on beliefs about the world- subjective opinions.
      - HUME
        
        Hume's fork: analytic & synthetic statements
        
        Goodness is based on feelings or 'Passions'.
        
        Morals cannot be derived from reason 'Reason is the slave of passions'.
      - ethical theories that hold that moral statements are wither beliefs or emotions.
      - Moral statements 'evince approval or disapproval'.