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Meta - Ethics (Cognitive (Ethical Naturalism (Philippa Foot (Influenced by…

- - - - Influenced by Aristotle - a modern virtue ethicist.
        Argues that most people recognise the same people as 'good' and so there must be absolutely good characteristics.
        Even the most immoral people would not trust a dishonest person so they recognise honesty as good.
        Observation = empirical evidence
  - - - Focuses on the word 'ought' which cannot be defined.
        Reason: looks at the facts of a situation
        Intuition: tells us what to do in a situation
        Prichard notices a problem that different people seem to have different intuitions but he never creates a solution to this problem.
    - - Prima Facie Duties:
        
        Fidelity
        
        Reparation
        
        Gratitude
        
        Justice
        
        Helping Others
        
        Self-improvement
        
        Non-malice
        
        Moral decision making is difficult and not without error.
        "There is nothing arbitrary about these prima facie duties"
    - - Was a critic of naturalism; naturalistic fallacy.
        Goodness is a non-natural property and is hence undefinable.
        Goodness cannot be defined, just as yellow cannot be defined - goodness is objective and only recognised as good.
        Cannot use the sense to decide whether something is good or not - have to use moral intuition.
        "We know what yellow is and can recognise it...in the same way we know what good is but we cannot actually define it" - Principia Ethica
- - - - Based his ideas on Hume's Fork - boo-hurrah theory.
        Analytic: the truth is contained within the statement and is a priori
        Synthetic: the truth/falsity of a statement needs to be established by trying to ascertain the facts and is a posteriori
        Roots within logical positivism - you can only verify ethical statements using the verification principle and therefore they must only express feelings - only meaningful statements are ones that can be verified.
        "Ethical terms do not serve to express feelings. They are calculated to also arouse feeling and so to stimulate action".
      - Agreed with the naturalistic fallacy (partially agreeing with Moore.
    - - Ethical terms such as murder, stealing and caring are all descriptive and emotive. They allow people to express their feelings but also influence others - these words unintentionally carry emotion.
        Disagreed slightly with Ayer as all ethical statements become under-valued.
        Good/bad is not fixed but relative and changing.
  - - - All ethical language is prescriptive; the role of ethical statements are to say what ought to be done - these prescriptions are universal = a standard for all.
        When we use the word 'good', we are relating to a set of standards. By saying something is good, it meets a standard and you are suggesting that it should be done.