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Meta Ethics - Coggle Diagram

- - - - It follows, therefore, that humans moral behaviour should literally follow God’s commandments
      - For Protestants who live by the doctrine of Sola Scripture-(By Scripture alone)-The Bible draw all forms of Authority
      - There must therefore be an organic link between creator and created and this is reflectied in the statement in Genesis-1-26-27-that humans are created in God’s image. Most theologians take this to mean that humans are like God in having a rational and a moral character
      - In Summaery Divine Command Theory is based on both God’s moral character and God’s moral commands, ands these commands are understood as statements of God’s will
      - God is the creator of everything
      - The Heart of these commands include the Ten Commandments in the Old Testment and the ethical teachings of Jesus in the New Testement-especially in the Sermon of the mount
  - - - John Calvin uses the Diviine Commadn Theory to justify his view of Predesntination. For Barth God cannot be “caused to do anything”-This is because that would imply that there is a force external to God-whereas God is believe to be omnipotent. Moreover to challenge or questions God’s will is to ask for something greater, which is impossible. Therefore for Calvin the Divine Command Theory is a Natrual result of the abolsute power and sovereignty of God.
        
        the Catholic view follows on from this argument believing that God appointed several catholic leaders such as the Bishop of Rome, and the Pope-the authority to make decisions on the matte r of doctrine and ethics
    - - Barth argued that God can only be understood as true Lord-if it involves supreme human obedience. For Barth man’s obedience t o God is the answer to all questions about ethics, the commands of God set Christians ethically totally apart from general discussions about what is good or right, and totally over-ride failiable human debate on moral issues. Christians should listen to and seek to understand secular ethical principles.
    - - Strengths
        
        The system is clear and straightforward. What God says must go
        
        Most Christian’s will link God moral commands with the promise of life after death for those who keep them. This also goes for the threat of punishment
        
        The rules are universal and are right for all times and places. This avoids the problem of trying to sort out different moral ideas in different countries at different times
        
        God does not have any of the weaknesses of human judges. He is omniscient and omnipresent, and so is totally aware of people’s good and bad deeds. In other words. God is totally fair judge.
        
        For Religious people, Divine command theory grounds their moral behaviour in the teachings of a factually existing God. Most believers see God as all knowing and all-loving. This means that they will uphold the belief that God’s commands must be right and have the best end results for humans
      - Weaknesses
        
        The Bible also contains many commands which by today’s standards would be considered immoral. This includes the Bible’s moral advocation of Slavery, this is shown for example in the letter of Paul to Titus, part of the moral advice given to slaves to be “Submissive to their master”
        
        If our choices must correlate with the will of God then they are not true-good-autonomous actions.
        
        It is impossible to tell whether the commandments are as God gave them. This can be down to humour error or translation.
        
        For many the biggest problem to the Divine Command Theory is the logical problem known as the Euthyprho Dilema. “Is conduct right because Gods command, or do gods command it because it is right. If you accept the first option, then God losses moral goodness. However if you accept the second option then God losses omnipotence.
        
        Solutions to the Euthyprho Dilemma
        
        Another option is to suggest that God’s nature and God’s character are the same,God and goodness are identical, so God’s moral commands must be good
        
        The Problem of God’s immoral commands in the Bible is sometimes solved, bu suggesting that the text of those bits of the Bible is corrupt and does not mean what is says-as some parts of the text are corrupt.
        
        William of Ockham suggested adopting the first Option. God is God-omnipotent and omniscient, so even if God commands murder or genocide-those commands must be obeyed
- - - - For Bentham Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two masters-pain,and pleasure. It is for them alone to point-out what we ought to do-as well as to determine what we shall do.
        
        Bentham argues that Natrual features of life-determine both normative nad descriptive ethics. For Bentham Pain and pleasure rule us-we observe their relationship with action as a matter of cause and effects
        
        For Benthem pleasure is the one intrinsic good-likewise pain is the one intrinsic evil
        
        Therefore as moral agents we will commit actions will maximise pleasure and minimise pain-and because happiness is based of observation-we can calculate it through-intensity-duration-certainty-proximity-productiveness-purity-and extent.
        
        Strengths and Weaknesses of Utilitarianism
        
        Strengths
        
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        Weaknesses
        
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    - - Mill’s brand of Utlitariansim differed from that of Bentham in a number of respects, for example he disagreed with Bentham view that all pains and pleasures were equal and measurable. For Mill there were higher cultural and intellectual pleasures
        
        Mill falls under the Ethical naturalist bracket as he describes happiness in terms of quality of life, rather than the quantity of pleasure. For him this is based on a view about the relative importance of different human attributes, physical, social,cultural, and intellectual. For him Utilitarianism is all about a fair and just distribution of those Natrual benefits
        
        Mill argued that it was important to also take into account the positive benefits moral rules, and principles. For Mill moral rules developed naturally as it was found that not stealing,lying,murdering has beneficial effects.
        
        Strengths and weaknesses of ethical naturalism
        
        Strengths
        
        Further right and wrong are objective-they exist in the world outside ourselves. If there is an objective moral reality-then we can know if we are doing right or wrong
        
        Ethical propositions can give us solid guidelines and rules to follow as with rule utilitarianism, for examples
        
        Ethical propositions are true because they are factual. They reduce to non-ethical propositions about the world, such as happiness,love,and wellbeing.
        
        We can be judged by our compliance with the rules-if we break the rules this gives us moral justification to punish the offenders
        
        Most people tend to follow one Natrualist theory or another-as it is often said many principles of politics and law are based on the of principle ethical naturalism
        
        Weaknesses
        
        The Natrualistic fallacy as defined by G.E-Moore argues that it is a mistake to try and define goodness in terms of Natrual property such as pleasant or desirable.
        This is a huge flaw for Utilitarianism as Pleasure is at the heart of Bentham’s theory-
        Moore argued that it is not possible to derive an “Ought”-from an “Is”-this means we cannot go from the phrase “Pleasure is good”-to “We ought to seek pleasure”
        Another way of phrasing this is that we cannot derive moral values from a fact-
        1-For Example-she is old and lonely-(Fact)
        2-You ought to help her-(Moral Values)
        Deriving 1-from-2-is logically invalid-something is missing from the reasoning between 1 and 2. For example someone else could validly argue that
        1-she is old and lonely (Fact)
        2-you ought to euthanise her (Moral fact)
        -If Ethical Natrualism is right , and ethical values are facts, then we should not be able to get two different values-(Help her-euthanise her), from the same fact-(She is old and lonely). Therefore according to Moore-Natrualism fails.
        
        Instead Moore argued that good is undefinable-Moore asks the questions whether it is always Good to maximise good over pleasure-therefore the definition of the term good, that maximises pleasure over pain-is an open question.
        
        The claim that ethical propositions are factual does not impress ethical non-cognitivists, who argue that moral propositions are not factual. This view is argued by Ayr who believed that statements that cannot be verified or falsified are meaningless. Ayr follows the theory of Emotovism-which argues that moral statements reduce to statements of appropval or disapproval, and that morality is subjective-as it is an internal feeling.
- - - - Moore argues that Good is an un-natrual,unanaysable, that is it simply. For Moore God is something that people can posses , but not something that can be defined and analysed.
  - - - The Key thing about intuitionism is that is is a set of beliefs that is not reached by inference from other beliefs. It is a stand-alone belief.
        
        For Intuitonists the ideas of moral rights and wrongs come from self-evidence beliefs for example it is Natrual to realise without evaluation that torture, and murder is wrong.
        
        One of the arguments against moral-intuitionism is the chance of moral dilemma-about what is good and bad. One answer to this is that we have a number of duties which are self-evident, such as parenting-and the instinct to look after ill.
        
        Scottish philopsher W.D-Ross argued that there are a list of duties that we feel we must do instinctively.
        
        3-Not injure others
        
        4-return favours and services given to us by others
        
        2-Pay back the harm we do to others
        
        5-Not har, innocent people
        
        1-keep our promises
        
        6-Look after parents
        
        These duties are called. Prima-facie-:At first face”-meaning there are no conflicting circumstances where they should not be followed
        
        Strengths and Weaknesses of Intuitionsim
        
        Strengths
        
        It overcomes one of the central problems of ethical naturalism-that there is no agreement as to what the facts of ethics are. They differ for each ethical theory
        
        It is realistic as it admits moral intuition is not perfect-
        
        Everyone has moral intuitions-and tends to use them to underpin or check moral agreements, whether they are recognised as such or not
        
        Weaknesses
        
        It makes ethical decision very difficult since there is no fundamental rule book-people will have different moral intuitions about what is right and wrong
        
        People can be easily influenced by social norms-for example in th e nineteenth century slavers was considered legal.
        
        It does not give a good answer to the question of how it is that we come to have intuitions about right and wrong. Is intuition a faculty in the brain-or is it just reasoning