[fusion event]Meta Ethics

Most ethical debates are about applied ethics.
Applied ethics is about specific ethical questions.

Most ethicist philosophers in contrast debate different ethical theories.

But there is an even more esoteric question in ethics – what is the nature of ethic itself. This question is called meta ethics.
Here is an excellent reference, which I am using as a template for how philosophers have debated meta ethics: Metaethics - Philosophy A Level

The two major questions in how meta-ethics is normally discussed are a) whether ethics is cognitive or non-cognitive, and b) whether ethics is real or not. There are also five most common views about meta ethics: 1) realist naturalism, 2) realist non-naturalism, 3) error theory, 4) emotivism, and 5) prescriptism.
For realism, both naturalism and non-natural realism hold that statements about ethics or morality can be true or false, which makes them cognitive, and that they can also be true about the world. Error theory agrees that the way we use language, morality and ethics are treated as cognitive, but holds that there is no feature of our world that ever makes moral claims true, so all such claims are false.

Prescriptivism and Emotivism hold that moral claims are not either true or false, as emotivism holds that moral statements are just assertions of one’s support or opposition to a position, similar to cheering or booing. Prescriptivism holds that moral claims are basically commands, power statements whose purpose is just to compel compliance. I will offer some rationales for each of these views, and come common critiques.

Ethical Naturalism Ethical naturalists disagree with Hume’s often-quoted assertion that one cannot derive an ought from an is. One example of an ethical naturalist is John Stewart Mill, whose Utilitarianism asserts that the Good just IS pleasure, and the Bad just IS pain. Mill argued:

• The only proof that something is desirable is that people desire it
• No proof can be given why the general happiness is desirable other than that each person desires their own happiness
• This desirability is “all the proof the case admits of” that happiness is a good thing
• All our other values (e.g. truth, freedom, dignity) constitute what makes us happy
• In other words, the reason we value these things is because they make us happy
• So, not only is happiness good, it is the only good

Among contemporary philosophers, Sam Harris is a leading advocate of Ethical Naturalism, and is also a utilitarian.
One of the major critiques of pleasure Utilitarianism is that “happiness” or “pleasure” is a very shallow value, and welfare, or character growth are much more valuable goals, and . As neither character nor welfare are as clearly discernable or measurable – a modified utilitarianism is much less clearly “natural” than Mills’ version.
A notable attack on ethical naturalism was made by the philosopher GE Moore, who claimed that any naturalist identity such as between pleasure and Good is a fallacious claim, as identity would make the relation a closed question, while it actually makes sense to ask if it is true or not. Moore’s critique was considered decisive for a half century, drastically reducing the number of advocates or ethical naturalism in the first half of the 20th century. However, under Popperian indirect realism, it appears to be a misunderstanding of naturalist thinking.
Ethical naturalism has revived to become the second most popular view among philosophers.

Ethical Non-Naturalism. Moore’s alternative realist view is intuitionist – that we humans have an intuitive ability to sense moral truths. But as this is a non-natural sense, evaluation of this intuition is not subject to scientific or rational evaluation. As all of our views, when we apply the “why think that” and then “why think the justification” then “”why think the next justification” in an infinite series, end up terminating in intuited assumptions, the fundamental inability to evaluate moral intuitions is in the end a feature of all of our views, so intuitionists do not consider it a failing.

One of the problems with intuitionism, is that we DO do moral reasoning, hence while there may be SOME intuitions we have to accept as basic, it is not clear that this is true of all, or even most moral intuitions.
Additionally, IF we have a reliable moral intuition, the large diversity of moral views between societies, and between individuals, is very surprising.

Also, the ontic nature of moral facts would make them abstract objects, and most philosophers consider abstract objects to be non-causal – hence they would not be able to be sensed.

Despite these three criticisms, ethical non-naturalism is the most common view among philosophers, although it is far from a majority.

Error Theory A notable mid 20th century philosopher, JL Makie, was the leading advocate of error theory. He primarily cited the societal variations of morality, and the “queerness” of sensing moral abstractions as his reasons for thinking all moral claims must be wrong.

Error theory suffers from the problem that almost everyone who makes moral claims seems to think they are NOT wrong, so a s an explanation of what we humans are thinking when we speak of ethics or morals, it seems not very credible. Error theory had a brief period of significant support among philosophers, but as an alternative to moral realism, it has lost almost all adherents among philosophers.

Emotivism Emotivism says that moral judgments express (non-cognitive) feelings of approval or disapproval, rather than truth claims. This clearly is true of at least a fraction of or moral and ethical statements, and this makes emotivism a supported view. However, we also reason about moral and ethical question, and come up with moral and ethical theories – none of which could be true of an intrinsically non-cognitive subject.

Prescriptism. Prescriptivism says that moral judgments express (non-cognitive) instructions that aim to guide behavior, so when someone says “murder is wrong!”, what they really mean is something like “don’t murder people!” As with emotivism this IS true of a fair amount of our moral discourse, BUT likewise as with emotism, our use of moral reasoning does not cohere with this view.

Moral relativists tend to adopt prescriptivist approaches to moral anti realism.
Moral anti-realism is a significant minority view among philosophers, and emotivism and prescriptivism are roughtly equal in popularity for the anti-realists.

Questions:
>> What do you folks think of the two options, realism/anti-realism and cogntiivism/non-cogntivism to sort meta ethics?
>> What do you folks think of the arguments for and against Ethical Naturalism?
>> What do you folks think of the arguments for and against Ethical Non-Naturalism
>> What do you folks think of the arguments for and against Error Theory?
>> What do you folks think of the arguments for and against Emotivism?
>> What do you folks think of the arguments for and against Prescriptivism?

My alternatives. I do not find any of these meta-ethical views to be convincing, and consider a modification of their ontic assumptions to be more credible.

IF one accepts that abstract objects can be causal, THEN Intuitionism becomes a far more credible worldview. If our intuitions are able to detect moral reality, then we can have weak intuitions that at least hint at truths about our world. Intuitionism would then become an ethical naturalism.

Alternatively, if one treats norms as an emergent phenomena, THEN sociological prescriptivism can reflect an ontic battle between one societies norms vs. another AND then relativist prescriptivism likewise would become a version of ethical naturalism.

A third option I have thought of is a fusion of emergence and intuitionism. In one version of this humans as a species have a eusocial nature, which is intrinsically moral, and our intuitions are how we detect this intrinsic feature of humanity. In another version, the emergence is from all of life, which creates a moral reality as an outgrowth of Gaia, and again our intuitions detect this. As with the two prior options I outlined, morality would be a feature or our world, and therefore characterizing it would fall under ethical naturalism -- but it is a "naturalism" that uses a more complex ontology than reductive materialism.

>> What do you folks think of naturalist intuitionismtivism?
>> What do you folks think of naturalist emergent relativist Prescriptivism?
>> What do you think of emergent naturalist intuitivism?
>> Are there any other out of the box approaches to Meta Ethics anyone would like to offer?

We meet in person and online. In person will be at the cafeteria of the applied physics lab. Snack and drinks are available for online purchase. Pizza will be provided as well at a price of $2/slice. Online will be: https://teams.live.com/meet/93583191724730?p=hY3jxVvnOciVl2aRn5
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