Ethical naturalism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:
- Ethical sentences express propositions.
- Some such propositions are true.
- Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world.
- These moral features of the world are reducible to some set of non-moral features.
George Edward Moore was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began deemphasizing the idealism which was then prevalent among British philosophers and became known for advocating common-sense concepts and contributing to ethics, epistemology and metaphysics. He was said to have an "exceptional personality and moral character". Ray Monk later dubbed him "the most revered philosopher of his era".
In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false. A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are capable of being objectively true, because they describe some feature of the world". If moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, noncognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.
In philosophical ethics, the naturalistic fallacy is the claim that it is possible to define good in terms of natural entities, or properties such as pleasant or desirable. The term was introduced by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica.
Moral relativism or ethical relativism is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist.
Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world, some of which may be true to the extent that they report those features accurately. This makes moral realism a non-nihilist form of ethical cognitivism with an ontological orientation, standing in opposition to all forms of moral anti-realism and moral skepticism, including ethical subjectivism, error theory, and non-cognitivism. Within moral realism, the two main subdivisions are ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism.
Emotivism is a meta-ethical view that claims that ethical sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory. Influenced by the growth of analytic philosophy and logical positivism in the 20th century, the theory was stated vividly by A. J. Ayer in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic, but its development owes more to C. L. Stevenson.
Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false, which noncognitivists deny. Cognitivism is so broad a thesis that it encompasses moral realism, ethical subjectivism, and error theory.
The is–ought problem, as articulated by the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, arises when one makes claims about what ought to be that are based solely on statements about what is. Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between positive statements and prescriptive or normative statements, and that it is not obvious how one can coherently transition from descriptive statements to prescriptive ones. Hume's law or Hume's guillotine is the thesis that an ethical or judgmental conclusion cannot be inferred from purely descriptive factual statements.
The open-question argument is a philosophical argument put forward by British philosopher G. E. Moore in §13 of Principia Ethica (1903), to refute the equating of the property of goodness with some non-moral property, X, whether natural or supernatural. That is, Moore's argument attempts to show that no moral property is identical to a natural property. The argument takes the form of a syllogism modus tollens:
Ethical intuitionism is a view or family of views in moral epistemology. It is foundationalism applied to moral knowledge, the thesis that some moral truths can be known non-inferentially. Such an epistemological view is by definition committed to the existence of knowledge of moral truths; therefore, ethical intuitionism implies cognitivism.
Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or morally wrong and that morality doesn't exist.
In meta-ethics, expressivism is a theory about the meaning of moral language. According to expressivism, sentences that employ moral terms – for example, "It is wrong to torture an innocent human being" – are not descriptive or fact-stating; moral terms such as "wrong", "good", or "just" do not refer to real, in-the-world properties. The primary function of moral sentences, according to expressivism, is not to assert any matter of fact but rather to express an evaluative attitude toward an object of evaluation. Because the function of moral language is non-descriptive, moral sentences do not have any truth conditions. Hence, expressivists either do not allow that moral sentences to have truth value, or rely on a notion of truth that does not appeal to any descriptive truth conditions being met for moral sentences.
This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology.
Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, empathy, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from belief in supernatural revelation or guidance—a source of ethics in many religions. Secular ethics refers to any ethical system that does not draw on the supernatural, and includes humanism, secularism and freethinking. A classical example of literature on secular ethics is the Kural text, authored by the ancient Indian philosopher Valluvar.
Principia Ethica is a book written in 1903 by British philosopher, G. E. Moore. Moore questions a fundamental pillar of ethics, specifically what the definition of "good" is. He concludes that "good" is indefinable because any attempts to do so commit the naturalistic fallacy. Principia Ethica was influential, with Moore's arguments being considered ground-breaking advances in the field of moral philosophy.
Ideal observer theory is the meta-ethical view which claims that ethical sentences express truth-apt propositions about the attitudes of a hypothetical ideal observer. In other words, ideal observer theory states that ethical judgments should be interpreted as statements about the reactions that a neutral and fully informed observer would have; "x is good" means "an ideal observer would approve of x".
The main idea [of the ideal observer theory] is that ethical terms should be defined after the pattern of the following example: "x is better than y" means "If anyone were, in respect of x and y, fully informed and vividly imaginative, impartial, in a calm frame of mind and otherwise normal, he would prefer x to y."
Moral sense theory is a theory in moral epistemology and meta-ethics concerning the discovery of moral truths. Moral sense theory typically holds that distinctions between morality and immorality are discovered by emotional responses to experience. Some take it to be primarily a view about the nature of moral facts or moral beliefs —this form of the view more often goes by the name "sentimentalism". Others take the view to be primarily about the nature of justifying moral beliefs —this form of the view more often goes by the name "moral sense theory". However, some theorists take the view to be one which claims that both moral facts and how one comes to be justified in believing them are necessarily bound up with human emotions.
The Right and the Good is a 1930 book by the Scottish philosopher David Ross. In it, Ross develops a deontological pluralism based on prima facie duties. Ross defends a realist position about morality and an intuitionist position about moral knowledge. The Right and the Good has been praised as one of the most important works of ethical theory in the twentieth century.
