Meta-Ethics Explained for A Level Philosophy Students

Among non-cognitivist theories, we find emotivism (moral statements express emotions), prescriptivism (moral statements are prescriptions), expressivism (moral statements express attitudes), and quasi-realism (an attempt to make non-cognitivism appear realist). These theories share the view that moral language does not describe objective reality but expresses subjective states.

Non-cognitive ethics addresses the problem of moral disagreement by rejecting objective moral truths. A.J. Ayer's emotivism argues moral statements are meaningless truth claims—they merely express emotional approval or disapproval. Saying 'stealing is wrong' simply expresses disapproval, similar to saying 'boo' to stealing. R.M. Hare's prescriptivism extends this by viewing moral language as prescriptions for universal action rather than mere emotional expressions. While non-cognitivism explains why moral disagreements exist (since morality is subjective), critics argue it undermines genuine moral reasoning by reducing complex ethical judgments to feelings or recommendations.

Emotywizm (Ayer, Stevenson) głosi, że twierdzenia moralne to tylko wyrazy emocji - nie opisują świata, tylko przekazują nasze uczucia. Preskryptywizm (Hare) mówi, że twierdzenia moralne to nakazy i rozkazy. Obie teorie są non-kognitywistyczne - twierdzenia moralne nie mają sensu poznawczego, są wyrazem emocji lub żądań. Z emotywizmu wynika radykalna tolerancja - jeśli ktoś uważa grzyby za ohydne, a ja za smaczne, nikt nie ma racji.

Non-cognitivism includes emotivism (moral statements express emotions like 'boo'), prescriptivism (moral statements issue commands like 'don't'), and quasi-realism (treating moral statements as if they were true while denying actual truth). These theories explain moral discourse without committing to moral facts, addressing how moral language motivates behavior and supports concepts like moral progress.

Within non-cognitivism, there are several distinct theories. Emotivism, most famously associated with A.J. Ayer, holds that moral judgments are not claims about reality but are emotional expressions of the speaker. Prescriptivism argues that moral claims are personal prescriptions rather than descriptions—they tell others what they ought to do, such as saying 'do not kill.' Expressivism claims that moral statements express desire-like attitudes; when someone says 'killing is wrong,' they are expressing their desire not to kill. Quasi-realism extends expressivism by accepting that moral claims project emotional attitudes as if they were real properties, attempting to explain why moral discourse feels so much like it's describing objective facts even though it isn't.

Naturalism attempts to ground morality in natural properties through empirical verification, but faces two decisive philosophical objections. First, G.E. Moore's open question argument demonstrates that reducing moral facts to natural facts always leaves legitimate doubt—for example, asking 'Is this pleasurable, therefore good?' remains a reasonable question since not everything pleasurable is good. Second, David Hume's is-ought problem reveals an insurmountable gap between descriptive statements about how the world is and prescriptive statements about how we ought to behave. Together, these arguments show that scientific approaches to morality inevitably fail, forcing moral realists to adopt non-naturalist alternatives.

David Hume identified a fundamental gap between descriptive statements ('is') and prescriptive ones ('ought'), noting that moral reasoning contains an unexplained leap from factual observations to value judgments. GE Moore's open question problem illustrates this: if 'good' were synonymous with 'pleasure,' asking 'Is pleasure really good?' would be redundant, but it feels like an open question. This suggests moral properties cannot be reduced to natural properties—a position Moore termed the naturalistic fallacy. J.L. Mackie's 'argument from queerness' argues objective values would be entities of a strange sort unlike anything else in the universe, and none have been found. This creates a challenge for those who base ethical positions on rational persuasion, as even convinced naturalists cannot provide overwhelming reasons for moral action. The implications extend to vegetarian arguments, which may rely on problematic assumptions about fungible suffering across species.

G.E. Moore's open question argument is a key argument for moral realism. Moore argued that for any proposed definition of 'good' (like 'good means pleasure'), it remains an open question whether that thing is actually good. This suggests that 'good' is a simple, indefinable property sui generis (of its own kind), not reducible to any other property.

G.E. Moore's critique of Hume's moral philosophy introduced one of the most influential arguments in 20th-century ethics. Moore argues that Hume's attempt to ground morality in natural facts commits what he called the naturalistic fallacy. His argument centers on the open question test: for any proposed naturalistic definition of moral terms, we can always meaningfully ask whether things that satisfy the naturalistic definition are really good or right. If moral terms were synonymous with naturalistic terms, such questions would be obviously meaningless, like asking whether bachelors are really unmarried. But questions about whether pleasure is really good or whether approved actions are really right seem substantive and meaningful. This suggests that moral terms cannot be defined in purely naturalistic language. Moore applies this specifically to Hume's sentimentalist theory—Hume argues that moral judgments express feelings of approval and disapproval, but Moore contends that we can meaningfully ask whether things we approve of are really good, which would be meaningless if goodness simply consisted in being approved of. Moore concludes that goodness is a simple unanalyzable non-natural property apprehended only through moral intuition.

G.E. Moore argued that genuine moral disagreements exist where people contradict each other (e.g., one says 'abortion is wrong,' another says 'abortion is permissible'). If moral statements were merely expressions of emotion, they wouldn't genuinely contradict each other—they'd just express different sentiments. Ayer responds by biting the bullet: there are no genuine moral disagreements. When we debate moral issues, we're actually disagreeing about underlying factual matters while sharing underlying moral sentiments. We agree that harmful things should be prohibited, but disagree about whether specific actions cause harm. When trying to persuade someone to condemn a particular action, we don't argue about moral principles directly—we identify a shared moral disapproval of a general type of behavior, then make factual claims that the specific action belongs to that type.

Moral psychology examines the relationship between moral judgments and motivation. Internalists hold that moral judgments necessarily motivate action, while externalists hold that moral judgments may not necessarily motivate action. This distinction affects how we understand the connection between moral knowledge and moral behavior.

This lecture presents 'moral externalism,' a philosophical position that reconciles internalist and externalist intuitions about moral judgment and motivation. The speaker argues that an externalist theory of representational content—where what we represent in thought depends on our environment—can resolve apparent disagreements in moral philosophy. Specifically, moral judgments can be internally connected to motivation (as internalists claim) while still allowing for the possibility of an amoralist who makes moral judgments without motivation (as externalists claim). This is achieved by recognizing that individuals can grasp moral concepts incompletely, which explains why someone might make a moral judgment without being motivated to act accordingly. The resulting view maintains that moral reasons are objective (external to the subject) yet still action-guiding, providing a form of moral realism that preserves the necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation.

Moral naturalism holds that moral facts are natural facts that can be discovered through scientific investigation. Judgment internalism holds that moral judgments necessarily motivate action, while judgment externalism holds that moral judgments don't necessarily motivate. This is a debated position in moral philosophy, and moral realism doesn't require judgment internalism to be true. Fitness is a higher order emergent property that describes the relationship between an organism's features and its environment.

The Central Problem arises from the tension between Reasons Internalism (if rational, one must be motivated) and Moral Absolutism (some actions are always wrong regardless of desire). If someone commits murder without caring about morality, can we still call it irrational? Solutions include accepting that morality doesn't apply to everyone, reformulating moral claims through self-interest ('don't murder or face prison'), or arguing that moral reasons are inherently motivating. Each approach faces challenges in maintaining moral objectivity while respecting human motivation.

Judgment internalism is the philosophical position that moral judgments must motivate action. Judgment externalism holds that moral judgments do not necessarily motivate. The speaker notes that this is a well-established distinction in philosophy, with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy documenting it. The speaker argues that judgment externalism is the correct view, meaning morality does not need to influence or motivate people to be true. This is supported by the fact that many philosophers reject the internalist view for well-established reasons. The speaker also distinguishes between hypothetical imperatives (if you want X, you should do Y) and categorical imperatives (you should do Y regardless of your desires). In the speaker's model, morality provides a factual basis for action (what corresponds to the moral law), but the actual motivation to follow it comes from subjective preferences. This means morality itself does not contain categorical imperatives - it only provides the descriptive facts that we then subjectively choose to follow.