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Moral Issues

Philosophy means the
love of wisdom, and
ethics is a crucial
component of living a
life of wisdom.
What Is Good?

How do we know what is
good? How can we be
sure we made the right
decision? Are there ethical
tools we can learn to use
to make moral decisions in
our own lives? These are
some of the questions we
will be investigating.
Questions

I find philosophy interesting precisely
because it is not about the right answers, but
about the right questions.
Enjoy Thinking!

A goal of a class like this is not only to
introduce you to some basic information
about ethics, but also to encourage you to
simply enjoy thinking about the great
questions, especially in relation to morals
and values.
Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton (19151968), the Trappist monk
and author of many
wonderful books, said he
was more interested in
good questions than good
answers and that is in the
spirit of what I am hoping
you will receive from a
class like this one.
Jacob Needleman
We tend to lose touch
with the questions that
make us ache, or what
the philosopher Jacob
Needleman calls the
indestructible
question.
Dualism

Dualism is the sense that there are two
opposing forces in the universe.
An Opportunity

A closer look, a philosophical look, allows
us to see that these two forces provide an
opportunity that would not exist if these
forces did not exist.
Our Potential

Needleman: “It is there, in the space
between worlds, that humans actually taste
the exalted unity and life-meaning that is
our possibility and destiny.”
The indestructible question

When philosophy becomes the search for
meaning it is facilitating the indestructible
question, the question of who I am and what
is the nature of this cosmos I find myself in.
The Science of Awareness

But what is the source of this awareness?
Who is aware? Now that is the lost science
of awareness. We take awareness so much
for granted that we don’t bother studying
awareness itself. And why is that?
Socrates

The great Greek
philosopher Socrates
got into all sorts of
trouble because he
asked questions that
exposed our human
ignorance.
An Opening

When you are in a state of questioning, you
are open. But as soon as you choose an
answer, it doesn’t matter which answer, you
fall out of that in between space that is the
opening.
A Breakthrough

Needleman: “This opening only emerges
when the mind comes to the end of its tether
and all its usual patterns of thought have
proved fruitless.”
Delphi

The oracle in ancient
Greece at Delphi said;
“Know thyself!” And
that becomes the
mantra for philosophy
as a search for
meaning.
Humans are Asleep

We live in a state of forgetfulness and then
wonder why we do not experience joy and
serenity.
Two Movements

Amazingly enough, there can be a
movement outward and a movement
inward, both at the same time.
The Sacred

What is the sacred? The sacred is that
which allows us to bear these two
movements within us, two movements we
can all experience any time we turn our
attention within.
Soren Kierkegaard

The Danish philosopher
Kierkegaard wrote: “Life
was not a problem to be
solved, but a mystery to be
lived.” Learning to love
the great questions, rather
than turning away from
them, helps us live this
mystery.
Beyond the Ethical

Needleman: “Beyond the ethical, beyond
the choice of the ‘good’ in human life, and
the concomitant exclusion of the ‘evil,”
there lies a mysterious act of existential
spirituality, a struggle to accept the whole of
our individual life and structure with all its
fragmentation and many-leveled
contradictions.”
Awareness

Needleman “We have not yet found, or even
sought for, the active Mind, the awareness
that calls forth a Power through its complete
attention to the whole of reality. This world
is also myself.”
Watching

Is there a way to be active in life, making
the choices we need to make, doing the
ethical thing, trying to find the good while
at the same time remaining non-attached on
the inside? Not judging, but watching.
Seeking Wisdom

Philosophy asks us to seek wisdom right
there in the midst of the contradiction of all
our fears and yearnings.
The Struggle

Without the struggle there is no growth. It is
by rubbing two sticks together that you can
build up enough heat top create a fire. Well
it is the same for the inner flame. We need
to rub the two sticks of “yes” and “no”
together in order to develop an inner flame.
Facing the Struggle

When the struggle is seen as good and
worthy then we might be more willing to be
engaged with it, rather than turn and run in
the opposite direction.
The Taoist Circle

Philosophy teaches
that the reconciliation
of the opposites does
not happen by one
winning over the
other, but by a force
that is invited to hold
both together in a
larger embrace.
Beyond Answers

What we find is not an answer, but an
experience. What we come to is not a place,
but a space of openness, what we seek is not
more experiences but that which is aware of
experience.
Philosophy as a Path

Philosophy can be of practical help to us all
whether we are religious or nonreligious if
it helps us to remember that it is in openness
that awareness grows, and it is in awareness
that the sacred is made welcome. And it is
in this sense that philosophy and the search
for meaning becomes a spiritual path.
Integral Philosophy

Integral Philosophy is known for its
universality and inclusiveness. It is
interested in wisdom wherever it is to be
found.
Does Consciousness Evolve?

Integral Philosophy is developmental. And
another way of talking about development
is to talk about evolution. In other words,
the universe itself seems to be developing.
One aspect of this universe is human
psychology.
The Evolution of
Consciousness

Every child in the process of growing up
recapitulates the entire human journey!
Jean Gebser

Jean Gebser writes of
four general stages
that he called archaic,
magic, mythic, and
mental/rational.
The Archaic Stage

The archaic stage is the stage of our earliest
human ancestors. This is where people were
mainly concerned with survival and lived as
hunters and gatherers. Instincts are very
much alive as they are in animals. A distinct
self is barely awakened or sustained.
The Archaic Stage

Wilber: “This archaic structure is especially
evident in the universal myths of a Garden
of Eden, of a time before the ‘fall’ into
separation and knowledge and reflection, a
time of innocence.”
The Archaic Stage

Archaic folks came to inhabit our planet
three to six million years ago and it may
very well be that they are our ancestors until
about 200,000 years ago.
The Magic Stage

Thus there arose, sometime in the dim past
of prehistory, the awakening of a defended
self-in-here versus the world-out-there. At
this early stage, then, although the self is
distinguished from the natural environment,
it remains magically intermingled with it.
The Magic Stage

Everything is interconnected and this leads
to the magical view of the world. People in
a magical world “very commonly believe
that between the object and the image of it
there is a real connection and that it is
accordingly possible to communicate an
impression to the original object through the
copy or image.”
The Mythic Stage

The mythic stage coincides with one of the
most significant changes ever to occur to
humans and this was the birth of agriculture
and the world of civilization that we
recognize and where we really pick up the
story here in a philosophy class.
The Mythic Stage

Stories was how people made sense of their
world and found answers to questions about
where they came from and where they were
going.
Mythological Doubt

Saggs: “Indisputably, before the end of the
second millennium, there were those in [the
ancient world] whose experience of life
made them unable to accept the comfortable
old belief that the gods rewarded virtue and
punished vice, and led them to begin to seek
solutions outside the cultic framework of
polytheistic religion. They had begun to ask
questions which myth could not answer.”
Mythological Doubt

The gods are very human and immoral and
capricious. Other than being more powerful
than humans there is not much about them
that inspires religious devotion. This is the
beginning of the questioning of myth and
the beginning of human reason asking
questions in a way that has never stopped.
Mythological Doubt

People were becoming more interested in
finding things out for themselves rather than
simply believing in the stories they were
being told, stories that were no longer
making sense.
The Rational Stage

Philosophy begins with a belief that the
world is intelligible. Maybe not right away
or easily, but somehow things make sense if
only we can figure it out.
The Rational Stage

People were beginning to understand the
stories as not literally true, but as
symbolically significant. Modern dream
interpretation tries to do the same thing with
the symbols that appear in our dreams.
What do they mean and what are they
telling us?
Thales

Thales’ prediction of
an eclipse is
significant because it
meant natural laws
could be studied and
understood rather than
feared.
The Rational Stage

This means that answers were no longer
sought in revelation and divination, but
through the methodological use of one’s
intelligence. It cannot be stressed how
radical a step this was, especially when you
put it into the context of a 14 billion year
journey. Something new and exciting was
being born!
The Rational Stage

We are able to correct the information
coming into our senses by trusting our
minds ability to reason.
The Rational Stage

There was a new confidence emerging that
even though there was much that was not
currently understood, it was only a matter of
time before nature would reveal its
mysterious workings as the interplay of a
lawful reality discoverable through diligent
research. This message is so powerful that it
is still the driving force behind science
today.
Philosophy
Frankfort: “The Greek philosophers held
that the universe is an intelligible whole. In
other words, they presumed that a single
order underlies the chaos of our perceptions
and, furthermore, that we are able to
comprehend that order.” That is philosophy!
Changing Perspectives

It will be important to note that the
transition from a mythological
consciousness to a rational consciousness
necessarily changes the way we view ethics.
Aristotle

Aristotle wrote: “The
ultimate purpose in
studying ethics is not as it
is in other inquiries, the
attainment of theoretical
knowledge; we are not
conducting this inquiry in
order to know what virtue
is, but in order to become
good, else there would be
no advantage in studying
it.”
Ethics and Morality

Some people will separate ethics and
morality into two different definitions,
ethics being secular in origin and morals
being religious in origin. But that is more
technical than necessary and these two
words will be used interchangeably in this
class.
Judith Boss

Boss: “The use of the
word ethics reflects its
etymology, which goes
back to the Greek word
ethos, meaning ‘cultural
custom or habit.’ The
word moral is derived
from the Latin word
moralis, which also means
‘custom’.”
What Is Ethics?

Boss: “Philosophical ethics, also known as moral
philosophy, goes beyond this limited concept of
right and wrong. Ethics, as a philosophical
discipline, includes the study of the values and
guidelines by which we live and the justification
for these values and guidelines. Rather than
simply accepting the customs or guidelines used
by one particular group or culture, philosophical
ethics analyzes and evaluates these guidelines in
light of accepted universal principles and
concerns.”
The Examined Life

Socrates taught that the unexamined life
was not worth living. In other words, what
makes humans unique, supposedly, is our
ability to self-reflect, analyze, and adjust
our behavior.
Practice Makes Perfect

The important insight here about practice is
that if you want to be good you have to act
good, whether you feel like it or not. By
doing good acts, you eventually become a
good person. You then do the right thing
because you want to do so rather than under
duress. A popular saying along these lines is
that “you have to fake it until you can make
it.”
Normative and Theoretical

Boss: “Theoretical ethics, or metaethics,
studies why we should act and feel a certain
way; normative ethics tells us how we
should act in particular situations.”
Cognitive and Noncognitive

Boss: “Noncognitive theories, such as
emotivism, claim that there are no moral
truths and that moral statements are neither
true nor false but simply expressions or
outbursts of feelings. If moral statements
are neither true nor false, there is no such
thing as objective moral truths.”
Romanticism

In philosophy there was a whole movement
called Romanticism that stressed the
importance of feelings as being our surest
way to understand the world.
Cognitive Theories

Boss: “Cognitive theories can be further
subdivided into relativist and universalist
theories. Relativist theories state that
morality is different for different people. In
contrast, universalist theories maintain that
objective moral truths exist that are true for
all humans, regardless of their personal
beliefs or cultural norms.”
Cultural Relativity

Cultural relativity is the belief that different
things are right for different groups of
people at different times.
Relativist Theories

Boss: “According to the relativist theories,
there are no independent moral values.
Instead, morality is created by humans.
Because morality is invented or created by
humans, it can vary from time to time and
from person to person.”
Ethical Subjectivism

Boss: “Unlike reason, opinion (ethical
subjectivism) is based only on feeling rather
than analysis or facts. In ethical
subjectivism, there can be as many systems
of morality as there are people in the
world.”
Cultural Relativism

Boss: “Cultural relativists, on the other
hand, argue that morality is created
collectively by groups of humans and that it
differs from society to society. Each society
has its own moral norms, which are binding
on the people who belong to the society.
Each society also defines who is and who is
not a member of the moral community.”
Divine Command Theory

Boss: “A third type of relativist theory is
divine command theory. According to this
theory, what is moral for each person or
religion is relative to God. There are no
universal moral principles that are binding
on all people. Instead, there is no morality
independent of God’s will, which may differ
from person to person or from religion to
religion.”
Inconsistency

Boss: “Ethical subjectivism, cultural
relativism, and divine command theory are
mutually exclusive theories. When theories
are mutually exclusive, a person cannot
consistently hold more than one of the
theories to be true at the same time.”
No Choice Is A Choice!

When it comes down to ethics, not choosing
what to think or how to act is a choice! You
can’t really sit this one out, although this is
exactly what some people think they can do.
But when analyzed we see that all people
come down on one side or another. But
relativism is not your only choice.
Universalist Theories

Boss: “Morality is discovered, rather than
created, by humans. In other words, the
basic standards of right and wrong are
derived from principles that exist
independently of an individual’s or a
society’s opinion.”
Universalist Theories

People who believe in universal values believe
that something like slavery is wrong not, just
where it is recognized as wrong and thus made
illegal. It is wrong everywhere. This is an issue for
those who are concerned about human rights.
They believe that what they recognize as rights
here in the United States (such as freedom of
speech) should be recognized everywhere. Notice
the word “should.” Should is a prescriptive word,
that is, it tells us what we should do, and in that
way it is related to ethical values.
A Simple Example

In a law-abiding society we expect people to obey
the rules, such as stopping at red lights. If
everyone disobeyed this we would have chaos and
it would be very dangerous. But there are times,
such as when rushing to a hospital in an
emergency, when we expect people to be able to
evaluate the good of obeying a law and the good
of saving a life and see that saving a life is more
important. When people become dogmatic they
sometimes lose sight of this.
A Bigger Vision

All theories are limited. The point of
studying many of them is that we see how
when we pull all of them together we start
to get a bigger vision of what it means to be
a good person. We are able to include more
perspectives, and that is usually a very good
thing.
Critical Thinking

Boss: “Rather than relying on public
opinion or what others say, it is up to each
of us, as philosophers, to critically examine
and analyze our reasons for holding
particular views. In this way, the study of
philosophy encourages us to become more
autonomous.”
Self-Reliance

The goal of a philosopher should be selfrealization or what Emerson called selfreliance. This is the ability to think for
oneself and stand by your principles. If you
can’t or won’t do that then you lose an
essential aspect of your humanity and you
become more like a machine than a person.
Question Your Perspective

Boss: “By exposing the ignorance of those
who considered themselves wise, Socrates
taught people to look at the social customs
and laws in a new way. He taught them not
to simply accept the prevailing views but to
question their own views and those of their
society in a never-ending search for truth
and wisdom.”
Self-Realization

Boss: “According to psychologist Abraham
Maslow, self-actualized people are
autonomous. They do not depend on the
opinions of others when deciding what to do
and what to believe. Philosophers such as
Socrates and Buddha exemplified what
Maslow meant by a self-realized person.”
Good News

The good news is that much of our exposure to all
of this “noise” is up to us. We have the ability to
turn off the computer, turn off the T.V. and take
some time to think for ourselves. But it does take
some discipline to do this. It helps to have access
to important ideas, such as philosophy (!), that
help remind us that we are human beings who can
ask the great questions and not simply seek to be
entertained.
An Ongoing Process

Boss: “Being honest involves the courage to
be different and to work hard at being the
best one can be at whatever one does.
People who are lacking in authenticity or
sincerity blame others for their own
unhappiness, giving in to what French
philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (19081986) called ‘the temptations of the easy
way’.”
Cultural Conditioning

Boss: “People who are self-actualized, in contrast,
are flexible and even welcome having their views
challenged. Like true philosophers, they are open
to new ways of looking at the world. They are
willing to analyze and, if necessary, change their
views - even if this means taking an unpopular
stand. This process involves actively working to
recognize and overcome the barriers to new ways
of thinking; chief among these is cultural
conditioning.”
Skepticism

Boss: “Philosophers
try to approach the world with
an open mind. They question their own beliefs and
those of other people, no matter how obviously
true a particular belief may seem. Rather than
accepting established belief systems uncritically,
philosophers first reflect on and analyze them. By
refusing to accept beliefs until they can be
justified, philosophers adopt an attitude of
skepticism, or doubt, as their starting point.”
Cynicism

Boss: “Cynicism is closed-minded and
mocks the possibility of truth; it begins and
ends in doubt. Cynicism denies rather than
analyzes. In this sense, cynicism is a means
of resisting philosophical thought because it
hinders analysis.”
Open, But Not Gullible

Needleman: “We want to have open minds,
but not so open that our brains fall out!”
Avoiding Rigidity

Boss: “However, if we believe that truth is
constantly revealing itself to us - whether through
reason, experience, or intuition - in our quest for
moral wisdom, we must always be open to
dialogue with each other and with the world at
large. If we think at some point that we have found
truth and, therefore, close our minds, we have then
ceased to think like a true philosopher. We will
lose our sense of wonder and become rigid and
self-righteous.”
Embracing The Quest

Boss: “For a philosopher to stop seeking truth is
like a dancer freezing in one position because he
thinks he has found the ultimate dance step or an
artist stopping painting because she thinks she has
created the perfect work of art. Similarly, to cease
being open-minded and wondering is to cease
thinking like a philosopher. To cease thinking like
a philosopher is to give up the quest for the good
life.”
Metaphysics

Boss: “Ethical
theories do not stand on their
own but are grounded in other philosophical
presumptions about such matters as the role
of humans in the universe, the existence of
free will, and the nature of knowledge.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy
concerned with the study of the nature of
reality, including what it means to be
human.”
Free or Determined?

For example: are humans free or
determined? Obviously we are limited and
conditioned by some things, but are we
entirely conditioned? How we answer that
question has important implications for
what it means to be a good person.
Abstract or Practical?

People who think philosophy is too abstract
and has nothing to do with “the real world”
have not studied ethics!
Metaphysical Dualism

Boss: “According to metaphysical dualists,
reality is made up of two distinct and
separate substances: the material or physical
body and the nonmaterial mind, which is
also referred to as the soul or spirit. The
body, being material, is subject to causal
laws. The mind, in contrast, has free will
because it is nonmaterial and rational.”
The Problem

Boss: “One of the main problems with
dualism is coming up with an explanation of
how two apparently completely different
substances - mind and body - are able to
interact with each other, especially on a
causal level. Because of the mind-body
problem, many philosophers have rejected
dualism.”
Metaphysical Materialism

Boss: “There are many variations of
nondualistic or one-substance theories. One
of the more popular one-substance theories
is metaphysical materialism. In this
worldview, physical matter is the only
substance. Therefore, materialists do not
have to deal with the mind-body problem.”
Sociobiology

Boss: “Sociobiology is based on the
assumption of metaphysical materialism. As
a branch of biology, sociobiology applies
evolutionary theory to the social sciences including questions of moral behavior.
Sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson claims
that morality is based on biological
requirements and drives.”
Biological Altruism

Boss: “Biological altruism accounts for the
great sacrifices we are willing to make to
help those who share our genes; however,
sociobiologists do not equate natural with
moral. Wilson writes that we as humans
‘must consciously choose among the
alternative emotional guides we have
inherited’.”
Problem

Boss: “One of the problems with basing
ethics on metaphysical materialism is that it
gives us no guidance in a situation where
two rules, such as egoism and altruism, are
in conflict. For this and other reasons, the
majority of philosophers, without denying
that biology is important, reject biology as
the basis for morality.”
Hope

Thankfully, if you don’t want to be a dualist
you are not yet limited to being a
materialist. There are other choices!
Unity Of All Reality

Boss: “Buddha rejected metaphysical dualism,
emphasizing the unity of all reality rather than
differences. According to Buddha, the natural
order is not rigidly hierarchical; rather, it is a
dynamic web of interactions that condition or
influence, instead of determining, our actions.
Mind and body are not separate substances but are
a manifestation of one substance that is referred to
in most Buddhist philosophies as the ‘One.’”
A Metaphor

All of the diverse reality that we see around
us shares in the same basic atomic structure.
You break humans, trees, and rocks down to
their smallest level and you find atoms. And
what are atoms except energy? Energy,
then, seems like the modern way of
understanding this “one” reality that can
then manifest as either physical reality or
consciousness, that elusive “mind-stuff.”
Another View of Unity

Boss: “Some Native American philosophies also
stress the interrelatedness of all beings; they do
not divide the world into animate and inanimate
objects but rather they see everything, including
the earth itself, as having a self-conscious life.
This metaphysical view of reality is reflected in a
moral philosophy based on respect for all beings
and on not taking more than one needs.”
Circles Of Concern

We live in a time when this circle of concern
seems to be expanding to include the whole world
and even other species. Thankfully this is
happening just in time as if we continued down
the road of only caring about ourselves we would
probably end up destroying our planet. As a result
there is a whole new field of ethical concern
scholars are addressing that has to do with
ecological ethics.
Determinism

Boss: “The theory of determinism states that all
events are governed by causal laws. There is no
free will. Humans are governed by causal laws
just as all other physical objects and beings are.
According to strict determinism, if we had
complete knowledge, we could predict future
events with 100 percent certainty. The emphasis
on the scientific method as the source of truth has
contributed to the trend in the West to describe
human behavior in purely scientific terms.”
Determinism

Boss: “Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-
1939) claimed that humans are governed by
powerful unconscious forces and that even
our most noble accomplishments are the
result of prior events and instincts.
Behaviorists such as John Watson (18781958) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) also
believed that human behavior is determined
by past events in our lives.”
Condemned to Freedom?

Boss: “According to [existentialist philosophers],
we are defined only by our freedom. Existentialist
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) argued that ‘there is
no human nature, since there is no God to
conceive it…Man [therefore] is condemned to be
free.’ He argued that, as radically free beings, we
each have the responsibility to create our own
essence, including choosing the moral principles
upon which we act.”
Karma

Karma claims we are responsible for our
choices and this implies freedom. The
resistance to determinism stems from the
fact that if we don’t take responsibility for
our actions then we end up making up
excuses for our behavior.
Excuses

Our laws have often recognized different
levels of responsibility. Just think of the
difference between first-degree murder and
manslaughter. The question in an ethics
course is can we extend different levels of
responsibility all the way to no
responsibility?
Freedom as Possibility

Freedom seems to be more of a possibility
than a given fact. Freedom is a human
potential. We grow up conditioned, but we
can expand our horizons and find more
freedom.
Moral Knowledge

How do we know what is good? Some things
seem obvious, but other things are not so clear. We
may even have people in our lives who are
intelligent and thoughtful and whom we respect
who come down on opposite sides regarding
moral issues. Does this lack of agreement mean
there is no moral truth? This will be another of the
important questions we will be engaging
throughout this course.
Mental Health

When we think about moral knowledge, we
must keep in mind that one of the main
ways we gauge mental health is whether
these basic insights and intuitions are
present or not. Disagreements may abound,
but that is not the same thing as saying there
is no possibility of moral knowledge at all.
That is too extreme a view. One might even
argue that it is a dangerous view.
Epistemology

Boss: “The branch of philosophy concerned
with the study of knowledge - including
moral knowledge - is known as
epistemology. Epistemology deals with
questions about the nature and limits of
knowledge and how knowledge can be
validated. There are many ways of knowing.
Intuition, reason, feeling, and experience
are all potential sources of knowledge.”
The Power of Rationality

There is no argument that reason is of
critical importance. In fact, we can hope
that more people become more rational as
soon as possible! We need good, clear,
critical thinkers to tackle the problems of
the modern world. Nevertheless, all of the
disagreements between very smart people
should help us be cautious about giving
reason and rationality too much power.
Intuition

Boss: “Intuition is immediate or self-evident
knowledge, as opposed to knowledge inferred
from other truths. Intuitive truths do not need any
proof. Utilitarians, for example, claim that we
intuitively know that pain is a moral evil.
Confucians maintain that we intuitively know that
benevolence is good. Rights ethicists claim that
we intuitively know that all people are created
equal.”
Developmental Psychology

Boss: “Cognitive-developmental psychologist
Lawrence Kohlberg believes that certain morally
relevant concepts, such as altruism and
cooperation, are built into us (or at least almost all
of us). According to Kohlberg, these intuitive
notions are part of humans’ fundamental structure
for interpreting the social world, and as such, they
may not be fully articulated. In other words, we
may know what is right but not be able to explain
why it is right.”
Self-Evident?

We don’t exist alone in the world. We must
live with others and when we disagree we
must have a way of discussing the issues.
Therefore we need a way of approaching
moral knowledge that allows this dialogue
to take place.
Religious Language?

A person might say they believe that something is
wrong because the Bible says so. But this will
only hold validity for other people who believe
that the Bible is a valid source of insight. What if
you are trying to convince someone who does not
believe this? Then you can’t appeal to something
like the Bible that you don’t hold in common, but
something you do hold in common such as reason
and feelings.
Experience

Boss: “Aristotle emphasized reason as the
most important source of moral knowledge,
yet he also taught that ethics education
needs an experiential component to lead to
genuine knowledge. Some philosophers
carry the experiential component of moral
knowledge even further. Empiricism claims
that all, or at least most, human knowledge
comes through the five senses.”
Positivism

Boss: “Positivists believe that moral
judgments are simply expressions of
individuals’ emotions; this is known as
emotivism. Because statements of moral
judgment don’t seem to convey any
information about the physical world, they
are meaningless.”
Feelings

Morality is not something that can be
proved through reason at all. Rather it
comes from our feelings, which because
they are subjective do not approach the
objectivity that is often sought for in
scientific circles.
Too Subjective?

The problem is that feelings are too subjective. Is
something right only because it feels right to me?
If this is true then how do we have a nation, let
alone a world, of laws that we can hold people
accountable to? What if they disagree? How can
we tell someone that their cruel treatment of
children or animals is wrong if there is no
objective standard? These are some of the difficult
problems we have to face with ethical theories
such as emotivism and positivism.
Emotions Have A Role

While it may not suffice to undergird ethics
entirely, we will see that emotions still play
a critical role in our discernment of what is
right and what is wrong.
Exposure To Suffering

Many of us start to build a social consciousness
when we are required by our families and schools
to do community service work. This exposes us to
suffering and problems and we start to care and
want to do something to eliminate some of the
pain people experience. This has an enormous
impact on our ethical life. Reading about poverty
is a very different experience from actually seeing
it for yourself.