Download Handout 2: The Elements of Moral Philosophy: Chapters 3 and 4

Philosophy 160C
Fall 2008
jayme johnson
Handout 2: The Elements of Moral Philosophy:
Chapters 3 and 4
Chapter 3: Subjectivism
Ethical Subjectivism
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the basic idea: our moral opinions are based on our feelings and nothing more
Simple Subjectivism
Simple Subjectivism (SS) is the view that when a person says that something is morally good or bad,
this means that he or she approves of that thing, or disapproves of it, and nothing more.
So SS claims that:
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“X is morally right” means exactly the same thing as “I (the speaker) approve of X.”
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“X is morally wrong” means exactly the same thing as “I (the speaker) disapprove of X.”
Moral Disagreement Argument
1. If SS is true, then moral disagreement is impossible.
2. Moral disagreement is not impossible.
3. Therefore, SS is fasle.
Moral Infallibility Argument
1. If SS is true, then we are all morally infallible.
2. None of us are morally infallible.
3. Therefore SS is false.
Emotivism
According to Emotivism (EM), moral language is not fact stating language. Rather, moral statements
are used (1) as a means of influencing other people’s behavior, and (2) to express the speaker’s
attitude about something. To put things in philosophical terms:
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According to Emotivism: moral statements have no truth values.
Emotivism claims that
• “X is morally right” means exactly the same thing as “X, yeah!.”
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“X is morally wrong” means exactly the same thing as “X, boo!”
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1. Emotivism gets around the Moral Disagreement Argument by distinguishing between disagreements
in attitude versus disagreements about attitudes.
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In short, Emotivism allows for there to be moral disagreement in the sense that it interprets
a moral statement as an utterance OF one’s attitude, not an utterance ABOUT one’s attitude
as SS does. As soon as SS makes a moral claim equivalent to being about one’s attitude, the
moral disagreement vanished. This is not the case when moral statements are interpreted as
expressions OF attitude. It is often the case that people’s attitudes about something differ.
2. Emotivism gets around the Moral Infallibility Argument by denying that moral statements are the
kinds of things we can be right or wrong about.
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Since there is no fact of the matter, we cannot be morally infallible. (In fact we can never be
right [or wrong] about an attitudinal utterance.
Moral Infallibility Argument Revisited
1. If EM is true, then there are no moral truths [whatsoever].
2. There are moral truths.
3. Therefore EM is false.
Argument from Moral Facts
1. Any adequate moral theory must provide an account of the connection between moral judgments
and the reasons that support them.
3. EM cannot provide such an account.
3. Therefore, EM is not adequate.
Argument from Moral Facts 2
1. If EM is true, then reasons have no purpose in making moral judgments.
2. Reasons have a [strong] purpose in making moral judgments.
3. Therefore, EM is false.
Chapter 4: Does Morality Depend on Religion?
Divine Command Theory
• According to Divine Command theory, an action is morally right if and only if God
commands it, and morally wrong if God forbids it.
An Old Question
The Euthyphro Problem: Does God command us to perform certain actions because they are morally
right it, or does the fact that God commands it, make it right?
• Option 1: The fact that God commands a particular action makes that action morally right.
i.e. God is the inventor of morality.
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Option 2: God commands a particular action because that action is morally right
independently. i.e. God is a reporter of moral truths.
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But if one picks Option 1, some problems emerge.
1. Morality becomes mysterious. How does commanding something make it right?
2. If anything God commands automatically becomes morally right upon his command, then
God’s commands become arbitrary. Without an independent standard of morality, God has
no reason to say “this is right” but “that is wrong”.
3. This conception of morality provides the wrong reasons for moral principles.
But picking option 2 seems to be an abandonment of the connection we wished to preserve, namely
the connection between morality and God.
The Theory of Natural Law
The Theory of Natural Law rests on three main theses, all of which are based on the assumption
that God is the Author, or Designer, of Nature:
• NL1: Everything in nature has a purpose
• NL2: The Laws of Nature describe not only how things are, but how they ought to be. That
is, some natural laws are normative laws.
• NL3: The Laws of Nature which specify how things ought to be are accessible to us through
our capacity to reason.
The Argument that you can’t get an “ought” out of an “is”
1. If NL2 is true, then one can get an “ought” from an “is.”
2. You can never get an “ought” from an “is”
3. Therefore, NL2 is false.
The Argument NL3 Severs the Connection between God and Ethics
1. If NL3 is true, then we don’t need to be religious to be moral.
2. If we don’t need to be religious to be moral, then there is no necessary connection between God
and morality.
3. Therefore if NL3 is true, then there is no necessary connection between God and morality.
The moral(?) of the story: even if you are religious, it seems to be a better view that God and
morality are independent of one another. That God is somehow just as accountable to morality as
we are (though perhaps it’s a bit easier for God to be good than it is for us).
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