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Meta-ethics
Section 1
Non-cognitivism, Prescriptivism
and Projectivism
1
Moral Non-cognitivism


Moral judgements are neither true nor
false, & cannot be known.
Moral judgements express emotions or
prescriptions.
2
Naturalism

Ethical truths are derivable from facts.

G.E. Moore rejected such ethical naturalism.
See Section 5 of this Chapter for a fuller
discussion of naturalism.
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G.E. Moore
Naturalistic Fallacy:


A fallacy is committed when one attempts to
reason from facts to moral claims, & thus
attempts to define moral terms.
Moral terms, such as ‘good’, cannot be defined.
4
G.E. Moore

The naturalistic fallacy unintentionally prepared
the way for non-cognitivist theories of ethics.
Note: Moore himself was a cognitivist.
Cognitivism holds that moral claims can be
known (see Section 3 of this Chapter).
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Problem



The argument for the naturalistic fallacy
assumes its own conclusion.
Thus it fails to establish that ‘good’ can’t be
defined, or that naturalism is fallacious.
Nor can it be used to support the view that
‘ought’ can’t be derived from ‘is’.
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Emotivism


Moral language doesn’t make
statements but has ‘emotive meaning’.
Moral language expresses emotions &
generates emotions in others.
7
Problems with Emotivism


Insufficient scope for moral reasoning.
Fails to capture the way in which such
reasoning can move from relevant
grounds to well-grounded conclusions.
8
Further Problems

Emotivism faces problems that can be expressed in J.L. Austin’s
terminology of illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.
(Illocutionary act: necessarily performed in uttering the relevant
sentence, such as stating or asking.
Perlocutionary act: performed through making such an utterance, like
persuading someone.)
 But the meaning of a moral claim cannot consist in the perlocutionary
acts contingently performed through uttering it.
 Besides, the meaning of a moral claim doesn’t depend on whether the
illocutionary act of expressing one’s feelings is present or absent.
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Prescriptivism

Requires that the makers of moral
judgements be committed to acting in line
with the implicit prescriptions of their
judgements, which are universal.
R.M. Hare: moral judgments are universal in the
sense that each similar case must be judged alike.
10
Strength

Recognizes the universalizability of
moral judgements.
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Weaknesses

Fails to
account for
cases of
weakness of
will.

Combination of
universalizability &
prescriptivity not a
sufficient condition
of judgements
being moral ones.
12
Projectivism


Moral judgements result from people projecting
their emotions onto features of the world.
Moral beliefs depend for their existence on such
projections.
13
Simon Blackburn

Seeks to secure for projectivism entitlement
to appropriate the language of moral realism
(quasi-realism).
Realism: treats moral properties as
independent of people’s mental states (see
Section 3 of this Chapter).
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Problems



Encounters some of the same problems as
emotivism.
Implies nothing would be valuable if there were
no valuers.
Quasi-realism, if successful, collapses into
realism.
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