How many times have you heard someone say that such and such is a ‘wrong’ thing to do? How many times have you wondered what it was for something to be ‘wrong? It’s likely that you’ve done more listening than you have thinking. But consider the question for a minute. What do we mean when we say that an action is ‘wrong’ or ‘good’?
Questions like these come under meta ethics. The word ‘meta’ comes from a Greek word which means ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ and essentially meta ethics asks what we mean by moral language. It analyses the reasoning behind the nature of moral language. This is extremely important; we use moral language every day but if this is just a reflection of our emotions then how seriously should we take it?
There are several different views on the meaning of moral language and this article will give you a crash course in some of the key basic ideas. The first is that moral language can be verified (proven to be correct) by looking at the world. The second view is that moral language is like a gut instinct (or intuition to be more precise). The third view is emotivism – moral language is simply a reflection of emotion. Finally, there will be a brief comment on the view that ethical statements gives guidance on how to act.
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| Got me thinking! |
So, the first view is that moral language can be verified: Aquinas (a medieval philosopher) believed that moral language is exactly like non-moral statements. For instance, when we say that Michael Jackson died in 2010 we can check this and know that it is true. When it comes to moral language, if we say that murder is wrong, we can check this against nature to see whether it is true. We know that murder is wrong because it prevents happiness. It prevents the natural fulfilment of the individual. Aquinas would say that such a statement is non-negotiable – murder is always wrong.
However, G.E. Moore argued that the stance Aquinas was advocating (ethical naturalism) was incorrect. He believed that we could still question whether murder was wrong – it is not like asking ‘does happiness make people happy?’. There is a clear answer to this question. However when terms like ‘good’ and ‘right’ are used we can always ask – is it really though? This is known as the ‘open question argument’ because there is no clear answer to whether it is genuinely good.
Maybe terms like ‘good’ etc are indefinable? This was the opinion of G.E. Moore who refuted (a posh word for ‘argued against’) Aquinas. Moore believed that trying to define ‘bad’ was like trying to define yellow. In his classic example he stated that “We know what ‘yellow’ is and can recognise it whenever it is seen, but we cannot define yellow. In the same way, we know what good is but we can’t define it.” How do we know what good is? Through our intuition or gut instinct. This is our second opinion in meta ethics that is called intuitionism.
Like Aquinas, G.E. Moore also has his refutation. According to Moore if everyone knew morality through intuition, then surely our intuition would be the same. We would all be able to get along like one big happy family. However, this is not the case and seeing as Moore ruled out defining moral terms there can be no empirical evidence to prove either side.
H. A. Prichard answered this criticism. He defended G. E. Moore by arguing that it was down to education and that individuals were at different stages of moral development. But this takes us back to the open question argument. How do we know who is further up the stage of moral development? Furthermore, many people who have been educated academically hold different political views. They do not vote the same way. They do not believe the same beliefs. If intuitionism was true, humans would have worked out what was good and what was bad by now. However, clearly we haven’t as the questions of meta ethics are still floating around.
Nevertheless, it is vital to ask these questions. It would be irresponsible not to look into what we mean in our moral language. We need to work out whether it is subject to social conditioning; whether it is reliable; can it be used as a guide to a moral life? Intuitionism is often backed up through the example of love. When two people fall in love, those on the outside ask how they knew they loved each other and the two people in love reply that they ‘just knew’. It was intuition. On the basis of this intuition they were prepared to make life changing decisions because of it – to get married, to have children, to get Sky Plus. Is this however, what we should rely on when it comes to decisions on whether we should euthanise a family member? Many people love bad people who abuse them mentally and physically. Love is blind. Does this mean that intuition blinds us and encourages us to merely ‘make do’? It is clear that it is important to ask what we mean by ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
Once intuitionism and ethical naturalism have been ruled out this leaves us with emotivism and prescriptivism. Emotivism is the belief that when we say something is wrong it is a reflection of our emotion – it has also been called the ‘Boo-horrah theory’. This is because when the pacifist says ‘War is wrong’ what they are really saying according to A J Ayer is ‘Boo to war’. When a politician says ‘War is good’ what they are really saying is ‘Horray to war’. In this sense, ‘good’, ‘right, ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’ are all “ethical symbols.” There is no logic involved in ethical language; it simply expresses whether you approve of an action.
Ayer also believed that we chose our words carefully to provoke a similar feeling of agreement in the listener. When we say ‘you act wrong when you steal money’, what we are really saying according to Ayer is that you the listener should not steal because it goes against how I feel. Our moral language therefore is not only a reflection of our emotion but it is also heard in terms of command. Ayer has summed this up in the following; “Ethical terms do not serve only to express feelings. They are calculated to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action.”
Compared to Aquinas and Moore this is a much more balanced perspective in that it looks for justification of what we say. It calls for less reliance on emotion - or at least to be aware of its presence. However, seeing moral language as pure emotion may not leave it enough substance for any ethical statement to be taken seriously.
However, emotivism also has its own downfalls. Perhaps G.J. Warnock gives the most serious criticism. He argued that ethical statements aren’t judged on emotional response and that they are actively discussed. Ethical statements are not the linguistic equivalent of arithmetic sums; ethical language is much richer and far more muddy than science. This criticism can also be combined with the reductionist challenge to Ayer’s theory concerning meta-ethics. When something is reductionist, it is an oversimplification. Applied to Ayer’s theory, it suggests that when someone states: ‘the Holocaust was inherently evil’ it has the same value or meaning as when a child says ‘I like the red jelly babies best’. Moral statements seem to go further than emotion, in everyday language moral language has the most weight, and therefore emotivism has some apparent downfalls. We do not base important moral decisions on emotion alone; in cases such as abortion, we consider our own empirical circumstances and our beliefs (although there is room for debate over how these two elements relate to forming our emotion).
This leads us on to the final view on meta ethics that is prescriptivism. RM Hare tried to explain moral language through commands. He felt that moral statements were more than mere expressions of emotion as they tell us how to we ought to act. Ergo, when an individual states that ‘Murder is wrong’ it isn’t personal revulsion as such but it is a method of stating the command that everyone should not murder a fellow human being. Hare developed this into his Universability principle. This effectively states that they wish that their moral statements were true for everyone in every circumstance. Importantly, Hare can be seen to have more substance than Ayer as a deontological approach can be taken. A deontological approach holds that a moral agent (i.e. the individual) has certain actions that he/she is required to do and so morality involves action. Hare also believed that a way of judging goodness was whether it fulfils its purpose (or actuality in Aristotelian terms). Thus, Hare does seem to give a more solid basis than Ayer in terms of practicality for being able to have discussions and moral judgements.
All that is left to say is congratulations. After reading this article you will (hopefully!) be more aware of the moral language that we use and what we mean by when we say ‘wrong’. We have covered over 500 years of thought on this subject in a few minutes, which is pretty impressive. The criticisms I have listed here, as well as the strengths, are only a select sample so by no means has everything been covered in depth. So please, please, please discover more; it is definitely worth the time and effort. Beauty is in the detail.
Timothy Blythen
