0:01 morning all hi i thought i would change the scenery from our previous lockdown adventures i never thought i would be back here doing these once more uh but we must continue we must keep going and carry on you are doing so well uh currently the situation obviously as you know we are no longer doing summer exams however we do not know how you will still be formally assessed there will be some form of assessment so we must continue with the uh with the spec and with the topics so rather than doing philosophy which is what we were originally going to do i'm going to start with the ethics because the ethics are slightly easier i think certainly easy to teach online and then we can fill in gaps when
0:47 hopefully i see you after february half term so we're going to start with the topic of meta ethics and so i'm just going to make myself smaller get the powerpoint up and we'll go from there okay so what i would like you to do is just like you did last time i'd like you to work through the powerpoint making notes as you always do and then on friday sessions when i see you i can go over any specific questions or any problems that you have so meta ethics is quite a unique topic it's a standalone topic is meta ethics
1:32 um we must start by having a look at the view that there are two ethical standpoints there are two ethical approaches that you can take there's absolutism and there's relativism absolutism is where the morals are fixed unchanging truths that everyone should follow whereas relativism they're not fixed they're not absolute they change individual culture time plays whatever it might be relativism and absolutism do not disagree about what is moral they disagree about what it means to make a moral statement and this is where meta ethics comes in what we're used to dealing with is what is called normative ethics normative ethics are things like you can't utilitarianism your natural law your situation it's
2:17 their normative ethics that is where it says what you should and should not do what is and is not good or what isn't is not bad what meta ethics does is it says no hang on a minute what do you actually mean by the words good so when natural law says um you know it is good to uh for man and woman in marriage to procreate not the procreative marriage part that natural law is telling you to do which is the normative um it is the idea of why is that good what does the word good actually mean so meta ethics focus upon language of ethics this is their ethical language um it is concerned with whether moral statements refer to fixed truths or ethical absolutism or are relative
3:03 to emotions and beliefs so are they fixed truths are they fixed ethical absolutes or are they based on the words good bad right and wrong so it's doing four words we're focusing on no others good bad right and wrong are the only four words you use in your examples in meta ethics are these absolute they're fixed or are they relative it also is concerned with how we come to know morals is it through senses and observation is it intuitive knowledge or is it through ethics that aren't linked to any knowledge at all there are three arguments we need to know ethical naturalism intuitionism and emotivism you'll have done an activity already where you'll have done some research into the three different arguments and doing a bit of uh
3:48 constitutes and match activity so now let's see if you've got your information correct ethical naturalism is our starting point this one is probably the trickier one to get your minds around but once you've got your head around it's very straightforward with a metal ethics don't over complicate it don't make it more complicated than it is by that i mean it's fairly straightforward you just accept it the evaluation is also extremely easy in these essays because all you do is you use the three arguments against each other and say which one is better so evaluation is very straightforward with these essays the actual material is very straightforward you just need to accept this is what ethical naturalism says except this is what intuitionism says etc also it's good if you get a start
4:35 a standing point so are you an ethical naturalist are you an intuit intuitionist etc so with ethical naturalism oops let's go back up a little bit naturalism is an ethical theory that holds that everything arises from natural properties and causes those morals are fixed absolutes that can be observed as part of the universe at this stage don't worry about what all of those different parts means because as we get further down it will make more and more sense the bit to focus on at this point is that it's an um a fixed absolute this is an argument going down absolutism
5:23 f h bradley is the name that goes with this but also philippa foote uh she's someone that we used to be on virtue ethics very very interesting modern days philippa fought links with oxfam the creation of oxfam so do check her out if you're interested and they believe that morals can be perceived in the world in the same way that other features of the world are identified so what do i mean by that evil and good right and wrong good and bad at facts it's important that you recognize they're using the word fact fact they're using that word as your understanding already is they're not changing the meaning of the word so these are facts that we're talking about morals are not about your opinion so when you talk
6:10 about things like abortion euthanasia fraud you're not talking about an opinion you're talking about an ethical fact they are objectively true in other words expressing a moral truth which is part of the reality of the universe is therefore not an opinion all of this will make sense in a second when i give you an example there are links to aquinas's natural law and how morals and ethics can be seen within nature so a nice little synoptic link there so once you've got to your grips with ethical naturalism you can do a little bit of a synoptic link there bradley claims that morals are observable as part of the concrete world you can see them
6:56 so this now will help you understand what is saying you have ethical statements and non-ethical statements and non-ethical statements are facts about the world the earth is round um donald trump used to be the president of the united states they're non-ethical facts their facts about the world ethical statements are statements that use the words good bad right and wrong abortion is bad euthanasia is good abortion is right euthanasia is wrong or bad etc so you're using those four words in whatever way it may be they are your ethical statements what ethical naturalism says is is they're exactly the same
7:43 thing so the fact would be euthanasia is the premature ending of someone else's life euthanasia is right what ethical naturalism says is they're ethically exactly the same they are observable they are both factual they are both absolute they are both the same sorts of sentences so even though one is a fact and one is ethical they are both the same so the example here is hitler was the leader of the nazi party uh that is a non-ethical factual statement hitler was a bad man again you must use the words good bad right or wrong no others just for this meta ethics good bad rhyme rock so hitler was a bad man is ethical but this is also a fact
8:30 how the how is by finding enough evidence to back that up what ethical naturalists argue is there's so much evidence to back up these statements that they are no longer an opinion so there is so much evidence to back up the consequence of his actions the personal outcomes that he had that he was a bad man that becomes an ethical fact that becomes an observable fact because the evidence that you have so it is exactly the same as saying he is the leader of the nazi party what i'd like you to do please i'd like to come up with your own example of this so i'd like to come up with your own ethical statement and your own non-ethical statement it can be anything you want absolutely don't do the nazi one because everyone will do the nazi one pick something different it can be anything as long as your
9:15 ethical statement has good bad right or wrong in it and as long as the not an ethical statement is somehow linked to that idea it can be anything i've had things about john lennon in the past make it a bit different give you a little bit creative thread to make your essays um more varied so come up with your own ethical naturalism example ethical naturalism advocates the belief that a statement could only be factual and have meaning if it can be verified empirically that bit is very very important you have to be able to verify empirically you have to prove using senses that statement is a fact so even though using an ethical word you can find enough evidence to prove that that is fact ethical sentences express propositions a
10:01 proposition is a statement of reason or logic propositions are made true by objective features of the world independent of human opinion so hitler is a bad man it was a bad man there is so much evidence there is so much to back that up that it is an objective feature of the world the facts are part of the world that isn't an ethical statement as far as an opinion it is an ethical fact it's an absolute fact using evidence from the world however so that's the argument that's it ethical naturalism done the easiest way to talk about that one in your exam is to give an example start by the example use your example to break down different parts this thing
10:48 gets slightly harder so this bit slightly more complicated david hume is a critic of ethical naturalism of course he has david him criticizes everybody and everything he says moral good and evil can not be distinguished using reason we cannot move from an object to objective factual statement based on observations of the world facts to a subjective moral one he's basically saying hitler was the leader of the nazi party hitler was a bad man you can't put them together fair enough why for example forensic a man is dead fact you're verified but you cannot find evidence of the wrongness of that murder this led to what is known as hume's law
11:35 is does not imply ought now what does that mean is a fax so a man is dead and is is a fact hitler is the leader of the nazi party that's a fact obviously was was past tense but is is facts art is a moral behavior you ought to not do that you ought to do this that is about a moral behavior prescribing a behavior you would like people to do so what he's saying is is when you're saying you or not carry out euthanasia you're prescribing a behavior that's not a fact you're you're trying to influence an ethical uh an ethical angle so he says no amount of
12:21 fat is ever sufficient to lead to an ethical conclusion so no amount of evidence that what hitler did will ever amount to enough to make hitler as a bad man a fact it is still an opinion it is still when using those forwards so in this case the word bad that that is an ethical statement is not a factual statement there is david hume tis the object of feeling not of reason it lies in its in yourself not in the objects so again in yourself meaning your opinion not in the object in the natural world in the um in his book so with ethical naturalism all you
13:08 have to understand and take is that they are arguing that ethical statements and facts are the same thing they are observable in the natural world they are ethical absolutes they are facts what david hume is arguing is no this is not the case is our facts ought to er ethical opinions moral behaviors they are not the same thing that's the argument in a nutshell philippa foot though of course defends ethical naturalism she came after um david hume she was far more recent um the fact that a human action or disposition is good of its kind is a fact about a given feature what does she mean by that let's have a look british nationalist philosopher philippa foote
13:53 argued that when we call a person a just man or an honest woman we are referring to something uh we are afraid of something some evidence backs it up so for example when i do your references or your ucas i will say you are um open-minded or you are um hard-working i'm making those statements based on evidence so when we say hitler is a bad man we're basing it on evidence we're referring to something we're backing this up virtues can be observed by watching how a person acts an honest person does honest things and honest things can be observed therefore they are perceived as moral absolute so what philippa foot is arguing here is because you can observe them and that is a factual thing that you have evidence for so for example if i say
14:39 you're hard working i will have physical evidence to show how you are a hard worker because i have physical evidence it then becomes a fact about you you are a hard worker that is a fact but obviously in this case i'm not talking about hard work you were talking about so i could say you are a good student i would have evidence to back up that you are a good student so i'd have evidence of your organization your deadline meeting your attendance etc so i would say you are a good student and have evidence to back that up what philippa foot is saying is because you have perceivable observable evidence that then becomes a fact it is a fact you are a good student uh just as well as it's a fact that your name is whatever it is or your age is whatever it is they are
15:24 exactly the same your age and that you are a good student are both factual statements that should be taken exactly the same way philippa foot continued foot draws upon writer uh krapopkins example of when an anthropologist goes to study the native malayan people under the strict instructions never to take photographs one night the anthropologist has the opportunity to take a picture where one of the natives is sleeping but it stops himself because of the promise he has made such rules are natural and absolute humans have developed ways to live well together and have developed roles to ensure everyone can live happily together so what philippa is arguing here using this example is that we make
16:11 promises we make agreements when we stick to them these are things that are natural and absolute to us so what i want you to do with philippa foot is to have a look at a few things about her and i want you to also use this opportunity to have a look a little bit into aristotle's virtual ethics now when the spec changed i was really ever so disappointed when they took out virtualization virtual is one of my favorite uh topics i preferred aristotle's virtue ethics far beyond aristotle's philosophy i think aristotle's virtue ethics is very very clever so if you would like to have a look at things like arite the golden mean the vices and virtues and the patterns of behavior this again really helps you understand ethics and and then you can make links between virtue ethics aristotle's virtuous and
16:57 philippa photical naturalism and again that gives you that a star perspective because you're taking it to that next level that next stage um so when it comes to sorry my machine is talking to me no that's fine just telling me there's a lot of energy on my mac and so when it comes to ethical naturalism that is the the structure you've got the the argument with your example you've got humes come back you've got philippa fultz defense all you need to do is decide whose side are you on are you david hume are you philippe and bradley obviously when you get to intuitionism and motivism you'll be able to see far better where you are but you need to decide when you use
17:45 statements like something is good or something is bad are you do you believe this is a fact when you say abortion is right do you believe that is a fact or do you still think that is still an opinion however much evidence you get that is an opinion that's what you need to ask yourself think about any ethical statements when you use the terms good bad right or wrong ah do you believe them as fact right so i also need you to think about the strengths and weaknesses as we go along obviously i'm going to give you a few here but you need to do far far more and there will be an activity coming out later next week where you need to really think about your strengths and weaknesses but a few weaknesses of ethical naturalism right and wrong are subjective they're not objective you
18:30 need humans to exist to determine how we should live so they're not objective from humans you need humans to be able to establish the right and wrongness of them regardless of whether a situation may have evidence to support that it's right such as euthanasia it still breaks the law so it's just essentially pointless you could get endless amounts of evidence to back up that euthanasia is right or euthanasia is good it's still against the law what's the point do ethical and moral situations have evidence which evidence do we accept and ignore so i'm saying hitler is a bad man but i'm completely ignoring the fact that he won a medal for bravery in the second world war for being a go between other very dangerous land i've forgotten that i forgot on how he was very very caring towards animals and his dog
19:16 i've left out the fact that he was probably a very loving partner to ever brawn or or wife um so uh to his wife so i've left all those bits out to only get evidence to support that hitler was a bad man is that again fair what evidence do you accept what evidence do you ignore mackie does argue that the rules themselves are not hard facts they are accepted to varying degrees by all those inside the institution so again basically saying it's biased right so intuitionism time
20:01 intuitionism main name is g.e moore now market has cropped up over the course of your time with me but this is where he really falls ge more believed that we should do the thing that it causes most good to exist moral truths are indefinable but self-evident through intuition more was particularly concerned with rejecting utilitarianism which argued that goodness can be defined quantified and qualified so let's just break this all down a little bit more he's saying that you can't define them he's saying you can't define what moral truths are you just know them they're just self-evident it's just something that you know and and he rejects you to attain as a nice synoptic link there you could
20:46 also use ge mar against utilitarianism if you did a utilitarianism essay so nice link there between them because it says that you can't define goodness you can't quantify to remember the hedonic calculus trying to quantify happiness more happiness purity etc or qualify it higher and lower so he says you can't do this he gives good as uh his example he says good is a simple notion a basic notion like yellow yellow is the example that he gives he says you know when you see it so for example a dog for example can be broken down into different qualities an animal mammal etc whereas good is just good yellow is just yellow it's like trying to explain yellowness to something it's never seen
21:32 before to a blind person how would you describe yellow you can't yellow is indefinable just like goodness and over the years there's so many um teaching uh teaching tips we get so much advice of do this don't do this mac and green dot marking green marking red dot mac in red use visual as well as odd we get so many things as teachers to guide those down what is the best way to learn and one of the things always crops up is use of the word good in feedback and that you shouldn't and i am criminal to this you shouldn't use the word good in feedback because it actually doesn't mean anything it's not definable you know that it's a
22:18 positive term so you know you've done something good but it doesn't actually mean anything but you know self evidently what it means goodness is indefinable such as yellow we know what is yellow and can be wrecked and can recognize it but we cannot actually define it or describe particular qualities of it if i am asked what is good my answer is that good is good and that's the end of the matter in principle ethica good is good good isn't anything else a dog is a mammal a dog is an animal good is just good yellow is just yellow and so that's the examples that he uses but you understand the meanings because they're self-evident
23:06 g mark continues that the attempts to define good in terms of something that can be verified or falsified uh is to commit naturalistic fallacy so he is once again going against ethical naturalism so this is directly against ethical naturalism ge more continued that um verified or falsified meaning proven something true or false you cannot prove something true or false and if you do you commit naturalistic fallacy so he believes that ethical naturalism committed the naturalistic fallacy g e moore was influenced by hume's is ought to distinction so it's the is art distinction basically he just renamed it the naturalistic fallacy more argued that you cannot identify
23:53 goodness an ethical statement with a natural quality of state about the world and non-ethical system so basically again you cannot put them together you cannot infer from a description about how the world is to how the world ought to be so again euthanasia is the premature ending of someone's life you cannot then get how you ought to behave from that they are separate statements is and alt distinction and if you believe that you can prove uh true or false then you commit the naturalistic fallacy again we can we're familiar with the word fallacy fallacy is this idea of finding uh fault in statements that are made and obviously naturalistic because it's called ethical naturalism let me just go back to that for one second in an essay you do not need to do hume
24:41 and ge more because they're the same argument you don't need to do humes is art and then ge mars naturalistic fallacy my advice actually would be to do ethical naturalism and use ge more against it and then you say whether intuitionism whether you just know itself evidently what it means or whether you believe their facts and ethical statements are the same you need to decide then which angle you are going down are you team ge mo are you team bradley so i i would advise just picking one or the other pick hume or gmo i think gmar is easier to use because he links in them with intuitionism oh sorry folks
25:45 the joys of teaching from home hopefully this has continued and you can still see and hear me i'll be very upset if you can't and i have to do it all again but we'll keep going that's all we can do cat with teaching from home in these situations right we bring in at this point h e pritchard so here pritchard with his white hair and his very dark mustache he built on maul's work he said that
26:32 reason collects the facts and intuition i always do this i was thinking of intuition like in your brain your thoughts intuition determines which course of action to follow so you collect the facts and then you determine through intuition what you should do he distinguished between general thinking reasoning uh used to assess the facts in the situation and moral thinking this is the immediate intuition of what you should do you see somebody suddenly collapse in the street your reasoning immediately is they look like they've had a heart attack they're having a stroke they're looking and discomfort and pain something is wrong what is happening your moral thinking that immediate intuition is i must go over them to help i must ring 999 etc so that's the process that you go through
27:17 he recognized that different people have different intuitions about what is right and wrong we then bring wd ross in this was pritchard's student so it's a bit like um passing on the torch of intuitionism w d ross he says what is right is always unique depending on what is morally suitable for the person the situation a person is in you never know all the facts about the situation you base your judgments about what is right and wrong on your intuition that's a fair point you never know all the facts even when you're in a hospital and you're helping somebody you never know all the facts about a situation it's obvious that certain types of
28:04 actions are right though and so he called these prima facie duties these are these are actions that are always uh right fidelity keeping your promises reparation when you've done something wrong repair it you know recognize it gratitude being grateful being thankful justice beneficient so helping others benefiting others self-improvement and non-maleficent so don't harm others don't be malicious so again with these three ge more pritchard and ross and i think there might be someone else on the last side i can't remember if he's still there or not they don't really add anything immensely extra to what gma's already said so my
28:51 advice would be just to learn a little bit about pritchard so just the two types of thinking would be enough a little bit about ross which would just be the prima facie duties that would be plenty and again you evaluate do they work do they not work is it a good way of thinking is it not a good way of thinking oh and if the duties conflict that you follow first sight duties again go by your intuition intuition that gut feeling so again you need to work through strengths and weaknesses what do you think about intuition is my team intuition do you think you know what is good and bad through intuition you just know it a few problems are to get you started more does not explain nor prove how we know through good through start that one again good through
29:38 intuition alone and not through senses what that means is what is intuition where is intuition does everyone have intuition do you have the same intuition throughout your life does it develop so you become more ethical as a five-year-old have the same intuition as an adult a male and female have the same intuition he doesn't explain any of it he doesn't say what it is he doesn't say it because he says to not use senses just use intuition alone how do you not use senses all those problems that we used to have with plato you know how to turn off your senses how do you know your intuition is based on intuition and not your senses a lot of questions that go unanswered how can we be sure our intuitions are correct what happens if they conflict
30:23 and jail mackey once more argues that morality is not just about what a person believes is intuitively right it's about doing something about it now i think that's a brilliant point and when we do conscience we'll see this idea of action and this is why again just making a little uh link back this is why i like liberation theology so much this idea of um arthur praxey over orthodoxy this idea of actually doing something about it so it's all well and good intuitive knowing what is right or wrong but if you don't know anything about it again what's the point it has to lead to some action and that's when you move down the normative route finally final section
31:10 as always with these videos pause them make your notes come back to them and fill you know you work through and create your notes as uh best suits you emotivism aj he's gonna come up when we do ethical uh sorry religious language so when we start philosophy we've got two religious language topics aj air crops up there as well as part of his work with the vienna circle the vienna circle was basically sounds very interesting it probably really was not uh the vienna circle was just a bunch of blogs that got together in vienna had a little power with their whiskies and their cigars and said oh what should we call ourselves let's call ourselves the vienna circle and they sat around and talked about philosophy because what
31:56 else do you do and he drew upon the thinking of david hume aya believed that there are three types of statements logical analytical factual synthetic and moral emotivism is ethical non-naturalism oh we'll come back to it because it rejects the view that morals tell you anything about the external world all right sir ethical non-naturalism sounds very complicated it really is not break it down ethical right wrong good and bad non-naturalism basically saying it's going against ethical naturalism ethical naturalism is
32:43 arguing that good bad right and wrong are facts in nature this is saying it rejects that view completely morals do not have any link to the world they are nothing to do with facts that's all that means oh going back up moves away from the claim that moral language has some kind of absolute meaning morals are only relative to our feelings and emotions and therefore cannot be verified through science or maths therefore these tell us about the person not the external world so if somebody says to you um i believe it's the right thing to be a whistleblower that is them telling that tells you something about them as a person not about the world as a whole in other words good
33:30 bad right and wrong express approval or disapproval so if somebody said to you um i'm considering having an abortion and you go that is bad you're expressing approval or disapproval so you are expressing approval disapproval on the decision that they are making this then comes the boo hara theory this is um one of those things that you can't really mention without smiling it's the idea that moral status express an emotion so basically when you say something is bad you are in other words just going boo at what they're saying not bill like a ghost but like boo like bad i can't believe i had to film myself
34:16 doing that um and hurrah or hurray is in hurrah hooray yay as in we agree that's right yes let's do that um that is emotivism so that is saying that when you are using them as good bad right and wrong you are expressing something about yourself just like basically saying boo or hara to something moving on quickly ciel stevenson here crops up into this one there he is c.l stevenson we come across names in this that we probably will never come across again any other topics aj as i said do comes does come back up but people like stevenson does not
35:01 he is interested in how moral statements are used and what results they are intended to produce so moral statements he says contain an element that expresses an attitude relative to a fundamental belief and an element that seeks to persuade or influence others so in all those words and bumble what he's basically saying is is that when you use the words good bad right or wrong you're actually trying to persuade or influence the person you're talking to so when you say you know if somebody's talking about ivf for example should i have ivf and you've got hurray or what a good idea you're then trying to persuade or influence them of yes i think you should do that and so you're trying to influence or persuade others there's
35:47 aj air so aj aya yes he does look like roadrunner as many students over the years have said he says and the man who was ostensibly contradicting me is merely expressing his moral sentiments so there is plainly no sense in asking which of us is in the right for neither of us is asserting a genuine proposition in language truth and logic i do have that book on my bookshelf it is fairly dull um what is saying there again and all those words is actually very very good what he's saying is that when somebody contradicts you when somebody doesn't agree with you when someone has a different opinion to you there is no point asking which of you is right because
36:33 neither of you is right he's basically saying um aj air is that neither of you are sitting a genuine true proposition so you just need to accept that they are saying something different to what you are saying because it's based on emotions not fact he's a facts man as we'll find out when we do uh religious language a is so disagreements as arguments based on preference whereas stevenson saw them as arguments based on different beliefs and again you need to be able to evaluate immortalism part of being human is to stress emotions especially moral situations so it's quite a strength of it really that it is based on emotions because often people do see ethical statements is based on emotions everyone can understand the theory and apply it everyone's opinions are equally
37:20 valid um however ethics based on attitudes upbringings feelings is emotivism just simply subjectivism james rachel's he was a critic in euthanasia and he points out that moral judgments appeal to reasoning not just expressions of things so he's actually saying no there is some fact there not just an emotional response finally alistair mcintyre questioned stevenson's views about how moral views are actually formed in the first place he calls emotivism or pig it does not give any help in explaining how we can distinguish the feelings and attitudes that are moral from all the things i choose that we might have it's a fair point
38:06 how do you know which when you're making moral statements or when you're expressing feelings and attitudes how do you distinguish them from other statements and other attitudes etc so very very hard to distinguish the reason i've given you some strengths there is not because i think emotivism is the better argument i actually think it's the worst that's why i've given you some strengths to help you and you need to now decide one of your activities uh coming in the next couple of lessons will be to decide and justify which team you are on iu team ethical naturalism team intuition is my team of motivism now it's really probably not something that you are particularly you know you're not jumping up and down in your seats going wow i'm an intuitionist the light bulbs come on uh you know everything is yeah i'm not
38:53 expecting that you just need to pick a side and argue it so it might just be a weighing up of which which one is better than the others which is the best of a bad bunch sort of thing so you do need to decide that at some point so yeah there you go are you two ethical naturalism of intuitionism or emotivism so that's the argument that's it my advice is to keep working through this do not over complicate it that is by far enough information for you to be able to write an essay on it you need to work on the evaluation however so you need to make sure that you can do strengths instead of each approach you can you need to make sure you can use them against each other as well it's very very important um i will be setting work as we go along for this and then we're going to start
39:40 conscience next week so we're gonna go straight far into conscience because again what i would like to do is i'd like to cover as much content as we can whilst at home and then we can do a lot more of the revision recapping filling in the gaps the testing the essays the mock exams for centuries escalades whatever it might be will give us time when we're back in the classroom so please work through this if of course you have any questions before friday's uh little get together please send me an email i'm more than happy to go over it but of course you'll have the internet at your fingertips google it have a look see what's out there um obviously you also have the blog as well for a little bit more um information and details etc uh but i'm also i'm always just at the end of an email if you do need my help so thank you very much everybody i will
40:26 see you on friday um bye for now guys just gonna cancel all of this down you
