WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

T1 Ethical Thought

Issues for analysis and evaluation The extent to which moral terms are just expressions of our emotions The first argument could be that moral terms do not attempt to define what terms like ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ mean, they are just an individual’s emotional response to situations. Alfred Ayer suggested this. Indeed, viewing moral terms as expressions of emotion would explain the diversity of moral opinion that we see across cultures and within our own culture. Any intuitionist response that seeks to explain these differences by positing that there are different intuitive abilities at work, cannot be substantiated with any evidence at all other than ‘we know this is the case’. Again, another argument could be that we can measure emotions and even explore the biological foundations of emotions. There has been no similar claim when it comes to Intuitionism. Instead of empirical evidence for Intuitionism there are conflicting and unsubstantiated claims that intuitions come from God, the ‘gut’ or genetics. One could argue that the Emotivism view is very logical and scientific. Emotivism recognises the importance of the scientific approach to language and that words have particular meanings. These meanings must be empirically verified and, as they cannot be verified, Emotivism rejects, therefore, the abstract use of words in previous philosophical discussion. Also, Emotivism does not necessarily mean that moral terms have no value. For example, Stevenson pointed out that what happens in ethical debate is that people are trying to change others’ attitudes and if we account for emotive meaning we can see that each is trying to affect the others’ feelings and influence them. Therefore, Emotivism can explain why people disagree about morality without making ethical debate meaningless. In fact, Emotivism makes ethical debate meaningful and is, according to Stevenson, more than just an expression of emotion. Key quote And therefore we should, I think, conclude that the validity of ethical judgements is not determined by the felicific tendencies of actions, any more than by the nature of people’s feelings; but that it must be regarded as ‘absolute’ or ‘intrinsic’, and not empirically calculable. (Ayer) However, if moral terms were only expressions of emotions then there would be no point in real moral debate. The emotional responses people give are based on some inner belief or conscience and surely something more deeply rooted than mere emotions. Any Ethical Naturalist would obviously disagree and argue that moral terms express propositions, which can be seen as true or false by considering objective features of the world. You could also argue that asserting moral statements as mere expressions of emotions is a way of defining moral terms. This leads us back to Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and the rationality of not defining moral terms. It is also held by some that emotional debates are needed to engage with what ethics is all about. What Emotivism does is just look at meta-ethics but not ethics proper. Indeed, one could argue that Ayer was wrong because his exclusion of groups 2–4 was simply due to the fact that all he was interested in was meta- ethics.

This section covers AO2 content and skills

Specification content The extent to which moral terms are just expressions of our emotions.

DRAFT

AO2 Activity As you read through this section try to do the following: 1. Pick out the different lines of argument that are presented in the text and identify any evidence given in support. 2. For each line of argument try to evaluate whether or not you think this is strong or weak. 3. Think of any questions you may wish to raise in response to the arguments. This Activity will help you to start thinking critically about what you read and help you to evaluate the effectiveness of different arguments and from this develop your own observations, opinions and points of view that will help with any conclusions that you make in your answers to the AO2 questions that arise.

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