Meta-ethics asks what we are doing when we call something "good" or "wrong." Are we stating facts, reporting intuitions, or just voicing feelings?
This lesson covers three meta-ethical theories: naturalism, intuitionism and emotivism, and the key distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Answer the questions and collect ⭐.
Ethical naturalism is cognitivist: moral facts are natural facts that can, in principle, be observed or verified. For example, a utilitarian might say "good" simply means "productive of the greatest happiness." Moral disputes are then factual disputes.
G. E. Moore (Principia Ethica, 1903) attacked naturalism with the naturalistic fallacy: you cannot define "good" in terms of any natural property. His open-question argument: for any definition (e.g. "good = pleasant") we can still sensibly ask "but is the pleasant good?" — so they are not identical.
For Moore, "good" is a simple, indefinable, non-natural property known by intuition. W. D. Ross added prima facie duties.
Emotivism is non-cognitivist. A. J. Ayer (Language, Truth and Logic, 1936) argued moral statements are not verifiable, so they merely express emotion — the "boo/hurrah" theory. C. L. Stevenson (Ethics and Language, 1944) added that moral talk expresses attitudes and aims to influence others.
R. M. Hare’s prescriptivism (The Language of Morals, 1952) says moral statements prescribe (universalisable recommendations). Critics of non-cognitivism warn it can make moral disagreement look like mere clashes of feeling, undermining moral reasoning; defenders reply it captures the action-guiding force of morality.
Sort each idea into the theory it belongs to.
Match each thinker to their key idea.
Cognitive vs not: Do moral statements state facts (true/false) or express something else?
Naturalism: Cognitivist: good = a natural, verifiable fact
Intuitionism: Moore: naturalistic fallacy; good is simple, non-natural, known by intuition
Emotivism: Ayer/Stevenson: moral talk expresses feelings and attitudes
Decide whether ethics is fact-stating or attitude-expressing — it changes everything. Press Finish.
You've worked through Ethical Language. 🎉
Your stars: 0 / 0
Next: test yourself in the Evaluate stage, then lock it in with Verify.