10 THINGS ABOUT EMOTIVISM IN ETHICS

Posted Tue, 12/28/2010 - 17:25 by admin

1. EMOTIVISM IN ETHICS is the improved version of Simple Subjectivism.The following are some of its explanations and claims. 2. It was developed chiefly by the American philosopher Charles L. Stevenson (1909-1979) and was influential in the 20th century. 3. Emotivism explains, and it is correct at that, that language has other uses aside from stating facts, conveying information, or saying something that is either true or false (e.g. The sun is a star.) 4. A command (e.g. Open the door), for instance, is neither true nor false. Its purpose is not to convey information or alter ones beliefs but to get one to do something or influence his conduct. 5. Emotivism differentiates reporting an attitude (e.g. I like Hitler) andexpressing the same attitude (Hurrah for Hitler!). The former is either true or false unlike the former which just expresses an attitude, but does not even report that someone has it. 6. According to Emotivism, moral language is notfact-stating language; it is not typically used to convey information. 7. Moral language is used, first, as a means of influencing peoples behavior. You ought not to do that is treated like a command Dont do that! 8. Second, moral language is used to express (not report) ones attitude. Saying Gautama was a good man is not like saying I approve of Gautama, but it is like saying Hurrah for Gautama! 9. While Simple Subjectivism interprets ethical sentences as statements of factas reports of the speakers attitudeEmotivism maintains that these propositions donot state any fact at all, even a fact about the speaker. 10. Homosexuality is immoral, in Simple Subjectivism, means the same as I (the speaker) disapprove of homosexuality. In Emotivism, it is equivalent to something such as Homosexuality yecch! or Do not engage in homosexual acts! Analysis of the claims and assumptions of Emotivism is tackled in the article/s Subjectivism: Another Challenge in Ethics (which can be found by searching the title through www.OurHappySchool.com’s own search engine).

Simple Subjectivism: An Analysis

Posted Tue, 12/28/2010 - 17:16 by admin

THE SIMPLEST VERSION of the theory in Ethics named Subjectivism states that when a person says that something is morally good, this means that he approves of that thing, and nothing more. Philosophy professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham James Rachels (1941-2003) simplified the theory this way: X is morally acceptable X is right X is good X ought to be done These all mean: I (the speaker)approve of X. And similarly: X is morally unacceptable X is wrong X is bad X ought not to be done These all mean: I (the speaker)disapprove of X. Having implications that are contrary to what we know about the nature of moral evaluation, this version of the theory called Simple Subjectivism by Rachels is open to several objections. In his book The Elements of Moral Philosophy(3rd Edition, USA: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1999) Rachels mentions two of the objections. 1. None of us is infalliblewe are sometimes wrong in our evaluation. Whereas Simple Subjectivism implies that each of us is infallible. In the theory, assuming that one is speaking sincerelythat he really disapproves of something (e.g. death penalty) when he says it is immoralthen it follows that what he says is true. Thus Rachels argues against it: (1) If Simple Subjectivism is correct, then each of us is infallible in our moral judgments, at least so long as we are speaking sincerely. (2) However, we are not infallible. We may be mistaken, even when we are speaking sincerely. (3) Therefore, Simple Subjectivism cannot be correct. 2. Simple Subjectivism cannot account for the fact of disagreement in ethics. Case: While Jerry Falwell, a priest, declares that Homosexuality is immoral, former director of the US Legal Services Administration Dan Bradley insists that homosexuality was not immoral. In Simple Subjectivism, when Bradley said his stand, he was merely making a statement about his attitudehe was saying that he, Bradley, approved of homosexuality. Now, assuming that Bradley is speaking sincerely, how could Falwell disagree with that Bradley approved of homosexuality? Thus, Simple Subjectivism entails that there is no disagreement between them while they clearly do disagree about whether or not homosexuality is immoral. Rachels summarized the argument, thus:

(1) When one person says X is morally acceptable and someone else says, X is morally unacceptable, they are disagreeing. (2) However, if Simple Subjectivism were correct, there would be no disagreement between them. (3) Therefore, Simple Subjectivism cannot be correct. (Ibid. p. 41). Simple Subjectivism therefore is a flawed theory and cannot be maintained. In the face of such arguments, some thinkers have chosen to reject the whole idea of Ethical Subjectivism.

On Judging others Cultural Practice

Posted Tue, 12/14/2010 - 21:57 by admin

PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR at University of Alabama at Birmingham James Rachels (1941-2003), in his book The Elements of Moral Philosophy (3rd Edition, USA: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1999) discusses the case of a 17-year old girl in relation to the practice called excision in her native country of Togo in West Africa. As reported by the New York Times in a series of articles (mainly by Celia W. Dugger), Fauziya Kassindja arrived at Newark International Airport in 1996 and asked for asylum. She escaped from her country to avoid the permanently disfiguring procedure that is sometimes called female circumcision. Bearing little resemblance to the Jewish ritual of circumcision, excision is more commonly referred to as genital mutilation in Western newspapers. According to the World Health Organization, the practice is widespread in 26 African nations, and two million girls each year are excised. In some instances, excision is part of an elaborate tribal ritual, performed in small traditional villages, and girls look forward to it because it signals their acceptance into the adult world. In other instances, the practice is carried out by families living in cities on young women who desperately resist. Fauziya Kassindja was the youngest of five daughters in a devout Muslim family. Her father, who owned a successful trucking business, was opposed to excision, and was able to defy the tradition because of his wealth. His first four daughters were married without being mutilated. But when Fauziya was 16, he suddenly died. When Fauziyas marriage was arranged, preparations to have her excised were also done. Fauziya was terrified, and her mother and oldest sister helped her to escape. Her mother, left without resources, eventually had to formally apologize and submit to the authority of the patriarch she had offended. Meanwhile, in America, Fauziya was imprisoned for two years while the authorities decided what to do with her. She was finally granted asylum, but not before she became the center of controversy about how foreigners should regard the cultural practices of other peoples. A series of articles in the New York Timesencouraged the idea that excision is a barbaric practice that should be condemned. Other observes were reluctant to be so judgmentallive and let live, they said; after all, our practices probably seem just as strange to them. Suppose we are inclined to say that excision is bad. Would we merely be applying the standards of our own culture? If Cultural Relativism were correct, that would be all we can do, for there would be no culture-neutral moral standard to which we may appeal. Is this true? Is There a Culture-Neutral Standard of Right and Wrong? According to Rachels, a lot can be said against the practice of excision: 1. Excision is painful and it results in the permanent loss of sexual pleasure. 2. Its short-term effects include hemorrhage, tetanus, and septicemia.

3. Long-term effects include chronic infection, scars that hinder walking, and continuing pain. 4. Sometimes the woman dies. Rachels adds that excision has no obvious social benefits, not necessary for the group survival, nor is it a matter of religion. A number of reasons are given in its defense though: 1. Women who are incapable of sexual pleasure are said to be less likely to be promiscuous; thus there will be fewer unwanted pregnancies in unmarried women. 2. Wives for whom sex is only a duty are less likely to be unfaithful to their husbands; and because they will not be thinking about sex, they will be more attentive to the needs of their husbands and children. 3. Husbands are said to enjoy sex more with wives who have been excised. (The womens own lack of enjoyment is said to be unimportant.) Men will not want unexcised women, as they are unclean and immature. 4. And above all, it has been done since antiquity, and we may not change the ancient ways, it is argued. Notice that the reasons submitted attempt to justify excision by showing that excision is beneficialmen, women, and their families are all said to be better off when women are excised. Thus, its just proper to approach the argument, and excision itself, by asking which is true: Is excision, on the whole, helpful or harmful? Here, then, is the standard that might most reasonably be used in thinking about excision: We may ask whether the practice promotes or hinders the welfare of the people whose lives are affected by it. And, as a corollary, we may ask if there is an alternative set of social arrangements that would do a better job of promoting their welfare. Because if so, we may conclude that the existing practice is deficient. Take note that this looks like just a sample of independent moral standard that Cultural Relativism says cannot exist. It is a standard that may be brought to bear in judging the practices of any culture, at any time, including our own. Why Thoughtful People May Nevertheless Be Reluctant to Criticize Other Cultures. Rachel claims that although they are personally horrified by excision, many thoughtful people are reluctant to say it is wrong, for at least three reasons: 1. There is an understandable nervousness about interfering in the social customs of other peoples. Europeans and their cultural descendents in America have a shabby history of destroying native cultures. Recoiling from this record, some people refuse to make any negative judgments about other cultures, especially cultures that resemble those that have been wronged in the past. Reaction: We should notice however, Rachels explains, that there is a difference between (a) judging a cultural practice to be morally deficient and (b) thinking that we should announce the fact, conduct a campaign, apply diplomatic pressure, or send in the army to do something about it. The first is just a matter of trying to see the world clearly, from a moral point of view. Sometimes it may be right to do something about it, but often it will not be. 2. People feel that they should be tolerant of other cultures.

Reaction: Tolerance is, no doubt, a virtuea tolerant person is willing to live in peaceful cooperation with those who see things differently. But there is nothing in the nature of tolerance that requires us to say that all beliefs, all religions, and all social practices are equally admirable. On the contrary, if we do not think that some were better than others, there would be nothing for us to tolerate. 3. People do not want to express contempt for the society being criticized. Reaction: But again, as Rachels puts it, to condemn a particular practice is not to say that the culture is on the whole contemptible or that it is generally inferior to any other culture. It is always recognized that it could have many admirable features.

Notes in Ethics: Secularist's Explanation of Some Ethical Facts

Posted Sat, 11/20/2010 - 22:15 by admin

THE FOLLOWING are the summary and analysis of the ways secularists explain some principles in Ethics such as the existence of moral law and the binding force of moral obligation. 1. Sense of moral obligation is just the effect of social conditioning Richard Robinson: The original conscience is a set of taboos and compulsions, acquired fromassociates (An Atheists Values. 1964, p. 110). The demands of conscience are due tosociety because society expressesdisapproval of certain actions. Analysis It is the intellect which can be molded or (socially) conditioned. The sense of moral obligation cannot be explained sufficiently by social conditioningfor there are innumerable situations where a person, although feeling a desire from society to adopt a certain course, feels the moral obligation to assume a course altogether different. 2. Moral Law as Herd instinct Moral Law is nothing but our herd instincthas been naturally developed just like all our other instincts (e.g. mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food) Analysis: Three ways of showing that moral law is not a herd instinct. A) Lewis: You will probably feel two desires--one a desire to give help, the other a desire to keep out of danger [The] third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help this thing that judges between two instinctscan't itself be either of them... (The Case for Christianity, p. 8) Piano analogy: The sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself not one of the notes on the keyboard. Feeling a desire to help is different from feeling that we ought to help someone who is in danger. B) The Moral Law is that which often tells us to stimulate the herd instinct (by waking up our imaginations, arousing our pity, etc.) to do the right thing. Lewis: What it is that says to you, Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up can not itself be the herd instinct (The Case for Christianity, p. 9)

C) If the Moral Law is one of our instincts, then we ought to be able to point to some of our urges within us that we could always consider as goodbut we cannot. It is a mistake to think that some of our impulsessay, mother love or patriotismare automatically good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, arenecessarily bad. 3. Moral Law is just a Social convention Secularists: Like those other things which we learned from parents and teachers, what we consider as moral law is merely a human invention too. Analysis Some of the things we learn from home and school, like mathematics, are real truths and not just conventions. Two reasons for saying that moral law belongs to the same class as mathematics: A) Cultures have only slightly different moralities, unlike conventions (e.g. road rules, kind of clothes people wear) which differ almost completely. B) The morality of a particular community is seen as better or worse than that of another. Changes in morality are deemed as improvements or moral progress. If some moral ideas are truer and others are less true, there must be Real Morality for them to be true about. The reason ones idea of Baguio City is truer or less true than someones is that Baguio City is a real placenot just what culture or society happens to approve. 4) What men actually do Secularists: Moral Law, like Laws of Nature (e.g. gravitational law) are nothing but descriptions of what things in nature actually do. Analysis Moral law cannot be what human beings, in fact do, for many of us do not obey this law at all, and perhaps none of us obey it completely. This stand commits the is-ought fallacy. Simply because someone is doing something does not mean that one ought to do so. Otherwise, racism, rape, cruelty, murder, lying, cheating, and stealing would automatically be morally right. A purely descriptive ethics is no ethics at all. Describing human behavior is not Ethics but Sociology. What morality covers is not describing but prescribing human behaviortelling what humans ought to do, and not to do. 5. The behavior that happens to be useful or that pays Some secularists explain the Moral Law as the set of behaviors that happen to beuseful or that pay. Analysis Morality or proper observance of decency (fair play, honesty, kindness) does benefit the human race as a wholeit promotes real safety, happiness, genuine security and joy. However, to reduce and equate morality to the behavior that happens to be useful or that pays is to miss the point. Implication: To say that someone is doing immoral would just mean that what he is doing happens to be inconvenient to us. Being moral would be equated to convenience, which is not the real case, for many moral actions (e.g. implementing just sanctions) may be inconvenient to some.

Notes in Ethics: 7 Characteristics of a Good Moral Theory

Posted Sat, 11/20/2010 - 21:51 by admin

1. A good ethical theory is able to satisfactorily explain why people experience a sense of moral obligation. 2. It is able to account for the moral obligations binding force and overriding character. 3. The worldview endorsed by a good moral theory is capable of accounting for the moral accountability in ethics. (For, otherwise, morality would just be like promulgating a strict state law but without real sanction or punishment for the offenders. In such a condition, there would be no essential difference between following and transgressing the law.) 4. A sensible moral theory is able to explain why it is wrong to just live for self-interest just as we pleasewhy even a powerful person must not ignore the dictates of morality and live in pure selfindulgence. 5. It is able to satisfactorily justify why acts of self-sacrifice and heroism matter in morality. 6. It is able to justify that virtues, such as that of compassion and kindness, are not mere hollow abstractions. 7. A good moral theory does not endorse a relative, self-chosen, flexible morality that one can adjust at will.

Notes in Ethics: Theist's Explanation of Moral Obligation's Binding Force

Posted Sat, 11/20/2010 - 22:28 by admin

1. GENERALLY, ALL MEN HAVE the moral experienceof feeling obligated. 2. The binding force and overriding character of the moral obligation are attributed to God who is mans creator and thus thecause of mans moral dimension. 3. This idea is consistent with the meaning of religion itself (Latin re and ligare meaning to bind back). 4. There is a bond that exists between man and his Creator. This bond is the feeling of being morally obligated to live up to some moral law that is the expression of the commands of God and that presses down on everyone. 5. Morality is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men's behavior, and yet quite definitely reala real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us (The Case for Christianity, p.17). 6. It is absurd to suggest that this moral thing just popped into existence, or justassembled itself. When we admit a moral law, we also affirm a moral lawgiver. 7. Someone made that moral law and it is not just a disembodied principle. This explains the moral force of the moral lawwhen we break the moral rule, we feel that we offend that Someone who Himself made the rule. He urges us to do right and makes us feel responsible and uncomfortable when we do wrong.

Notes in Ethics: 6 Features of Morality

Posted Sat, 11/20/2010 - 21:45 by admin

1. People experience a sense of moral obligation and accountability One cannot doubt successfully a phenomenon of his own existencenamely, his moralexperience. Even secularists like Kai Nielsen recommend that oneoughtto act or follow some rules, policies, practices, or principles. [Kai Nielsen, Ethics Without God. London: Pemberton, 1973, p. 82.]

 Even atheist Richard Dawkins declares that there are moral instruction[s] on how we ought to behave. [Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006, p.347.] Fundamental moral concepts (i.e., terms of moral obligation) have binding force and overriding character features that explain moral accountability. 2. Moral values and moral absolutes exist Its hard to deny the objective reality of moral valuesactions like rape, torture, and child abuse are not just socially unacceptable behavior but are moral abominations. [William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1994, p. 124.] Even Darwinist Michael Ruse admits, The man who says it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5.[Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended. London: Addison-Wesley, 1982, p. 27.] Some actions are really wrong in the same way that some things like love andrespect are truly good. There are moral absolutestruths that exist and apply to everyone, like that you ought not to torture babies for fun on feast days. 3. Moral law therefore exists When we accept the existence of goodness, we must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. C.S. Lewis (The Case for Christianity) demonstrates the existence of a moral law by pointing to men who quarrel-- the man who makes remarks is not just saying that the other man's behavior does not happen to please him but is rather appealing to some kind of standard of behavior that he expects the other man to know about. [C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity. New York: MacMillan, pp. 5-6.] 4. Moral law is known to humans Moral law is also called Law of Nature because early philosophers thought that generally speaking, everybody knows it by nature. [C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity. New York: MacMillan, pp. 5-6.] Different civilizations and different ages only have slightly different moralities and not a radically or quite different moralities. One can not present a country where a man feels proud for double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. Men may have differed as to whether one should have one wife or four wives but people have always agreed that one must not simply have any woman he likes. Will and Ariel Durant: A little knowledge of history stresses the variability of moral codes, and concludes that they are negligible because they differ in time and place, and sometimes contradict each other. A larger knowledge stresses theuniversality of moral codes, and concludes to their necessity. [Will and Ariel Durant,The Lessons of History. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968, p. 37.] 5. Morality is objective Morality is absolutethere is a real right and real wrong that is universally and immutably true, independent of whether anyone believes it or not.

 Since almost all people assume certain things to be wrongsuch as genocide, murder of babies for feast, and rapethe best explanation is that such things really are wrong and morality is objective. [Lowell Kleiman, Philosophy: An Introduction Through Literature. New York: MacMillan, pp. 317324.] How could anyone hold that the truth that torturing a baby is wrong is not a moral absolute but a relative judgment? Moral relativism is self-defeatingthe statement there are no absolutes itself implies a claim for an absolute principle. 6. Moral judgments must be supported by reasons Moral judgments are different from mere expressions of personal preferencethey require backing by reasons, and in the absence of such reasons, they are merely arbitrary.[James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy.