Moral Realism:

It is the perspective that there are moral truths that are properties of situations and people. Just as a
person can be tall and short, they can be morally good and bad. Just as actions are done with certain
motives or with certain time frames. So too can a action be good or bad. These properties come
from the world around us and represent actual properties and discuss how the world is.

Moral realism is broken into two parts because they disagree about the relation between moral
properties and natural properties. Moral naturalism claims that moral properties are natural
properties whereas non-naturalist claims that they are a distinct non-natural kind of property.

Moral Naturalism:

Moral Naturalism argues that moral properties exist in reality and can be described as being "natural
properties". Natural properties are described as G.E. Moore, as being properties that can be
identified through our sense experience. Via this definition, Moral Naturalism becomes reductive,
claiming that moral properties can understood in terms of another natural property such as
psychological as they are identical. Non-reductive moral naturalism, claims that morality is a
expression of the natural capacities of human beings, it is a natural part of us as human beings. They
reject supernatural explanations like edicts from God and "non-natural" faculty of reason as
presented by Kant. Moral properties are a kind of natural property but they can't be reduced to
some other property.

Utilitarianism as Moral Naturalism:

It is possible to understand Utilitarianism as an example of reductionist moral naturalism, it claims

not just that the only good is happiness but that Happiness and good can be understood as one and
the same. Happiness then, as a psychological property, reduces goodness to the same level.
Bentham can clearly be seen to hold this perspective claiming that pleasure does not suggest how
humans "ought" to act but rather what we "shall" do . Mill seems to disagree but generally
Utilitarianism can be understood as a reductionist form of moral naturalism. If this interpretation
stands it can easily claimed that it "solves" some objections facing moral Naturalism. Namely that we
understand the nature of good and we can discover what creates happiness through empirical
process and thus determine objective morality by what objectively adds the most happiness.
However, this does not assist in proving reductive moral naturalism as true and we cannot prove
empirically that happiness is the only good (other normative ethical theories will get pissy)

Virtue ethics as Moral naturalism:

It has also been argued that Virtue ethics is a form of reductive moral naturalism. Aristotle's function
argument for example, has been read as discussing the "psychological facts" of human function.
Namely that the virtues are representative of our psychological facts and these psychological facts
assist us in performing our characteristic duty. However, Annas has rejected this attitude and instead
suggests that morality is "based around" natural facts but we are unable to simply reduce something
like practical wisdom or the other virutes to natural properties.

Moral non-naturalism:
Moral non-naturalism claims that moral properties are not natural properties. The type of non-
naturalism we study is Moore's intuitionism which claims that natural properties are a distinct type
of property that can be discovered through senses and science. It rejects reductive moral
naturalism.

Moore does this by accusing reductive moral naturalism of falling prey to the naturalistic fallacy.
However, first he accuses of the theory of identifying a correlation between moral properties with a
certain natural property (namely pleasure) and this correlation is believed to be identity but this is a
mistake. For example having a heart is correlated with having a kidney but this does not mean they
are one and the same.

However, the more damming objection to reductionist moral naturalism is what Moore calls the
naturalistic fallacy. Goodness according to Moore is a "simple and unanalysable property" and as
such it cannot be defined in terms of other things. We can only meaningful say that pleasure is good
if we meaningfully distinguish between the two conditions. There is pleasure and it has the
additional property of goodness but they are not one and the same. Otherwise it would form a
circular definition of happiness. In addition because Goodness cannot be understood in terms of
another property we thus cannot understand it as a natural property.

The naturalistic fallacy is a contentious objection however, it can be said that the property of "being
water" does not connect with any other property of the natural world such as "being H2O". If they
were one and the same the question "is water H20" would not make sense it would be asking if "Is
H20 H20" So water is a simple property. This argument is clearly wrong. Moore does not distinguish
between concepts and properties. Two different concepts like "H20" and "Water" can refer to the
same properties in reality. Although people didn't always have the knowledge of H20 but when they
did, the concept of water became identical to H20. They are identical. So Pleasure is goodness can
be understood as two concepts referring to the same item in reality.

Another argument used by Moore is called a "open question" argument. It says that questions are
either open (if they can answered in more than one way) or closed (only being able to answer in one
way) the question "is pleasure good" is a open question because you can reasonable answer yes or
no. However, if pleasure and good are one and the same the questions becomes "is pleasure
pleasure" which is closed and doesn't work. However you can distinguish between pleasure and
goodness and these ideas can come apart because you can ask the question "it was pleasant but was
it good?" which should be a closed question according to our definition of goodness yet can clearly
be a open question. Goodness then cannot be defined in terms of another property.

Intuitionism:

Moore suggests that we cannot prove what is good or bad because in order to prove something you
must deduce it from a previous claim which we cannot do for morality. However, we also cannot
inductively argue form evidence for morality (A la Utilitarianism) so instead he suggest we can only
considered the truth of claims such as "pleasure is good". Moore dubs these Intuitions.

However, Moore fails to adequately explain what intuitions in a moral sense are. Defining them as
"claims that are incapable of proof" . This means that Moore believes that these intuitions are self-
evident propositions but going on from this further if it cannot be proven deductively or inductively
it must be a form of synthetic a priori knowledge. By considering the claims in of themselves. This
does not mean that self-evident truths are easy to understand or grasp. We must refine our ability to
understand a self-evident statement such as those of mathematics which are a type of necessary
truth. The claim made by non-naturalism is that some of our moral judgements are synthetic yet
self-evident

Issues for moral Realism:

AJ Ayer's verification:

The verification principle is a measure of what statements have meaning. Either analytically true or
empirically verifiable. However, this doesn't work for moral judgements suggesting that they aren't
true and thus refuses to accept that moral truths can be provided for by empirical investigation. How
could we prove murder is wrong empirically? We could prove it causes displeasure but that does not
prove that it is morally wrong. Ayer also rejects non naturalism suggesting that Intuitions because
they are neither analytically true nor can they be proven. They are nonsense. Moral judgements
then do not state truth or falsehoods are not meaningful as such.

Hume's fork:

There are only two types of judgments or reason, relation of ideas or matters of facts. This is Hume's
way of falsifying anything that doesn't fall into his two categories and thus are not knowledge. This
means that moral judgements are not knowledge because they do not neatly fit into the idea of
either of humans "Judgements of reason". You can push back and try to argue that moral
judgements are relations of ideas, however relations of ideas must be true and are self-contradictory
if you deny them. Furthermore, it cannot be matters of fact because there is no "factual" empirical
basis for the property of "morality". Hume's argument then is sound and presents a serious
objection to cognitivism.

Moore suggests that Hume misunderstands the reality of moral judgements as they are neither
matters or fact nor relations of ideas but represents a form of rational intuition as discussed by his
theory. This objection however places more pressure on Moore's theory to explain how synthetic
statements that are self-evident are even possible. Reductive naturalist argue that moral
judgements are matters of fact as seens in mill's proof of utilitarianism, because it provides us
empirical evidence for accepting moral judgements as properties in reality.

Hume's argument from motivation:

This argument is incredible simply. According to Hume moral judgements are able to motivate
actions whereas reason cannot motivate actions and therefore moral judgements cannot be
considered to discuss statements of fact. According to Hume's fork, neither relation of ideas or
matters of fact can motivate someone to act. This is because reason has a mind to world relation,
namely that they tell us how the world is but nothing about how it should be. Facts may tell us
something more about our current desires but how could they create them?

A response to Hume's argument is to claim that moral judgements do not motivate actions. Rather
moral judgements require the actor having a will to do good. Otherwise they would not care about
the factual judgement being described and generally people do care about morality and want to do
what is right, while this may seems that moral judgements are the motivating factor it instead a level
of good will as a response to the moral judgement to motivate actions.

Hume's ought is gap:

Hume makes a key distinction between judgments of reason (which claim what IS the fact) and
moral judgements (which claim what OUGHT to be the fact) and this is a distinction worth
considering. How do these "oughts" link to "is"? Take the statement "eating meat causes animal
suffering, therefore you ought not to eat meat" according to cognitivism the conclusion of the
judgement is a moral truth and the moral truth is inferred by the premises beforehand. However,
how is this the case? The premise discusses how the world is but the conclusion states how the
world "ought" to be. We cannot infer from the statement about "IS" to the "ought".

Mackie's argument from relativity:

Mackie's argument targets moral realism (a subset of Cognitivism) where he attempts to prove that
are no objective moral properties or truths. Due to the different moral standards held by different
societies (such as Aztecs performing human sacrifices) and this may be described as descriptive
relativism which does not prove that moral realism is incorrect. Different cultures have had different
scientific ideas but there is still an empirical element to claims about the distance earth is from the
sun for example. However, Mackie suggests that moral truths do not operate in this way. If a society
had the facts that informed them about empirical truths they would likely swap their understanding,
the same is not true of moral beliefs. It is much more plausible to say that contextual factors has
given ways to different ways of living rather than multiple societies striving towards the "truth"
about morality.

A response to this is to claim that a majority of societies has observed certain principles.

Mackie's argument from metaphysical queerness.

Sadly nothing to do with Queer LGBTQ+ meaning but instead just a word for odd. Mackie suggests
that in order for Moral properties exist they must be distinct from anything else in the universe.
Moral judgements motivate us but that if there were moral properties, simply knowing what is good
and bad would be enough to motivate our actions. This would mean that the term goodness has
"must be pursudness" built into it. This seems fairly bizarre, how could a objective moral fact in
reality motivate us to action. This seems that the direction of fit is incorrect. To know true things
does not imply motivation. It seems then that moral properties cannot be natural properties
because all other natural properties do not have the same impact on reality. Thus this now defined
non-natural property is odd indeed.

Epistemological Queerness:

This objection targets Moore's intuitionism, Mackie questions a fundamental element of naturalism,
how do we know moral truths if they are objective. Mackie suggests that we cannot learn them
using any of our normal senseory perceptions nor can they be deduced using reason. Instead Moore
claims we possess a special organ designed for understanding morality. Mackie suggests this is
insufficient in explaining the nature of moral truths. Non-naturalist pushes back claiming that moral
truth is not the only type of truth suffers from being defined as "intuitions" we can explain our
knowledge of necessary truths or how we know it. If empiricism is unable to explain these instances
they must be thrown out alongside moral truths. Mackie presses the argument, if we express a
statement like "that's not good, you are being cruel" we are suggesting the natural property of cruel
is within the definition of good. Cruelty is a psychological fact but where is the link between this
natural property but where does this fact connect with the "moral fact" of not being good. It cannot
be deduced and is not obviously true therefore cannot be easily understood. Moral properties are
natural properties becomes a harder proposition to accept.

Responses:

Mackie's argument here misuses the term reality, even the most stubborn reductive naturalists
would think that the closest natural property to moral property would be psychological properties
and these don't represent the kind of mind in-dependant parts of reality that Mackie presupposes.
While psychology properties are certainly elements of reality. It can be argued they are mind
independent, you can convince yourself you are when you are not. In another sense moral
properties can be considered in terms of Eudaimonia, which according to Aristotle is an objective
statement about someone's life.

Ultimately, if moral facts are about our mind and they are true in the sense that they are true
independent of our minds we can consider them to not be as queer as first understood.

….

Error theory:

Mackie agrees with the perspective of a realist that moral judgments are cognitive and we make
objective claims about a moral reality when we use moral language. However there is no moral
reality according to Mackie and thus all moral claims are false. To claim that anything is good or bad
is false because there is nothing true about morality in reality. There cannot be objective moral
values because moral properties do not exist. These are supported by our previous understanding of
Queerness and relativity.

This theory is mostly in agreement with moral realists apart from a discussion of Mackie's idea of
mind independent moral properties which some moral realists consider to be confused and several
responses claim that mackie mis understands the nature of mind independent moral properties.

Emotivism:

This theory claims that moral judgements express the feeling or attitude of approval or disapproval.
When saying "murder is wrong" the speaker is stating disapproval of the act of murder. This can
understood to as morality being subjective however, it is different from a subjectivism (another
theory). Subjectivism claims that moral judgements assert disapproval or approval and there is a
distinction between these two conditions.

Subjectivism typically appears in two forms, the first type suggests that moral judgments express a
general consensus approach. "Murder is wrong" just means the majority of people disapprove of
murder. However, this hardly seems to be right. Racism is a historic injustice but was widely
accepted by many people, most people can say racism is wrong despite how many people have
approved of it. They don't appear to be contradictory.

Another form of Subjectivism, called speaker subjectivism, claims moral judgments arise out of
discussion of a person's personal psychological state. The statement "Murder is wrong" refers to a
personal truth about my psychological state. This means moral judgements are necessarily true and
are comments about the speakers psychological state. However this theory leads a person to believe
that they cannot be wrong about moral judgements, why deliberate about morality when whatever I
think must be true.

Emotivism is distinct from subjectivism, it is a non-cognitive theory, and as opposed to discussing

actual objective states about morality we are instead discussing our own feelings. WE cannot e
infallible because there are no moral truths and we are not stating true or false claims at all. AJ Ayer
reinforces this point by saying that "you acted wrongly in stealing that money" we are basically
saying "you stole that money in a horrified tone" , we express our emotions in order to arise
emotions in others and guide them towards a path of morality we want to do

After AJ Ayer, emotivism progressed people realised that emotivism did not need to rely upon the
verification principle in order to justify the emotional nature of moral language. Instead Charles
Stevenson argues that words like "good" "bad" "right" and "wrong" do not express descriptive
function but only carry the emotive quality of positive or negative judgement. Many moral traits
both discuss descriptions (you can’t be honest while keep lying) and thus it does state actual facts
but also carries a weight of judgement (someone being honest is a positive judgement of them).
Stevenson suggests that the emotive nature of moral language expresses its dynamic function to
influence people's behaviour and emotions. Moral language express the speakers attitude towards
X. This helps Emotivism explain why moral language can motivate people, if moral language was only
descriptive why would they get us to act in a certain way because the core function of emotivism is
to motivate people to act.
Issues for Emotivism.

Emotivism and moral language:

A key objection to emotivism is the question regarding the role of moral language. Is moral language
always intended to persuade? and is all language designed to persuade? Advertisement for example
is designed to manipulate people but would hardly be called "moral language". Another confusing
point arises when we express our moral views to those who already share them or feel indifferent,
we aren't trying to persuade these people. So what is our purpose? Furthermore, moral
conversations can be held dispassionately because we do not believe evoking emotions in someone
else is always a good thing.

Emotivism may respond that all these issue are not very important. The purpose of moral language is
to influence emotions of another person but all of the above situations represent non-standard
usages of the language

Emotivism on moral reasoning:

A issue with emotivism is its seeming misunderstanding of the nature of moral language. When we
say that something is right or wrong, according to emotivism we are merely expressing our personal
feelings (essentially saying yay or nay on a motion) however, most will say there moral judgements
are founded upon factual evidence rather than just being a persuasive speaker. According to
emotivism, the best moral arguments are those that convince even if it is constructed from utter
sophistry.

Ayer responds that ultimately moral arguments are discussion of facts not of moral judgements, we
are not attempting to convince the opposition they have the wrong "ethical feeling" but rather that
the opposition is mistaken about some facts on a case. While two people can agree on the facts of a
case they are able to possess different moral judgements on a case. A response to this may say that
because this reduces the value of "moral judgements" as despite the facts people may draw two
separate conclusions. Furthermore, Emotivism does not explain the value of deliberation, why is the
first moral reaction you have to a subject not wholly correct? Why would you ever need to change
your mind on a moral issue.

Prescriptivism:

Hare argues that moral words are not descriptive and emotive in meaning instead they are
descriptive and prescriptive (meaning they should guide). Hare argues that the thrust of moral
statement is not to persuade but rather to prescribe what someone ought to do. If the recipient of
this prescription chooses to act on it is a different question. Hare argues there are two type of
prescriptions, imperative prescriptions and value prescriptions. A imperative prescription is similar to
a imperative generally, they are statements that explain what a person should do such as "close that
door". Hare argues there are moral judgements act in a similar way. For example, "eating meat is
wrong" entails the imperative "do not eat meat" just in the same way that accepting the imperative
"close the door" makes you close the door, accepting that eating meat is wrong means you shouldn't
eat meat.
The other type of imperative is value judgements, these are commonly used when using words like
good and bad, they are used to denote a commendation of a subject (when using good). Statements
like "this is a good strawberry" are not just a description of the strawberry as reaching a set of
standards denoting a quality strawberry but rather I am commending the strawberry for its qualities.
There is a difference between factual descriptions and moral judgements and nothing about facts
can necessitate a moral judgement. Good is a multifaceted term, when we refer to a specific item we
are discussing a set of standards that are implicitly relied upon. However, these standards (including
ones we would rely upon to refer to someone as "morally good") are arbitrary and there is no
outside factor that makes these judgements objective. As such Good has a descriptive element to
describe our own subjective standards for a thing being "good". This means that we are able to
separate two seemingly identical things and call one good and one not good. This means that we
must suggest there is a relevant difference between the two things.

Despite these standards being subjective, we must be willing to universalise our standards for good.
It is logically contradictory to believe that it is wrong for you to steal from me but also believe that it
is okay for me to steal from you, unless there is a key distinction between these two conditions.

We do not always use good to commend however, we can use it just for its descriptive quality and
this is true of any words that both commends and describes. The use of the word "honest" for
example can be used to describe someone who tells the truth a lot even to their own detriment. You
can also believe that someone is a "morally good" person but believe they do not deserve praise.
Good therefore is made of several key features:

1. It is used to command and provide guidance

2. It assumes a set of standards that are subjective and arbitrary
3. Two identical things must be good or not. To thin otherwise is logically contradictory.

Issue for Perspectivism:

Perspectivism and moral language:

Perspectivism faces the same objection as Emotivism namely that moral language does not only
prescribe however Hare is able to respond in a more nuanced way then Emotivism, by claiming that
while moral language is not designed just to prescribe it but further than that, when making a moral
judgements we are committed to acting upon it. While this is an effective response it does not prove
a link between action and ethical language. For example, if I say "I like apples" and never eat apples.
This moral judgements does not necessitate an action.

Prescriptivism and moral reasoning:

Prescriptivism says that it can provide a more convincing explanation of moral reasoning. It appeals
to the principles of universality. In a similar way to Kantian Deontology, prescriptivism says that our
moral judgements must be universal. For example, if we think the suffering of people is wrong unless
we can come up with a relevant distinction, the suffering of animals is also wrong. However, we may
object that this understanding of moral realism is also inadequate. If the only thing that governs
moral judgements is their universalisability then if I am prepared to universalise such horrid claims
as "racism is good" (namely I am willing to allow that were I a member of a racial group that ought to
be oppressed, I ought to be oppressed as well) you cannot disagree with me objectively. Hare
responds to this claiming that opposing one's own interests is illogical and thus formulates a golden
rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

However it is possible to further this objection, if there are no objective facts about morality we
could reject the reasoning someone presents for not doing an action based on our definition of
"Good". This leads to allowing some pretty objectionable views because there is no motive for
acting apart from our personal standards.

Issues for Moral anti realism overall:

Moral Nihilism:

Moral Nihilism is the rejection of any moral principles, it suggests there is no meaningful difference
between Nihilism about morality and an Anti-realist perspective. If moral values are artificial why do
we have a obligation to be moral as morality is merely a reflection of our feelings or attitudes why
accept morality at all!

Moral non naturalists suggest that this oversimplifies their theory, suggesting that no element of
morality has objective value does not mean the choice to reject morality has no moral relevance. A
choice to have no moral feelings for a emotivism can still result in a feeling of moral judgement.
Same can be said of Prescriptivism. However, ultimately moral disagreement is the standoff of two
subjective views in contrast with Moral realism which has the backing of objectivity

Moral progress:

According to Moral Anti realism there is no objective moral reality and as such how can we define
positive change such as the moral outrage of slavery being rejected in much of the world as
"progress". The first response from Anti Realists attempts to suggest progress occurs when people
become more rational in their thinking. Therefore advancements such as slavery being rejected.
Another response suggests that moral "progress" Is just the process of transitioning from previous
moral judgements (judgements we disapprove of us) to current moral judgements (judgements we
approve of) and this process is the only kind of moral progress. Both of these responses suggests
there is nothing objectively better about our current judgements versus previous moral ideas.