Confidential Customized for Lorem Ipsum LLC Version 1.

METAETHICS
GROUP-H
Adil, Abhinay, Yagyesh, Naveen, Rajkumari, Kushal, Amratya, Indrajeet and Ajay
Confidential Customized for Lorem Ipsum LLC Version 1.0

Roadmap

Introduction Moral Subjectivism

Meta-Ethics Moral Antirealism

Forms of Moral Realism Concept of Ethical theory

Descriptive and Normative Cultural relativism

Introduction
● Is it wrong to steal to feed your family?

● Is there such a thing as a good lie?

● domain of ethics – the branch of philosophy

● studies morality, or right and wrong behavior.

● before we can parse questions

● metaethics, which studies the very foundations of morality itself

● what is morality?

● What’s its nature?

● is it an objective thing, out there in the world

● Or is it more like a preference, an opinion

● There are lots of different metaethical views out there.

● to put them to a test

● help you solve some thorny ethical problems

● have to steal food or lie for a good cause

● What if you set out to harm someone, but you ended up saving their life by accident?
● to discover moral truths, whose existence is testable and provable

● the nature of morality is every bit

● There’s just no right answer

● totally agree on whether something is immoral or not

● but you might disagree fervently about why

● For an example of a slippery moral scenario

An example
 A burglar plots to break into an old woman’s house

 So one Sunday, he creeps up to her back window

 , he sees that the old woman isn’t at church

 She’s in there, laying face-down on the floor

 and he runs away.

 but getting nabbed for murder was NOT part of his plan.
 the old woman wasn’t dead.

 having passed out because of a carbon monoxide leak that would have killed her.

 When the burglar broke the window, he let out some of the toxic gas, and let in fresh air,

 stealing from the woman, but, inadvertently, he saved her life.

 Did the burglar do a good thing?

 Does he deserve praise

 , does he still deserve blame

 ended up saving the woman’s life?

 Your answers to these questions will help you suss out where your moral sensibilities lie.

 what metaethical view you subscribe to.

Moral Realism
● Moral Realism, the belief that there are moral facts, in the same way that there are scientific facts.

● any moral proposition can only be true, or false

● our gut intuition tells us that there are moral facts

● Some things are just wrong, and others are indisputably right

● Like, a lot of people think

● you don’t have to dig very deep into moral realism before you run into trouble
● if there are moral facts, where do they come from?

● what they are?

● Are they testable

● Are they falsifiable?

● where there’s often more consensus?

● This is what’s known as the grounding problem

Grounding
Problem
● search for a foundation for our moral beliefs

● true in a way that is clear, objective, and unmoving.

● If you can’t find a way to ground morality

● : Moral Antirealism

● moral propositions don’t refer to objective features of the world at all

● there’s nothing about gratuitous violence that’s inherently wrong.

● sometimes nurturing your kids doesn’t seem like it’s that important

● maybe morality isn’t the same for everyone

● including yourself – are committed to some form of moral realism.

● And there are MANY forms.

● So let’s familiarize ourselves with some of its most popular flavors.

Moral Relativism
● Some moral realists are Moral Absolutists

● , they believe there are some moral facts that don’t change.

● it’s wrong regardless of culture or circumstance.

● Moral facts apply as universally and as constantly as gravity or the speed of light.

● maybe Moral Relativism would appeal to you.

● more than one moral position on a given topic can be correct.

● most common forms of moral relativism is cultural relativism.

● But there are actually two different things

● Descriptive Cultural Relativism.

Cultural
Relativism
● belief that people’s moral beliefs differ from culture to culture.

● it seems obviously true

● some cultures believe that capital punishment is morally right

● other cultures believe it’s morally wrong

● killing another human is inherently unethical.

● Normative Cultural Relativism

● , capital punishment is morally correct in some cultures and is morally wrong in others

● it’s the moral fact of the matter that differs, based on culture

● , normative cultural relativism might sound pretty good to you; it does at first to a lot of people.
● . it’s all about inclusiveness and tolerance

● Who am I to tell other cultures how they should live

● this view actually has some pretty big flaws

● that means no culture can actually be wrong.

Nazi Culture
(Overview)
 It means Nazi culture actually was right, for the people living in that culture

 1940, would have just been wrong

 if normative cultural relativism is true

 concept of moral progress doesn’t make sense

 there’s never any reason to change anything.

 Problems like these make some people take a second look

 the view that there just aren’t any moral facts.

 one flavor of moral antirealism is Moral Subjectivism

 moral statements can be true and false

 refer only to people’s attitudes

 capital punishment is neither right nor wrong

 those preferences key into personal attitudes

 some people favor capital punishment

 Others oppose it and think it’s unjust

 no moral facts, only moral attitudes

Moral
Framework
● other varieties of both moral realism and antirealism

● general, metaethical lay of the land.

● lot more problems than solutions.

● moral frameworks you’ll use to navigate your way through

● known as ethical theories

● come up with consistent answers about right and wrong conduct.

● All ethical theories have some kind of starting assumptions

● all of our beliefs rest on some basic, assumed beliefs

● For instance
● another ethical theory

● known as utilitarianism

● seek pleasure and avoid pain.

● ethical theories also consist of Moral Principles

● these principles can be shared between more than one theory.

Ethical Theories
 it’s wrong to cause unjustified suffering.

 includes animals

 it’s only wrong to unjustifiably kill humans

 most people don’t identify with just one.

 most people identify with principles from several theories

Concluding
Remarks
● we talked about metaethics

● three forms of moral realism

● difference between descriptive and normative cultural relativism

● moral subjectivism, which is a form of moral antirealism.

● concept of an ethical theory

Thank you.