Metaethics

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Metaethics or fundamental ethics tries to determine the nature of morality in general and works out, for example, semantic analyzes of moral judgments. Content-related statements regarding the moral evaluation of individual actions are not made.

Basic questions

Metaethics was originally developed in the Anglo-American language area since the beginning of the 20th century and is characterized by three different controversies, which, however, are often discussed mixed up and mixed up, as they are logically related:

 
 
 Basic attitudes towards
ethical realism
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cognitivism
 
 Non-cognitivism
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
realism
 
 Anti-realism
 
- naturalistic
(empirical objects)
- non-naturalistic
(Evidence, intuition)
- supra-naturalistic
(exogenous instance)
 
- skepticism (Hume)
- idealism (empiricism)
 

Overview of the structure of the possible basic attitudes in ethical realism

  • The dispute between cognitivism and noncognitivism is about the questions: Is something recognized in ethics or is it only endorsed? Are moral sentences truthful? Are there intersubjectively binding validity claims for norms?
  • In the dispute of realism versus anti-realism it comes to the question: Are there objective values beyond subjective values and desires?
  • In the dispute morality versus amorality , relativism and nihilism it comes to the question: Should we ever be moral? If yes why?

The first question includes the analysis of the meaning of moral terms and concepts such as “good”, “right”, “ ought ”, “ duty ”, also “ action ”, “ conscience ”, “ intention ”. Some metaethicists follow a language analytical method.

The second question includes the ontological question of references and truth makers : do basic moral properties or facts exist and what are these made up of? The problem of epistemic access to moral truths and the rational justification of moral judgments represent a more epistemological topic .

Realism versus anti-realism

realism

Ethical realism says that there are objective facts of value that apply regardless of a subjective belief. The ethical realist opposes the conventionalist view that values ​​can be derived solely from personal preferences . For the realist, moral facts are not constituted; they exist independently of the knowing subject. Moral, ethical or future developments, however, are characterized by "hope" and "fear", which in turn can be traced back to subjective feelings and assessments on the part of the objective findings.

Weak ethical realism

Positions that are limited to accepting the truthfulness of ethical statements can be described as weak ethical realism. The thesis reads: "The moral realist only differs from the anti-realist when he asserts: moral judgments have the truth value and can also have the truth value 'true'."

As in epistemology, it is of the essence of weak ethical realism that fallibilism be recognized. For the weak realist, moral judgments can always be flawed.

In order to rationally conduct the discussion of realism within an acceptable range, weak ethical realists usually limit the scope of moral judgments:

  • The literal interpretation requires that the description of the subject area must not fundamentally contradict the intuitive everyday conception.
  • Appropriateness is a requirement that is intended to rule out excessive quibbles. Counterfactual thought experiments with conditions that are too special, such as excluding a subjective model of action, are not appropriate. For example, objects with only physical properties, such as stones or electrons, are neither hard-hearted nor unjust.

Strong ethical realism

A fundamental ethical realist believes that there are objective standards for the truth of moral statements. There are different ideas about the rules according to which a statement should be recognized as true:

Substantial value realism

Based on the philosophy of values at the beginning of the 20th century ( Heinrich Rickert , Robert Reininger ), there are representatives of ethical realism who assume that values ​​as entities of a special kind have an ontological existence. According to Max Scheler, there are “real and true value qualities” which “are completely independent of the existence of a world of goods in which they appear, as well as of the movement and change in this world of goods in history and are a priori for their experience”. The phenomenology of values, to which Nicolai Hartmann also belongs, justifies the existence of values ​​with their evidence . The position is also known as moral intuitionism . Here, too, one can distinguish between a strong and a weak conception. Strong means complete, weak at least partial independence from subjective influences such as interests, wishes or wills.

The criticism of this view points out that the assertion of objective values ​​does not yet show what these objective values ​​are. For different people, very different values ​​may be evident. Since, without assumptions beyond substantial value realism, such controversial issues could only be decided by further evidence, the question arises as to who has the better intuition. Of course, this cannot be decided on the basis of the results of the conflicting intuitions.

Noncognitivists and amoralists claim that for them no values ​​are evident or intuitively understandable. Value realists then call these critics deficient analogous to the blind. In this dispute it would first have to be explained more precisely what exactly is meant by evidence and intuition. On the level of physical suffering and empathy with it, the analogy to perception is more obvious than with complex cultural values. However, it is not clear on what basis a particular receptivity or blindness should be based.

Procedural moral realism

Thomas Nagel does not consider it necessary that an ethical realist must assign an ontological status to moral values: “The position that recognizes values ​​as real does not mean that they are occult entities or qualities, but that they are real values: that a judgment about these values ​​and the reasons people have for their work can be true or false regardless of our convictions or inclinations. ”Instead, one can find methods that create objectivity in the evaluation of moral statements. To evaluate a statement, Nagel suggests taking a stand that disregards subjective interests and judging impartially. Similarly, Adam Smith had already suggested that the judgment of an uninvolved, neutral observer be used as the basis for deciding ethical questions. For Nagel, in contrast to Mackie, it is not a question of whether there is good, but rather whether there are impartial reasons for judging something as good.

The criticism accuses Nagel of decisionism, since he gives no reason why one should judge one's actions from a neutral point of view at all. The normative obligation as a logical necessity to judge oneself according to moral criteria is precisely what realism postulates with its assertion of objective values, which Nagel misses.

Rationalistic moral realism

It is believed by Kantians like John Rawls that one can find maxims that are universally valid for a practical rationality. This includes the ontological existence of the underlying standards.

Anti-realism

Anti- realism consists only in the criticism of realism.

Against ethical realism, John Leslie Mackie argues that analogous to the epistemological discussion of the correspondence theory of truth (see also Münchhausen Trilemma ) there is no logical way to justify the existence of ethical values. Therefore, any claim that a moral proposition is true is an error ( error theory ). Ethical realists, like epistemological realists, refer against this argument to the success of their position in everyday practice (see the arguments on hypothetical realism). But since violations of moral norms cannot and often occur, it is unclear what these successes consist of.

Cognitivism versus noncognitivism

Noncognitivism

According to noncognitivism, the area of ​​the normative is not accessible to any scientific (true and objectively valid) knowledge. For moral convictions elude the two criteria of truth of the empirical sciences, logical or mathematical proof and verification through observation or experiment. The question of the correspondence of moral statements with reality is meaningless, which is why no claim to truth can be made for them (see also Hume's law ).

For noncognitivists, adherence to ethical rules is a matter of character and not of knowledge. Morality can therefore only be trained as habitus , but not learned as abstract knowledge.

A representative of noncognitivism in contemporary philosophy is Simon Blackburn , who points out that the criticism of noncognitivist ethicists of cognitivism is not directed against moral expressions, but only its claim to objectivity. The non-cognitivist only criticizes the justification of ethical statements, but not the values ​​and judgments found in practice. However, amoralists fully agree with the non-cognitivist criticism.

Emotivism

As emotivism (also: Expressivismus ) refers to a non-cognitivist metaethical theory that moral judgments merely as an expression of our own (emotional) settings are to be understood, the commanding form of judgments as a means to influence the attitudes of others within the meaning of that judgment is interpreted.

Triggered by the growing influence of analytical philosophy and logical positivism in the 20th century, this theory was most clearly represented by Alfred Jules Ayer in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic , and was then further developed in crucial respects by Charles L. Stevenson to become. GE Moore previously made a fundamental contribution to the emotive theory with the investigation of relationships between the terms "good" and "beautiful" in Principia Ethica of 1903.

Emotivism is based on the knowledge that the act of speaking not only conveys information, but also expresses and evokes feelings. He was inspired by the positivism of the Vienna Circle and Ludwig Wittgenstein .

According to this view, “good” cannot be defined because it is only a pseudo-term. The only difference between the sentence “You did wrong by stealing the money” and the sentence “You stole the money” is the additional moral disapproval that I implied in this language act, besides the word “steal” Express. Instead of the sentence “taking away money is wrong” one could just as easily say “steal money” and pronounce the words with a certain reproachful tone (Ayer).

It should be noted that, according to the emotivist theory, value judgments are not sentences in which (no longer analyzable) feelings are expressed or the existence of which is claimed. Such a statement would be a factual judgment about an underlying psychological fact (the feeling of certain feelings) and not an actual value judgment. Rather, a value judgment is the expression of a feeling; therefore it can neither be true nor false.

The most important arguments of noncognitivism can already be found in David Hume . In his view, only two types of propositions raise a truth claim: sentences that a statement about the relationship of ideas (ideas) included and that make sentences a statement on the range of experience. In the case of the “objects” of morality, affects, acts of will and actions, the question of a correspondence with reality is meaningless for Hume ; statements about them can not be inferred from factual statements according to Hume's law . Reason is not in a position to motivate the will or to oppose an affect. Its function is exhausted in the fact that it seeks means for the ends given by the affects. According to Hume, the rules of morality are not conclusions of reason, but are based only on a feeling:

Reason is only a slave to affects and should be. It must never claim any other function than that of serving and obeying them [...]. It is not against sanity if I want the destruction of the whole world rather than a scratch on my finger.

This approach was taken up again in the metaethical discussion of contemporary philosophy. Like Hume , Alfred Jules Ayer distinguishes between two classes of meaningful statements or propositions: analytical and empirical propositions. For Ayer, moral propositions cannot be classified in either of these two classes. In his view, they rather serve to express feelings or attitudes of the speaker and are intended to arouse feelings in others in order to trigger actions:

The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its actual content. So when I say to someone, 'You did wrong by stealing the money,' I am no longer pretending to have simply said, 'You stole the money'. In adding that this act was wrong, I am making no further statement about it. I am only showing my moral disapproval of this act. It is as if I wrote 'You stole the money' with a particular tone of horror or with the addition of a few special exclamation marks. The tone of voice or exclamation marks add nothing to the meaning of the sentence. They only serve to indicate that his expression is accompanied by certain feelings on the part of the speaker.

Criticism of emotivism

Against the thesis of emotivism that ethical statements are mere expressions of feeling without truth value , in addition to the reference to the self-contradiction of noncognitivism (see skepticism ), the objection is raised that it neglects the locutionary component of moral utterances too much. Moral expressions expressed a subjective attitude of the speaker to the object and also served to trigger a certain behavior of the other. Their meaning could not be exhausted there, since the conviction of the correctness of one's own statement represents the basis of one's own attitude and the demands on the other. Furthermore, emotions and requests could in turn be subjected to an ethical evaluation. It generally makes sense to ask whether the emotion associated with a moral utterance or the action you want to trigger in the addressee of your utterance are themselves good.

Cognitivists continue to emphasize that the question, "How should I act in the given situation?" Is a meaningful question and that the answers given to it are not indifferent. Sentences that contain how people should act represent assertions with a claim to correctness. This general validity claim can be justified or criticized by arguments. In this respect, for the cognitivists, the endeavor of ethics to answer questions as generally valid as possible about how to act is by no means pointless or superfluous.

Metaethics of value relativism

The relativism of values and ethical relativism is the view that normative standards of human behavior are not universally true, but at most within a given culture ( cultural relativism ) or a particular historical epoch ( historical relativism ) are in fact valid.

One criticism of this position is that the description of social conventions does not make the question of rational reasons for action or morality without reference to a specific culture or tradition meaningless. The controversial question between relativists and their opponents is whether one can abstract from one's own cultural background so much that one takes a neutral standpoint.

Cognitivism

Cognitivism clings to the principle of recognizability of the moral. In his view, sentences of moral language contain statements for which a truth or at least fallibility claim is made. When it comes to the question of how this claim to truth can be redeemed, the various directions differ. Many cognitivists are ethical realists who believe in findable objective values. Antirealist cognitivists, on the other hand, rely on intersubjective discourses or criticisms as methods of knowledge that do not require any subject-independent values.

Cognitivists bring u. a. three arguments against noncognitivists:

  • When evaluations are understood functionally, they are not really moral judgments.
  • The non-cognitivist thesis that normative judgments are not truthful contradicts the everyday language in which people ask themselves whether they should really or really do this or that without referring to social authorities.
  • Noncognitivists can only give relative moral justifications and thus fall under the criticism of the amoralists .

Antirealistic cognitivism

Fictionalism

The fictionalism , as it z. B. is represented by Richard Joyce on the basis of the error theory of John Leslie Mackie , says that the speech about morality is a speech about fictional objects, similar to fairy tales, stories about Santa Claus or Lord of the Rings .

Metaethics of Discourse Ethics

Discourse ethics is a modern variant of cognitivism . Discourse ethicists like Habermas assume that ethical norms cannot be justified with the help of perception and logic alone. Hence, they claim not to break Hume's law and not to commit the naturalistic fallacy .

Habermas points out, however, that moral judgments are asserted as "true" or "right" in the same way as empirical statements. The validity claim made with this assertion corresponds to the claim to truth in empirical statements.

Just as the truth must be justified by empirical statements about the nature of the world if it is not to be a matter of mere dogmas, so in the case of ethical claims the claim to correctness can and must be redeemed by generally acceptable reasons. That is, it must be possible to establish an unconstrained consensus based solely on arguments about the ethical assertion if it is to be correct. This position is also known as the “ consensus theory of truth ”.

Habermas originally understood consensus in fact, but in the absence of such a real existence it was later postulated as an ideal.

Critique of the metaethics of discourse ethics

Habermas refers to the non-domineering discourse in order to achieve a consensus in answering normative questions. The rules of discourse, however, apply to correctly answering all meaningful questions, not just moral ones. In addition, the positive sciences also have the criterion of intersubjectively consistent observation. Almost all discourse theorists lack a corresponding consensus-building criterion.

It is only valid in relation to social normative bodies that carry out formal enactment acts. Habermas falls for a language game if he takes any further validity claims seriously, and therefore falls behind Wittgenstein . Other common idioms cannot be taken literally either, as nobody believes that calculating machines have self-confidence, even though many people say "The computer thinks ...".

There is no factual consensus. The choice of an ideal consensus as a truth criterion or an equivalent is arbitrary, ideal evidence could just as well be chosen. Consensus also does not guarantee truth, since everyone could simply be wrong.

Realistic cognitivism

naturalism

According to naturalism, there are moral facts ; these are part of nature. According to David Kellogg Lewis and Ralph Barton Perry , moral predicates turn out to be synonymous with certain empirical predicates on closer analysis, for example “good” with “useful” ( utilitarianism ) or “pleasurable” ( hedonism ). Moral judgments can then be derived from true statements about man and the world; the search for the right morality becomes a matter of empirical science. Other representatives are Richard Boyd and in Germany Peter Schaber.

Naturalism is based on the rejection of the argument of the naturalistic fallacy . In contrast to intuitionism and supernaturalism, it asserts the objectivity of moral statements without referring to supernatural facts.

There are very different forms of naturalism, depending on what moral fact one believes to be found in nature:

Biologically oriented naturalism asserts as natural values, for example, individual survival, the successful rearing of one's own children, nephews and nieces, the principle of maintaining one's own lineage (previously erroneously 'species', see group selection ) or the principle of further developing one's own lineage a higher level of evolution (superman). This also includes the view that apparently moral altruism is already genetically created and also exists in the animal world ( Richard Dawkins ). Metaethical naturalism is then a prerequisite for evolutionary ethics .

With ecologically oriented naturalism, the integrity of nature in the sense of Gaia becomes an independent value.

Anthropologically oriented naturalism is represented by Rosalind Hursthouse and Philippa Foot , who try to justify ethical naturalism through a theory about human nature . Hursthouse argues that the nature of complex living things is not just about the desire to survive and reproduce . Rather, it depends on the absence of suffering and the functioning of the community. According to Hursthouse, the moral norms result from these very characteristics that are part of human nature. Even the Ethical egoism and eudaemonism can be understood as variants of ethical naturalism. Eudaemonists argue that an act is morally imperative if and only if it results in more happiness than suffering. According to many eudaemonists, statements about happiness and suffering are purely descriptive, which is why normative, moral statements can be traced back to descriptive statements about happiness and suffering. Ethical egoists, on the other hand, see “benefit” d. H. in successful self-assertion the highest purpose of moral life. Other philosophers see human dignity as a fact.

Even the rationalist Christian Wolff can be understood as advocating a modal-logical naturalism as early as the 18th century. According to him, acts with contradicting intentions are morally impossible. This concerns selfish actions. These were only used for self-improvement at the expense of others. But every improvement is good, every deterioration is bad. Thus, only such actions are morally possible that have an exclusively improving effect on all those affected.

Sociologically oriented naturalists argue that normative sentences describe factual social conventions. The sentence “torture is morally reprehensible” is then an expression of man-made norms. With this line of reasoning, a position close to relativism is taken.

Critique of Naturalism

In particular, metaethical naturalism has to deal with three types of objections:

On the one hand, it can be objected that it is not clear how to get from the above-mentioned descriptive sentences to moral sentences. Why should one accept, for example, that the statement “x leads to more happiness than suffering” implies the statement “x is morally good”? Naturalism is rejected either on the basis of Hume's law or with the argument of naturalistic fallacy .

Second, it is not always clear whether the proposed natural criteria lead to morally acceptable norms. So there may be actions that correspond to human nature and yet should be considered morally reprehensible. This applies, for example, to xenophobia : Although according to evolutionary psychology an alleged defensive attitude towards strangers is evolutionarily selected as observable behavior, it is not morally good.

Third, there could be actions that produce more happiness than suffering and which one would nevertheless like to reject as immoral.

These last two criticisms are logically problematic insofar as metaethics are considered the logical prerequisite of applied ethics, so that the selection of the correct metaethics cannot be criticized on the basis of the moral norms that are only subsequently determined.

Intuitionism

Intuitionism ( George Edward Moore , WD Ross, HW Prichard, CD Broad, AC Ewing) is an alternative to naturalism . He considers the fundamental moral judgments to be self-evident, that is, accessible to merely intuitive knowledge.

This school turns against the naturalistic view, which identifies the good with any natural properties. “Good” cannot be defined by purely empirical characteristics. According to Moore, the “ naturalistic fallacy ” is committed by those who try to define moral properties with the help of natural properties (for example: “good means pleasurable” or “good means desired”).

Moore also claims that the meaning of “good” is completely indefinable because “good” is a simple term such as “yellow”. "As it is impossible to explain to someone who does not already know what is yellow, you cannot explain to him what is good either". Real definitions, which describe the true essence of the object or concept denoted by a word, and not merely state what the word usually means, are only possible if the object or concept in question is complex. Universal statements with the predicate “good” are always synthetic sentences, never definitions.

According to intuitionism, a person can judge what is good in ethical questions through a special faculty of feeling, just as in aesthetics the beautiful. This is not a process of perception, but the ability to judge a given situation. Moral properties of a state of affairs are to be understood in a similar way to secondary qualities or dispositional properties . Just as red is seen as a perceived quality, so justice or disgust is to be judged as a quality of a moral fact. For the nonnaturalist moral facts cannot be grasped by reductionist theories any more than qualia . Based on Wittgenstein, moral rules, like language rules, can only be determined through their use within a form of life .

Classic German representatives of intuitionism (also called nonnaturalism) are Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann. In contemporary philosophy he is represented by John McDowell , David Wiggins and Mark Platts and in Germany by Franz von Kutschera .

Criticism of intuitionism

It is unclear how the derivation of moral demands from factual sentences about values ​​according to the final rules of deontic logic should work.

The position tends towards value relativism , since there are different forms of life in which different values ​​are recognized, for example freedom and self-determination of the individual in one culture, harmony and social cohesion in the other.

Another criticism of the position considers the comparison with qualia to be misleading, since qualia cannot be thought without the sensory perception of natural objects. The analogous bases that trigger moral judgments may not even exist, but are certainly not perceived organically.

Naturalistic critics explain that even aesthetic judgments do not refer to objective ideals of beauty, but have natural roots in evolution. This also applies to the influence of morality on intersubjective communication, so that nothing is recognized here either.

The problem with intuitionism is the fact that all non-intuitionists deny that they themselves have a moral intuition in the sense of intuitionism. Intuitionism either has to give up the general binding force of moral norms, or it has to regard non-intuitionists as metaethically irrelevant, possibly perceptually disturbed persons, which, however, will not convince them to act according to the moral values ​​supposedly recognized by intuitionists.

Supernaturalism

Epicurus says that the gods will not want or demand anything because they are continuously infinitely happy.

If the existence of values ​​is justified with an authority that is independent of humans and outside the realm of the explanation of nature, for example with God , one speaks of supernaturalism . This rationale is based on religious revelation or spiritual insight. An interpretation of preferential utilitarianism, for which utility optimization is an exogenously given principle, is also considered to be supernatural .

Christian Wolff's criticism, who himself takes a theistic point of view, assumes that the laws of morality are more or less natural and can therefore be inferred even without religion, in particular through an act of revelation by God. As evidence for this thesis, Wolff refers to reports that were current at the time about the Chinese Empire.

prescriptivism

Universal prescriptivism is a language-philosophical theory that emerged in the course of the cognitivism debate. It takes on a special role in this debate, as it does not conform to either cognitivist or non-cognitivist approaches. The most important representative is RM Hare , who advocates universal prescriptivism , according to which moral judgments are both binding and motivational. Other philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle and especially Immanuel Kant have held similar views. For example, the major premise of an Aristotelian practical syllogism can be understood as such a prescriptive moral norm.

According to Hare, moral judgments formulate commands, demands, expectations and recommendations that could also be disregarded without logical contradiction. Moral norms are, according to Hare, requests such as For example: “Do not kill anyone!” These requests cannot be reduced to facts; in this he follows Hume against cognitivism.

At the same time, however, he rejects the conclusion of non-cognitivist approaches that a judgment that is not based on facts can be used to infer their general unfoundability. It is possible to justify sentences regardless of their empirical basis. Because he wants to show that the two questions are not logically linked, he has to present his own method for analyzing moral propositions.

The basic idea of ​​prescriptivism is the difference between assertions and claims when there is a discrepancy between the sentence and the world. If you make a false claim, the sentence is wrong and you have to change the sentence to get a true sentence. If the moral norm is not met, something is wrong in the world. You don't have to adapt the demands of the world, but change the world. Inferences from factual sentences to normative sentences are also a naturalistic fallacy according to prescriptivism .

Hare assumes that ethical value judgments can be reformulated into imperatives (commands, instructions) without great difficulty. Semirelational or value-constituting sentences with “good” contain an imperative element, a recommendation or an instruction. They differ from simple imperatives primarily in their assumed general binding force: Orders are always addressed to an individual or to an individual class of people; Value judgments lay claim to general validity because they refer to a standard of value or a principle of action that the speaker represents and to which he ascribes general validity.

A value judgment therefore not only expresses approval, but is also a recommendation, an instruction for action in which reference is made to a general principle, as the speaker understands and affirms. In doing so, he undertakes to designate any other action that is similar in the essential properties to this action as well.

“Good”, as it is used in moral contexts, has a descriptive and an evaluative meaning here, the latter being the primary one. The purpose of the word “good” and other value words is to be seen in their reinforcing effect in the targeted communication of value standards. Anyone who knows the standards by which the speaker judges also knows the descriptive meaning of "good".

According to prescriptivism, it is logically impossible for a person to think 'One should do the action Y in situation X' and yet not think in situation X that he should do Y. Either she agrees to the corresponding sentence, then she also acts accordingly; or, if she does not act accordingly, she is not convinced accordingly.

Hare's position was often presented in shortened form, for example at the beginning of his philosophical work as an emotivist, later as a decisionist . In the course of time, however, Hare has presented a very complex work in which he processed many arguments against noncognitivism and integrated many objectifying elements into his moral philosophy. The remainder of the criticism against prescriptivism was that Hare does not assume any logical incoherence to amoralists .

Critical conventionalism

The point of view of critical rationalism is called critical conventionalism or critical dualism (of facts and norms). Hans Albert in particular dealt with it. Accordingly, a final justification of morality is not possible (cf. Münchhausen Trilemma ). Moral standards would ultimately have to be “invented and established, as is the case with the criteria of scientific thought”. Karl Popper emphasizes, however, that stipulations are not “because they are conventional, that is, created by humans, 'just arbitrary'”. For Critical Rationalism, the question of realism versus anti-realism is very limited and the question of cognitivism versus noncognitivism is not at all. Both opposites assert a unity or close connection between truth and justification in the sense of classical epistemology ( theorem of sufficient reason ). Critical rationalism rejects this view and instead combines the maintenance of the idea of ​​absolute truth with a radical skepticism of knowledge . In addition, in the field of ethics, critical rationalism represents a fallibilism (people can also be wrong about ethical norms) and negativism (all valid arguments try to criticize ethical norms, not to characterize them positively - the validation of ethical norms is epistemological irrelevant). So there is no essential difference between the epistemological position of Critical Rationalism on scientific propositions and its position on moral norms. Both cannot and should not be justified. What matters is that they are criticized. And that is quite possible with logical bridging principles. There is the strictly deductive criterion Ultra posse nemo obligatur , that the ought implies the ability, and ability can be criticized by empirical theories. Since norms also represent problem-solving attempts for critical rationalism, they can be criticized by the empirical finding that their application does not solve the problem. Conversely, however, Critical Rationalism claims a difference between scientific theories and ethical norms on a factual level. Contrary to what historicism claims, the course of history can not be predicted in the form of a natural law. Since the future results of science influence history, such a moral law of nature should also be able to foresee these results, which is logically paradoxical. Therefore one cannot infer what is ought to be from being. According to Popper, the state should therefore restrict itself to enacting and enforcing laws that combat suffering in society. On the other hand, he should forego laws that attempt to enforce higher moral values. Choosing, living and promoting such higher moral values ​​should be a matter for the citizens alone, in which the state does not interfere. And also, according to Popper, the state must be under democratic control so that the rulers can be held accountable and bloodlessly voted out if they try to impose a false morality on society that increases suffering instead of reducing it.

literature

Primary literature

Secondary literature

Introductory literature

In-depth literature

  • Steven M. Cahn, Joram G. Haber (Eds.): Twentieth Century Ethical Theory. Prentice Hall 1995, ISBN 0-02-318031-5 .
  • Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, Peter Railton (Eds.): Moral Discourse and Practice. Some Philosophical Approaches. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-19-509669-X , v. a. Part III
  • Andrew Fisher, Simon Kirchin (Eds.): Arguing about metaethics. Routledge, London 2006, ISBN 0-415-38027-8 .
  • Jonathan Jacobs: Dimensions of Moral Theory: An Introduction to Metaethics and Moral Psychology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2002, ISBN 0-631-22963-9 .
  • Russ Shafer-Landau, Terence Cuneo (Ed.): Foundations of Ethics. An Anthology. Blackwell, London 2006, ISBN 1-4051-2952-2 .
  • Russ Shafer-Landau (Ed.): Ethical Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-4051-3320-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Schaber: Moral Realism. Freiburg 1997, p. 33.
  2. ↑ Christoph Halbig: What is moral realism? In: Halbig / Suhm, p. 281.
  3. ↑ Max Scheler: The formalism in ethics and the material ethics of values. 6th edition. (1916), Bern 1980, pp. 37/38.
  4. ↑ Thomas Nagel: The view from nowhere. Frankfurt 1992, p. 249.
  5. ↑ Adam Smith: Theory of Ethical Sentiments . See also Ernst Tugendhat : Lectures on Ethics.
  6. ↑ Garner and Rosen ( Moral Philosophy , Chapter 13 (“Noncognitivist Theories”)) and Brandt ( Ethical Theory , Chapter 9 (“Noncognitivism”)) classify the (meta-) ethical theories of Ayer, Stevenson and Hare as “noncognitivistic”.
  7. ^ Ogden and Richards, Meaning. P. 125: “'Good' is alleged to stand for a unique, unanalyzable concept… [which] is the subject matter of ethics. This peculiar ethical use of 'good' is, we suggest, a purely emotive use. ... Thus, when we so use it in the sentence, ' This is good,' we merely refer to this , and the addition of "is good" makes no difference whatever to our reference ... it serves only as an emotive sign expressing our attitude to this , and perhaps evoking similar attitudes in other persons, or inciting them to actions of one kind or another. ”This quote appears in an expanded version just before the preface to Stevenson's Ethics and Language .
  8. ↑ See also Matthew Chrisman: Emotivism. (PDF; 162 kB), In: International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
  9. ^ Pepper: Ethics. P. 277: "[Emotivism] was stated in its simplest and most striking form by AJ Ayer."
  10. ^ Brandt: Ethical Theory. P. 239, Stevensons describes Ethics and Language as “the most important statement of the emotive theory”, and Pepper ( Ethics. P. 288) writes that “[it] was the first really systematic development of the value judgment theory and will probably go down in the history of ethics as the most representative for this school. "
  11. ^ GE Moore: Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press, 1922. ( Digitized  - Internet Archive )
  12. ^ Felix M. Bak: Alfred Jules Ayer's Criterion of Verifiability. Franciscan Friars Minor Conventual, Padua 1970, p. 88: "We cannot say definitely that GE Moore is the founder of the emotive theory, but he has elements of it in his book on ethics published in 1903. [...] Although Moore speaks of aesthetics in the text rather than ethics, he does so in conjunction with ethics. Moreover, Ayer judges ethetics and ethics by neans of similar principles. For Moore emotion is a manifestation of admiration for what is really beautyful. "
  13. ↑ Hume: Treatise on Human Nature. II, 3, 3.
  14. ↑ Alfred Jules Ayer: Language, Truth and Logic . Reclam, Ditzingen 1990, ISBN 3-15-007920-9 , p. 141.
  15. ↑ Jürgen Habermas, Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus , Frankfurt 1937, pp. 148–152.
  16. ↑ Uwe Steinhoff: Critique of Communicative Rationality - An overall presentation and analysis of the younger critical theory of communication theory. Inaugural dissertation . Phil. Fac. III of the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg, 2001 Marsberg
  17. ↑ An overview gives: James Lenman: Moral Naturalism. In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . 2006, [1]
  18. ^ Rosalind Hursthouse : On Virtue Ethics Clarendon Press, Oxford 1999, ISBN 0-19-823818-5 .
  19. ↑ Christian Wolff , Vernfungige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen, to promote their happiness, 1733 Frankfurt and Leipzig, reprinted by Georg Olms Verlag , 1976 Hildesheim and New York, [German Ethics]
  20. ↑ Christian Wolff: Reasonable Thoughts from God, the World and the Soul of Man and all things in general. Frankfurt / Leipzig 1751. (Reprint: Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / New York 1983. [Deutsche Metaphysik])
  21. ↑ Cf. Tatjana Tarkian: Moral Realism. Variants and problems. In: Halbig / Suhm, p. 321.
  22. ↑ See Tarkian with reference to McDowell: Values ​​and Secondary Qualities, in Mind, Value, and Reality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge / Mass. 1998, 131-150
  23. ↑ Christian Wolff: Speech on the practical philosophy of the Chinese . (1724) Translated, introduced and edited by Michael Albrecht. Meiner, Hamburg 1985 google book page preview
  24. ↑ Christian Wolff: Reasonable Thoughts of the People Doing and Allowing, to promote their happiness. Frankfurt / Leipzig 1733. (Reprint: Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / New York 1976 [German Ethics] § 19)
  25. ↑ Christiani Wolfii: Philosophia Practica Universalis, Methodo Scientifica Pertractata, pars posterior, praxin complectens, qua omnis praxeros moralis principia inconcussa ex ipsa animae humanae natura a priori demonstrantur. Frankfurt / Leipzig 1739. (Reprint: Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim / New York 1979)
  26. ^ Hare: Moral Thinking. 1981, p. 216 and p. 20f.
  27. ↑ Hare 1989, p. 34f.
  28. ↑ Brandt, Ethical Theory. P. 221: "A recent book [ The Language of Morals ] by RM Hare has proposed a view, otherwise very similar to the emotive theory, with modifications ..."
  29. ↑ Wilks: Emotion. P. 79: "... while Hare was, no doubt, a critic of the [emotive theory], he was, in the eyes of his own critics, a kind of emotivist himself. His theory, as a consequence, has sometimes been depicted as a reaction against emotivism and at other times as an extension of it. "
  30. ^ Hans Albert: Ethics and Meta-Ethics. The Dilemma of Analytical Moral Philosophy. In: Hans Albert, Ernst Topitsch (ed.): Value judgment dispute. 2nd Edition. Darmstadt 1979, p. 513.
  31. ^ Popper: Open Society. Chapter 5.
  32. ↑ Hans-Joachim Niemann: The strategy of reason . Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1993, Part III: Rationality and Morality.