Metaethics: Crash Course Philosophy #32

Summary

This script delves into the realm of ethics and metaethics, exploring questions of morality's nature and its objectivity. It examines various metaethical views, including Moral Realism, Moral Absolutism, Moral Relativism, and Moral Subjectivism, and poses thought-provoking scenarios to challenge one's moral intuitions. The discussion also introduces ethical theories as frameworks for consistent moral reasoning, setting the stage for deeper exploration in future lessons.

Takeaways

• 📚 Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with morality and right or wrong behavior.
• 🔍 Metaethics explores the foundations of morality, questioning its nature and whether it's objective or subjective.
• 🤔 Different metaethical views can be tested against complex ethical scenarios to understand their implications.
• 🌐 Moral Realism posits that there are objective moral facts, akin to scientific facts, that can be true or false.
• 🕵️‍♂️ Moral Antirealism suggests that moral propositions do not refer to objective features and that there are no moral facts.
• 🔧 The grounding problem in ethics seeks a solid foundation for moral beliefs that are clear, objective, and unchanging.
• 🌟 Moral Absolutism is the belief in unchanging moral facts that apply universally, like physical laws.
• 🌈 Moral Relativism allows for multiple correct moral positions, influenced by cultural differences.
• 🏛 Descriptive Cultural Relativism acknowledges that moral beliefs vary by culture, while Normative Cultural Relativism claims moral facts themselves vary by culture.
• 🤝 Ethical theories provide frameworks for consistent moral decision-making, based on starting assumptions and moral principles.
• 🧩 Most people form their moral views by identifying with principles from various ethical theories, rather than adhering to a single one.

Q & A

What is the main focus of ethics?

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies morality, or right and wrong behavior.

What is metaethics and why is it important?

Metaethics is the study of the foundations of morality itself. It asks fundamental questions about the nature of morality, such as whether it is an objective reality or a matter of personal or cultural preference.

What is the difference between moral realism and moral antirealism?

Moral realism is the belief that there are objective moral facts, similar to scientific facts. Moral antirealism, on the other hand, holds that moral propositions do not refer to objective features of the world and that there are no moral facts.

What is the grounding problem in ethics?

The grounding problem of ethics is the search for a solid foundation for our moral beliefs that would make them true in a clear, objective, and unmoving way.

What is Moral Absolutism and how does it differ from Moral Relativism?

Moral Absolutism is the belief in unchanging moral facts that apply universally and constantly, regardless of culture or circumstance. Moral Relativism, in contrast, posits that more than one moral position on a given topic can be correct, suggesting that moral truths can vary between cultures.

Can you explain Descriptive Cultural Relativism?

Descriptive Cultural Relativism is the belief that people's moral beliefs differ from culture to culture, which is generally accepted as an observable fact.

What is Normative Cultural Relativism and what are its implications?

Normative Cultural Relativism is the view that moral facts themselves differ from culture to culture, implying that what is morally right or wrong can vary based on cultural context. This view has implications for the concepts of moral progress and the possibility of moral error within a culture.

What is Moral Subjectivism and how does it view moral statements?

Moral Subjectivism is a form of moral antirealism that asserts moral statements can be true or false based on individual attitudes rather than objective moral facts. It suggests that moral judgments are based on personal preferences and not on any inherent rightness or wrongness.

What are ethical theories and why are they important?

Ethical theories are moral frameworks that provide consistent answers about right and wrong conduct. They are important because they help individuals navigate moral dilemmas and develop a coherent understanding of morality.

How do moral principles function within ethical theories?

Moral principles are the building blocks of ethical theories. They are shared beliefs that form the core of these theories and guide the evaluation of moral actions and decisions.

What is the significance of the burglar and old woman scenario presented in the script?

The scenario is a thought experiment designed to challenge and explore different metaethical views. It raises questions about the intentions behind actions and their moral outcomes, which can help individuals reflect on their own moral beliefs and the theories they subscribe to.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Foundations of Morality and Metaethics

This paragraph delves into the realm of ethics and metaethics, exploring the fundamental questions of morality. It introduces the concept of metaethics as the study of the nature of morality itself, questioning whether morality is an objective truth or a subjective preference. The paragraph presents various metaethical views and suggests testing them against complex ethical dilemmas. It also highlights the challenge of moral realism, which posits the existence of moral facts, and the grounding problem, which seeks a solid foundation for moral beliefs. The scenario of a burglar inadvertently saving a life is used to illustrate the complexity of moral judgments and their relation to metaethical perspectives.

05:07

🌐 Exploring Moral Realism, Relativism, and Antirealism

The second paragraph continues the metaethical discussion by examining different forms of moral realism, including moral absolutism, which asserts unchanging moral truths, and moral relativism, which allows for multiple correct moral positions based on cultural context. It distinguishes between descriptive cultural relativism, acknowledging the diversity of moral beliefs across cultures, and normative cultural relativism, which posits that moral facts themselves vary by culture. The paragraph also critiques normative cultural relativism for its implications on moral progress and the potential to justify harmful cultural practices. It introduces moral subjectivism as a form of moral antirealism, suggesting that moral statements reflect personal attitudes rather than objective facts. The paragraph concludes with an introduction to ethical theories as frameworks for navigating moral dilemmas, based on starting assumptions and shared moral principles.

Keywords

💡Ethics

Ethics refers to the branch of philosophy that explores questions of morality, specifically what constitutes right and wrong behavior. In the video, ethics is the central theme, as it delves into the complexities of moral dilemmas and the philosophical inquiry into moral behavior, such as whether stealing to feed one's family is wrong or if there can be a 'good' lie.

💡Metaethics

Metaethics is the study of the foundations of morality itself, questioning the nature and origin of moral values. It is distinguished from ethics, which deals with moral actions and judgments. The video script uses metaethics to explore whether morality is an objective reality or a subjective construct, such as a preference or cultural convention.

💡Moral Realism

Moral Realism is a metaethical view that asserts the existence of objective moral facts, akin to scientific facts. The script introduces this concept by suggesting that some moral propositions can be universally true or false, such as the belief that certain acts, like gratuitous violence, are inherently wrong.

💡Moral Antirealism

Moral Antirealism is the belief that there are no objective moral facts, and that moral propositions do not refer to features of the world. The video contrasts this with moral realism, illustrating how moral anti-realists would argue that moral judgments are not about inherent wrongness but rather about personal or cultural perspectives.

💡Moral Absolutism

Moral Absolutism is a form of moral realism that posits there are unchanging moral truths that apply universally, regardless of culture or circumstance. The script mentions this concept to highlight the belief in moral facts that are constant, like the moral wrongness of certain actions.

💡Moral Relativism

Moral Relativism is the view that moral judgments can be true relative to an individual's or culture's own standards. The video discusses this concept in the context of cultural differences in moral beliefs, suggesting that what is considered right or wrong may vary across cultures.

💡Descriptive Cultural Relativism

Descriptive Cultural Relativism is the belief that moral beliefs differ from one culture to another, without making a judgment on the correctness of these beliefs. The script uses this term to acknowledge the observable fact of cultural differences in moral perspectives.

💡Normative Cultural Relativism

Normative Cultural Relativism is the view that moral facts themselves can differ from one culture to another, implying that what is morally right or wrong is determined by cultural context. The video script critiques this view, pointing out its implications for moral progress and the potential to justify harmful cultural practices.

💡Moral Subjectivism

Moral Subjectivism is a form of moral antirealism that holds that moral statements reflect personal attitudes rather than objective facts. The script introduces this concept to illustrate how moral judgments can be seen as preferences or opinions, rather than statements about the world's moral structure.

💡Ethical Theories

Ethical Theories are frameworks that provide a systematic approach to understanding and evaluating moral actions. The video script mentions these as foundational structures that help individuals develop consistent answers about right and wrong conduct, based on starting assumptions and moral principles.

💡Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory is an ethical theory that will be discussed in a subsequent video, as mentioned in the script. It is a form of moral realism that posits moral obligations are derived from the commands of a deity, suggesting that what is morally right or wrong is determined by divine will.

Highlights

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies morality, or right and wrong behavior.

Metaethics delves into the foundations of morality, questioning its nature and whether it is objective or subjective.

Metaethical views can be tested against ethical dilemmas to understand their implications.

Ethics is sometimes viewed as a science that seeks to discover moral truths.

Moral Realism posits the existence of moral facts, akin to scientific facts, which can be true or false.

Moral Antirealism argues that moral propositions do not refer to objective features of the world and that there are no moral facts.

Moral Absolutism holds that there are unchanging moral facts that apply universally.

Moral Relativism suggests that multiple moral positions on a topic can be correct, varying by culture or circumstance.

Descriptive Cultural Relativism acknowledges that moral beliefs differ from culture to culture.

Normative Cultural Relativism claims that moral facts themselves differ based on culture.

Normative Cultural Relativism implies that no culture can be wrong and challenges the concept of moral progress.

Moral Subjectivism, a form of antirealism, asserts that moral statements reflect personal attitudes rather than objective facts.

Ethical theories provide frameworks for consistent moral judgments based on starting assumptions and moral principles.

Ethical theories can share principles, but individuals often form their moral views by identifying with principles from multiple theories.

The grounding problem of ethics seeks a solid foundation for moral beliefs that is clear, objective, and unmoving.

Crash Course Philosophy explores various ethical theories to help viewers understand and articulate their moral intuitions.

The episode introduces the concept of Divine Command Theory as the ethical theory to be studied in the next session.

Transcripts

Is it wrong to steal to feed your family?

Is there such a thing as a good lie?

Questions like these are the domain of ethics – the branch of philosophy that studies morality, or right and wrong behavior.

But before we can parse questions like these, we need to go deeper – into metaethics, which studies the very foundations of morality itself.

Metaethics asks questions as basic as: what is morality?

What’s its nature?

Like, is it an objective thing, out there in the world, waiting to be known?

Or is it more like a preference, an opinion, or just a bunch of cultural conventions?

There are lots of different metaethical views out there.

And one way to understand them is to put them to a test to see how they’d help you solve some thorny ethical problems.

Like a scenario where you have to steal food or lie for a good cause.

Or what about this: What if you set out to harm someone, but you ended up saving their life by accident?

[Theme Music]

Some people think that ethics is a kind of science, that it seeks to discover moral truths, whose existence is testable and provable.

But others believe the nature of morality is every bit as subjective as whether you prefer plain M&Ms, or peanut.

There’s just no right answer.

Unless you have a peanut allergy.

So, you and your friend might totally agree on whether something is immoral or not, but you might disagree fervently about why.

For an example of a slippery moral scenario, let’s just head straight over to the Thought Bubble for some Flash Philosophy.

A burglar plots to break into an old woman’s house on a Sunday morning, a time when he knows she’s always at church.

So one Sunday, he creeps up to her back window, and smashes it with a hammer.

But, after he looks inside, he sees that the old woman isn’t at church.

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

The sight of her body scares the burglar, and he runs away.

He was down for a little bit of burglary, but getting nabbed for murder was NOT part of his plan.

But what the burglar didn’t know was that the old woman wasn’t dead.

She was unconscious, 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, which allowed her to regain consciousness.

So, the burglar broke into the house with the intention of stealing from the woman, but, inadvertently, he saved her life.

Did the burglar do a good thing?

Does he deserve praise, even though he didn’t intend to help the woman?

Likewise, does he still deserve blame, even though he didn’t actually get around to stealing anything, and ended up saving the woman’s life?

Thanks Thought Bubble!

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

And why you answer the way you do will say a lot about what metaethical view you subscribe to.

One of the most widely held metaethical views is known as Moral Realism, the belief that there are moral facts, in the same way that there are scientific facts.

In this view, any moral proposition can only be true, or false.

And for a lot of us, 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 that gratuitous violence is always wrong, and nurturing children is always right – no matter what.

But, you don’t have to dig very deep into moral realism before you run into trouble.

Like for one thing, if there are moral facts, where do they come from?

How do we know what they are?

Are they testable, like scientific facts are?

Are they falsifiable?

And, if morality is based on facts, then why is there so much disagreement about what’s moral and what’s not, as opposed to science, where there’s often more consensus?

This is what’s known as the grounding problem.

The grounding problem of ethics is the search for a foundation for our moral beliefs, something solid that would make them true in a way that is clear, objective, and unmoving.

If you can’t find a way to ground morality, you might be pushed toward another metaethical view: Moral Antirealism.

This is the belief that moral propositions don’t refer to objective features of the world at all – that there are no moral facts.

So a moral anti-realist would argue that there’s nothing about gratuitous violence that’s inherently wrong.

Likewise, they’d say, if you look at the rest of the animal kingdom, sometimes nurturing your kids doesn’t seem like it’s that important.

So, maybe morality isn’t the same for everyone.

But still, most people you know – 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.

Some moral realists are Moral Absolutists.

Not only do they believe in moral facts, they believe there are some moral facts that don’t change.

So, for them, if something is wrong, it’s wrong regardless of culture or circumstance.

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

If moral absolutism sounds too rigid, maybe Moral Relativism would appeal to you.

This view says that more than one moral position on a given topic can be correct.

And one of the most common forms of moral relativism is cultural relativism.

But there are actually two different things a person might mean when they talk about cultural relativism.

The more general kind is Descriptive Cultural Relativism.

This is simply the belief that people’s moral beliefs differ from culture to culture.

No one really disputes that – it seems obviously true.

Like, some cultures believe that capital punishment is morally right, and other cultures believe it’s morally wrong – that killing another human is inherently unethical.

But there’s also Normative Cultural Relativism, which says that it’s not our beliefs, but moral facts themselves that differ from culture to culture.

So in this view, capital punishment is morally correct in some cultures and is morally wrong in others.

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

Now, normative cultural relativism might sound pretty good to you; it does at first to a lot of people.

Because it seems like it’s all about inclusiveness and tolerance.

Who am I to tell other cultures how they should live, right?

But this view actually has some pretty big flaws.

If every culture is the sole arbiter of what’s right for it, that means no culture can actually be wrong.

It means Nazi culture actually was right, for the people living in that culture.

A dissenting German voice in, say, 1940, would have just been wrong, if it had claimed that Jewish people deserved to be treated the same as other Germans.

And what makes things even weirder is that, if normative cultural relativism is true, then the concept of moral progress doesn’t make sense, either.

If what everyone is doing right now is right, relative to their own culture, then there’s never any reason to change anything.

Problems like these make some people take a second look at the antirealist stance, which, remember, is the view that there just aren’t any moral facts.

Just one flavor of moral antirealism is Moral Subjectivism.

This view says that moral statements can be true and false – right or wrong – but they refer only to people’s attitudes, rather than their actions.

By this thinking, capital punishment is neither right nor wrong, but people definitely have preferences about it.

And those preferences key into personal attitudes, but not into actual, objective moral facts about the world.

Like, some people favor capital punishment, and think it’s just.

Others oppose it and think it’s unjust.

But it doesn’t go any deeper than that.

There are no moral facts, only moral attitudes.

There are other varieties of both moral realism and antirealism, but this should give you an idea of the general, metaethical lay of the land.

And by now, it probably seems like I’ve given you a lot more problems than solutions.

So let’s talk about the moral frameworks you’ll use to navigate your way through all of these moral mazes.

These frameworks are known as ethical theories.

They’re moral foundations that help you come up with consistent answers about right and wrong conduct.

All ethical theories have some kind of starting assumptions, which shouldn’t be surprising, because really all of our beliefs rest on some basic, assumed beliefs.

For instance, natural law theory, which we’ll study soon, relies on the starting assumption that God created the universe according to a well-ordered plan.

While another ethical theory, known as utilitarianism, relies on the starting assumption that all beings share a common desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

The starting assumptions of a theory can lead us to other beliefs, but if you reject those initial assumptions, the rest of the theory just doesn’t follow.

Now, in addition to starting assumptions, ethical theories also consist of Moral Principles, which are the building blocks that make up the theories.

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

For instance, many ethical theories agree on the principle that it’s wrong to cause unjustified suffering.

Some ethical theories hold the principle that any unjustified killing is wrong – and that includes animals – while other theories hold the principle that it’s only wrong to unjustifiably kill humans.

But the thing about ethical theories is that most people don’t identify with just one.

Instead, most people identify with principles from several theories that help them form their own moral views.

We’re going to be spending several weeks learning about these ethical theories, and you’ll probably find elements of some that you already believe, and others that you definitely disagree with.

But all of this accepting and rejecting will help you develop a new way to talk about – and think about – what are, for now, your gut moral intuitions.

Today we talked about metaethics.

We discussed three forms of moral realism and we learned the difference between descriptive and normative cultural relativism.

We also learned about moral subjectivism, which is a form of moral antirealism.

And we introduced the concept of an ethical theory.

Next time we’re going to learn about the ethical theory known as the Divine Command Theory.

Crash Course Philosophy is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.

You can head over to their channel and check out a playlist of the latest episodes from shows like:

Physics Girl, Shanks FX, and PBS Space Time.

This episode of Crash Course Philosophy was filmed in the Doctor Cheryl C. Kinney Crash Course Studio

with the help of all of these awesome people and our equally fantastic graphics team is Thought Cafe.