As promised, the two non-cognitive meta ethical theories, and their discussion..........
I will start with the least controversial of the theories, prescriptivism, propounded by R.M. Hare. Note this is the only theory OCR ask about that has only one scholar attached to it. Prescriptivism relies upon Hare's previous 'Blik' theory concerning religious language. He defines a blik as a language group that your language has meaning within. There are many bliks within each persons life, and each one is unique - a phrase in one blik may have no meaning whatsoever in another.
e.g. I go to school, play hockey, have a family, and different friend groups. I can talk about my school work with my friends from school as they are in the same 'school' blik, so what I say will make sense to them and will have meaning. If I talk to my hockey friends about school it will not have any meaning however, as they are in a 'hockey' blik, and my school issues will not make any contextual sense to them, as they know nothing of my teachers, subjects, exams, etc.
So Hare also develops his ideas on meta ethics using this idea. He is attached to the non-cognitive 'camp', arguing ethical assertions are nothing more than your opinion. When we state "abortion is wrong" we are expressing what we believe about abortion, rather than an absolute moral fact about the issue. He furthered this by saying when we make ethical statements we are stating our preference of what should happen, and prescribing our opinion onto others (hence prescriptivism), much like Jesus' Golden Rule "do unto others as you would have them to do to you". Hare also added that these ethical opinions are deduced through reason, they are not 'known' intuitively as in non-naturalism.
By outlining this Hare comes across some major problems, provided by his own theory. His theory of bliks argues that language only makes sense within set groups, so how can you prescribe your moral opinion to all? Moreover to argue our opinion should be universalised (prescribed to all people) seems irrational - it is merely an opinion (even a reasoned one). Mackie would agree with this, arguing the universalisation of an opinion makes no rational sense.
There are also issues of moral culpability - if I prescribe to you that "stealing is moral", because that is my reasoned opinion, am I to blame when you go and steal a TV? However we must note that prescriptivism offers a much better non-cognitive alternative than A.J. Ayer's theory (below), and makes sense - we see our moral opinions as being correct over others who disagree.
A.J. Ayer propounded the last meta ethical theory, Emotivism, also known as the 'Boo! Hooray!' Theory. This is by far the most 'woolly' theory as it has no backing, and argues that morality is nothing more than your emotions and opinion, which leads to moral statements having no meaning in society (a very dangerous place to be). Ayer argues, due to his previous theory of Verificationism (a statement is only meaningful if it is analytical, ie. 1 + 1 = 2, or it is empirically verifiable, ie. "I have brown hair". If I look in a mirror I can verify that yes, I have brown hair), that moral statements contain no cognitive knowledge, so can be nothing more than your opinion on the matter. They have no real meaning - when you say "murder is wrong" you are actually simply expressing your feelings on the subject, much like going "murder....boo!", or "genetic engineering....hooray!" - hence 'Boo! Hooray!' theory.
Stevenson, a logical positivist (and a member of the Vienna Circle*) developed Ayer's ideas. He furthered them by saying that our ethical opinions inform other people about our belief systems, for example, if I say "abortion is wrong" we may deduce that I am a Catholic. I am not, hence 'may' is the important word - our ethical opinions only hint to our backgrounds, they do not define them. Stevenson also added that differences in opinion are brought about due to the different belief systems that we base our opinions on.
* The Vienna Circle was a group of philosophers and prominent thinkers in the early 19th Century who discussed what type of language is meaningful. If you were a member of the Circle, or followed their conclusions, you may be labelled as a logical positivist.
Emotivism has some serious problems. For one Ayer's theory of Verification has some problems of its own, and as this is what he bases emotivism on, we can critique it fairly well. Furthermore the theory concludes all ethical statements are meaningless opinion, so how do we function as a society? If I kill someone and argue it was moral because I thought so, you cannot punish me as I just have a different opinion to you. This would make all court decisions mere opinion, rather than a fair, reasoned ruling. Moreover James Rachels argues that there is so much more to moral decision making than this - we use reason and emotion. Emotivism also denies the rational idea of deducing a moral opinion, and it also means we cannot distinguish between stealing and the Holocaust. If you follow emotivism they were both acts that went with some peoples moral opinions, and against others.
However despite this being a hugely impractical theory it does allow for cultural relativism, and explains well how differences of opinions arise. It also encourages tolerance of other peoples opinions, and thus of other peoples religious beliefs. We must be wary though that tolerance of beliefs does not become acceptance of horrific and immoral actions, such as the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990's, and other heinous acts.
In summary meta ethics asks the deeper questions that go beyond right and wrong, postulating what we mean when we say something is moral. All meta-ethical theories will be far less practical than a normative theory as it does not tell you what to do, but arguably if we concluded ethical statements are opinion, all normative theories become useless.
Each theory has its own merits; naturalism is practical and based on empirical evidence, something an enlightened society such as us craves. Non-naturalism feels right to us - few would deny they have an innate sense of what is right or wrong. Prescriptivism argues we should universalise our opinion, which again feels right - we are not normally happy accepting that someone else just disagrees with us that rape is wrong. And finally emotivism encourages tolerance and cultural relativism, something the world needs. Equally however they all have quite a few flaws, some of them fatal. So whilst this branch of ethics is needed to underpin normative theories, we cannot conclusively say that any of the 4 theories is the correct one, and so we still cannot state once and for all whether an ethical statement is a fact or opinion.
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