Dr Nick Mercer Essay Example for Free

Dr Nick Mercer Es arrange1. Explain the logical positivism pattern and how it leads Ayer to wane claims active values, God, and the afterlife. The cornerstone of LP beliefs was the principle of verification. This claims that a statement only has consequence if it is either analytic or empirically confirmable. An analytic statement is true (or false) just in virtue of the misbegottening of the words a bachelor is an unmarried man is an analytically true, while a squ atomic number 18 has three sides is analytically false. A statement is empirically verifiable if empirical evidence would go towards establishing that the statement is true or false. For example, if I express The moon is made of green cheese, we fecal matter check this by scientific investigation. If I say The universe has 600 trillion planets, we cant check this by scientific investigation in practice, but we can do so in principle. We know how to show whether it is true or false, so it is verifiable even if w e cant verify it. The principle of verification entails that claims about values, about what is right or wrong atomic number 18 meaningless.They are neither true nor false because they do not actually state anything. If I say murder is wrong, this is not analytic,nor can any empirical investigation show this. We can show that murder causes grief and pain, or that it is often make out of anger. But we cannot demonstrate, in the same way, that is wrong. 2. What objection to logical positivism is based on ethics? Statements of value are empirical propositions they are statements about our psychology or sociology.For instance, lets try a though experiment. This one is from Jonathan Haidt. Julie and do are brother and sister and they go up to a cabin they know and spend the night on that point. While spending the night there they halt sex witheach other, Julie in on the pill and Mark uses a condom so there is no chance that Julie will have a baby.The next morning they felt pretty safe(p), they dont feel shameful at all. Is what they did wrong? Incest thought experiment people have in-built yuck instinctive reaction towards incest (evolutionary psychology evolved to have legitimate responses that lead to speedy judgments without being subject to reason). This statement of value describes a fact about our evolutionary psychology. 3. What four parts does a typical system of ethics have? State which parts arephilosophical and which are not, and explain why. 1. Definitions of ethical terms (i. e. the unspoiled, the right)2. Descriptions of moral experience (feelings of approbation and disapprobation towards certain acts and certain people) 3. Exhortations to moral virtue (prescriptive commands that commend you to act in a certain way or have a certain character) 4. Ethical judgments (the demonstrate by which we come to decisions on whether an act or psyche is moral) Only the first one is philosophical. This is because in defining ethical terms one is an ons laught to establish foundations for the claim that there is moralknowledge.Defining the good in terms of the right or in terms of value is a aright philosophical inquiry because Descriptions of moral experience can be assigned to psychology and sociology. Exhortations to moral virtues are not propositions, they are commands designed to provoke the person into action. Ethical judgments have yet to be classified.4. Why does Ayer reject the idea that good is definable in empirical terms? If we try and define the good in empirical terms, i. e. , the good is what is pleasurable (what is pleasurable can be empirically verified), or the good iswhat is desired (what we feel towards people and acts can be empirically verified), in both(prenominal) cases we can show that some pleasant things are not good and that bad things are desired.By doing so we are demonstrating that it is not self-contradictory to say that pleasant things are not good. Empirical statements can be show to be true or f alse X is Y, or X is not Y, but they cant be both true and false this is a contradiction. Pleasure can be both good and bad desire can be both good and bad without contradiction, so it is not definable in empirical terms. 5.Why does Ayer reject the idea that moral judgments can be known by intuition as self-evident truths? Intuitionism is moral theory that claims that basic judgments about what is good are intuitions. A self-evident judgment has no other evidence or proof but its own plausibility. Intuitionism is a form of moral foundationalism our intuitions about what is good are self-evident judgments that require no other beliefs to support them. G. E.Moore argued that the good cannot be defined in any other terms as this would be committing the naturalistic fallacy equating good with any naturalproperty like happiness Ayer rejects intuitionism on the basis that people disagree about what is intuitively self-evident. 6. How does Ayer analyse moral judgments? What does Stealing is wrong mean?Are such judgments true or false? Stealing money is wrong has no real content. It is like exclaiming larceny money It is an emotional expression, like saying boo to a team you dont like. Expressions of moral sentiments cant be true or false, just as feeling in love is not something that can be said to be true or false your feelings can be misguided but they are not false. 7.Besides expressing feelings, what do moral judgments do? Arouse feeling on others. They can be prescriptive It is your duty to tell the truth is both an emotive expression and an expression of the command Tell the truth. 8. What is the proper citation for determine the validity of a moral judgment? Moral judgments have no objective validity. They are not propositional and cannot be said to be valid or invalid, true or false. The correct citation for a moral judgment is to think of them as emotional exclamations Boo-hurrah 9.On Ayers view, does Stealing is wrong mean I disapprove of stealing or Idislike stealing? To say I disapprove of stealing or I dislike stealing are subjectivist positions. To say stealing is wrong is to assert how you feel about stealing, and these statements are propositions about the vocalisers feelings (it is true or false whether the speaker has these feelings or not). For Ayer, the statement Stealing is wrong has no propositional content. It gives no indication of the truth of the speakers feelings but rather it is just an emotive expression. 10. To what completion are ethical disagreements resolvable by rational means? We attempt to show that someone is mistaken about facts.Emotivists suggest that we can argue over facts. For instance, I had an argument with my father when he came to Singapore as he refused to eat in a restaurant that was selling Shark Fin soup. His conclude was that the practice of cutting fins of sharks and throwing them back into the water is cruel and causes great suffering to the shark. I then asked him if he shops at W oolworths which stock eggs laid by battery hens hens kept in tiny cages their whole lives which is cruel and causes great suffering.The disagreement could be potentially resolved if my dad excepted that it waslogically inconsistent to say that he wouldnt eat at a restaurant that sold shark fin soup but he would shop at a supermarket that sold eggs laid by battery hens. But once we agree on all the facts in a moral disagreement there still might be a dispute over attitudes. For example, I might hold the attitude that human beings are much more forward-looking animals than sharks or hens and so the suffering of these animals for our purposes is justified. You might hold the attitude that while human being are more sophisticated animals than sharks or hens this does not explain the suffering of these animals for our purposes.