PHILOS 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Naturalistic Observation, Moral Nihilism
Document Summary
Nihilism: the belief that there are no objective values (such as moral or aesthetic values) Moral judgements are beliefs in objective moral values (therefore they"re meaningful in regards to one"s beliefs for them) Moral error theory: all things affirming moral beliefs are false, all things denying moral beliefs are true but in an obvious and minor way (will be clarified later) There are naturalistic distinctions between types of moral behavior (kindness, cruelty, these are traits that do exist and can be observed and scientifically naturalized) > but there is no objective value of right or wrong between them, this isn"t a naturalistic observation. Normative question i. e. is x wrong? (first order question -> other philosophers try to explain. Semantic question i. e. what does x is wrong mean? (second order question) Different views address this i. e. subjectivist, moral relativist, expressionism, naturalist realism (hedonistic view), non-naturalist realism. > mackie believes that non-naturalist realist views of wrongness is accurate.
