Module 12 Quiz

Schaeffer's analogy of examining worldview justifications with a critical eye so as to see whether one's worldview is actually able to stand, or whether the've merely asserted a groundless conclusion.

"Taking the roof off"

This position entails either a denial that moral values are objectively factual, or an assertion that there are no moral facts, truths, or knowledge.

Antirealism

Examples of Naturalistic Moral Realism

Aristotle; Bentham & Mill; Gyges & Hefner

Realists; those who do not deny the truth of objective values (although naturalistic realists ground objectivity differently than non-naturalistic realists).

Cognitivists

How can I be certain of whether I am awake or asleep? It is possible that a malicious demon is cunningly deceiving me in to thinking that I see an external world when, in fact, there is none! How can you prove that you are not trapped inside The Matrix? Only knowledge marked by certainty is genuine knowledge.This Enlightenment philosopher doubted all empirical sensations, and through doubting he proved that the one thing which cannot be doubted is an immaterial fact: I am a thinking thing. That is, while I cannot know anything with absolutely certainty about my physical body or the empirical world, I can know with absolute certainty that I am an immaterial mind. He showed us that the realist can also play the materialist's game of skepticism--and play it well.

Descartes

A.J. Ayer's ethical theory which reduced all value language to mere utterances that express our feelings, and nothing more. "Murder is wrong!" really means nothing more than "Murder--boo!"

Emotivism

A strong case can be made for viewing universalizability as a sufficient condition: "If a principle applies universally, then it is a moral one."

False

The Verification Principle continues to present a formidable challenge; it has yet to be disproved.

False

The philosophy of a group of European intellectuals, in the 1930s, which reduced all meaningful statements to only those that can be demonstrated to be true, either logically or empirically.

Logical Positivism

The method of philosophizing about the very terms of ethics and considering the structure of ethics as an object of inquiry.

Metaethics

Moral facts exist and are part of the fabric of the universe.

Moral Realism

Examples of Antirealism

Moral Skepticism & Moral Nihilism

The attempt to link moral terms with some kind of natural property. (Utilitarians link moral terms with the natural property of pleasure; egoists, with self-interests; & virtue ethics, with human flourishing).

Naturalism

Moral values exist objectively but in connection with specific properties such as pleasure, happiness, or excellence.

Naturalistic Moral Realism

Antirealists; those who deny the truth of objective values.

Non-cognitivists

Without ascribing to theism, this view holds that moral values similarly exist apart from the scientifically observable nature of the physical world, within unchanging, spiritlike entities such as Platonic forms.

Nonnaturalistic Moral Realism

A philosophical presupposition, or worldview, which holds that all of reality ultimately reduces to natural explanation.

Philosophical Naturalism

Examples of Nonnaturalistic Moral Realism

Plato

R.M. Hare's view that, while moral statements are ultimately neither true nor false, moral utterances do not merely function to express our feelings; they also function to arouse similar feelings in others so as to encourage others to adopt our sentiments.

Prescriptivism

A statement is meaningful if and only if it is either tautalogical or empirically verifiable.

The Verification Principle

Mind is nothing but matter.

Strong Naturalism

The issue of determing whether value language in general, and moral statements in particular, can be true or false.

The Fact-Value Problem

The fallacy of regarding goodness as though it were a thing in itself. Plato often spoke of Ideal Forms as if they existed out there, beyond the visible. The Ideal Form of Triangleness, for example, exists out there; all other forms of triangles are merely copies of this form. "The Good" functions like the sun in that it illuminates everything else; we understand "good" by looking to "the good." Similarly, some philosophers speak of "The Good" as if it is a self-contained form, existing out there somewhere, to which all other things must look in order to understand goodness. Unless we are speaking of a being, however, as in some form of theism, this creates a problem and is therefore fallacious. Pojman uses a passage from Lewis Carol's work to exemplify the problem.

The Fallacy of Hypostatization

Pearcey's extension of the fact/value split to the issue of physical Identity.

The Gender/Biology Divide

David Hume's critique of the fallacy of derriving moral commands from an observation of facts about the world.

The Is-Ought Fallacy

G.E. Moore's critique of the fallacy in identifying good with any specific natural property, when in actuality the good cannot be defined.

The Naturalistic Fallacy

Pearcey's extension of the fact/value split to the issue of abortion

The Person/Body Divide

Pearcey's extension of the fact/value split to the issue of "hooking up."

The Personal/Physical Divide

Schaeffer's analogy of worldview biases in which the downstairs of scientifically-demonstratable "facts" are crowned as king over truth, while the "upstairs" becomes a dumping ground for non-empirical value ideals--and such romantic dreams are reduced to private opinions.

The Two-Story view

Moral values originate from within God

Theistic Moral Realism

A strong case can be made for viewing universalizability as a necessary condition: "If a principle is a moral one, then it applies universally."

True

Ayer's philosophy was helpful in distinguishing between the cognitive and non-cognitive meaning of statements--that is, statements that have truth value versus those that have no truth value.

True

Mind is not the same thing as matter. Nevertheless, since nothing exists beyond the material world, mind is ultimately the product of matter.

Weak Naturalism