While Ethical Naturalists believe it holds great importance as it can convey facts and help us to understand ethical theories, there are those who strongly disagree with this. For example Intuitionists, such as Moore, believe that our intuition is more useful when wanting to know how to act morally than knowing the definitions of ethical terms. Although Non-Cognitive theories disagree with the factual content of ethical statements, it is clear that they still see some significance in ethical language. However rather than seeing it as facts, they accept that morality is subjective and suggest that the importance of ethical language is provided by the emotions conveyed in the phrases used. Perhaps more so than Emotivists, Prescriptivists see ethical language as fairly meaningful.
The issues with this option mainly deal with the definition of a theistic God. If morality is independent of God and God’s commands only exist because the moralities of actions are predetermined, then God is no longer sovereign. If morals are independent of God’s commands then God is not sovereign over morality. This goes against the definition of a theistic God which defines God as the creator and ruler over everything. It also puts limits on God’s power.
We use this is help us choose the right moral action is situations. Aristotle and Aquinas both conclude that humans aim for some goal or purpose in life-but does not see this as eudemonia. Aquinas believes that humans are the ‘image of god’ therefore the supreme good must be the development of this image which is perfection. They did not believe that you could reach this perfection in this life but the afterlife. There are the three laws in Aquinas’ book which are eternal, natural and divine.
Those who oppose cognitivists are called non cognitivists and they believe that when someone makes a moral statement they are not describing the world, but they are merely expressing their feelings and opinions, they believe that moral statements are not objective therefore they cannot be verified as true or false. In this essay I will be discussing the multiple branches of cognitive theories and non cognitive theories in order to answer the Janus-like question whether or not moral statements truly hold objective meaning. Ethical naturalism is just one branch of a cognitive theory in which naturalists believe that ethical statements are the same as non-ethical ones, meaning they are all factual and can
Cultural relativism is the idea that the moral principles someone has are solely determined by the culture one lives in. These ideas seem to make sense because we as a culture understand that the judgments people make in a different culture will differ from ours whether we choose to support it or not. Our culture has different moral judgments as well and does not look at something like killing someone for stealing as morally right since our culture values human life above theft. Cultural relativism does not exist because some principles are universal and not relative only to culture. People also have the ability to think morally for themselves so morality is relative to someone’s point of view.
Both systems are human-centric, humans are valued more over animals. Mill, a utilitarian, promotes making moral decisions while considering higher and lower pleasures and Mill would say that animals cannot experience higher pleasures which means that human pleasures should be regarded over animal pleasures when making decisions to bring about happiness. Within Christian ethics, humans are seen as more of an importance over animals, as it states in the Bible ‘So God created humankind in his own image…and God said to them… “have dominion over every living creature”…’ (Genesis 1). An example that supports this similarity of the two is the argument whether animal testing is allowable, in this situation a Utilitarian using Mills approach would come to the conclusion that animal testing should be carried out because it results in a greater happiness as it can be used to develop new medicines which benefit the majority of people, and this happiness would be considered a higher pleasure which the animals can never experience anyway. A Christian would too, come to the same decision, as God created humankind
Soft determinists therefore believe that events to be determined but also believe that free will does exist and still can be applied to our actions. Soft determinists defend compatibilist and say that even though they accept determinist thesis, we still believe in freedom. If we cannot establish that actions are completely determined then soft determinists have to believe in free will. If we knew everything then we might be able to predict a person’s actions but since this cannot be done and is a big if, which is the heart of the determinist thesis, turns out to be unobtainable in practice; this simply means that in theory we are still determinists but we can also believe in free will and hold people responsible for their actions. (Solomon, Higgins, 2010:235) Soft determinism maintains that we possess the freedom required for moral responsibility, and that this is compatible with determinism, even though determinism is true a person can still be deserving of blame if they perform a wrongful act.
Being a Puritan Believer The Puritans have two core concepts that are the foundation to their religion. One concept is the belief that humanity is divided into two groups. They believe one group is the elect, and the other group is the damned. (Puritanism par. 5) The second core concept is the notion of free grace as opposed to a doctrine of works for the salvation of man, or in other words the earning of salvation.
Therefore, humans may not be morally blameworthy for their actions because all of their actions are determined. Soft determinists believe that some human actions are determined, but we still have moral responsibility. Hard determinism is the view that we are not free and cannot be held morally responsible for our actions. “Everything is planned, connected, limited.” Voltaire, 1764. This demonstrates that hard determinism is a concept that has been around for centuries.
Thus, since cultural relativism states that we can’t judge other cultures moral codes, then we must be tolerant of them. The Cultural Relativism theory generates an argument in a form of proposing a conclusion about morality based upon facts of a culture. For example, infanticide is a moral code of the Eskimo society. The Eskimo’s believe that infanticide is morally acceptable while American’s view infanticide as iniquitous. As a conclusion, infanticide is not right or wrong because it depends on the cultures opinion and beliefs about infanticide.