The claim that moral values cannot be derived from facts is grounded in the idea that facts are descriptive and informative whereas value propositions are prescriptive and imply that we ought to carry out certain action or act in a particular way. In essence, while facts give us information about the world itself, values tell us how we should act. It is accepted that facts are cognitive and are therefore know to be true or false. However, non-cognitivists support the idea that moral truths cannot be known due to the notion that any individual who is making moral judgements is not articulating their beliefs about the way the world is. Essentially, it is believed that there are no transcendent moral thoughts to be known or ascertained by individuals.
Meta ethics tries to make sense of the terms and concepts used in ethical theories. Some people believe that ethical language is extremely meaningful as they argue it is essential to be able to define terms such as “good” and “bad” before we can even begin to discuss ethical theories. However others disagree with this and argue that moral statements are subjective so cannot be meaningful as they cannot be described as either true or false. Those who hold cognitive theories about ethical language would argue that ethical statements are meaningful as they are about facts and can therefore be proved true or false. Ethical Naturalism is a cognitive theory of Meta ethics which holds the belief that ethical statements are the same as non ethical ones, so can be verified or falsified in the same way.
Traditionally most moral theories have been written through some form of coherentism. Recently, people have started to worry about the practicality of moral theories, as it would seem that they cannot be applied in real life situations. Philosophers such as Susan Wolf have attacked the ideals of traditional moral theories. The problems of moral theory have been the main focus of most philosophers, but there is another problem in modern moral philosophy. There are so many conflicting theories that it makes it almost impossible to choose what the moral thing to do would be.
Meta ethics is the study of ethical language; however it differs from normative ethics. Normative ethics determines what is “good” and “bad”, whereas Meta ethics determines the meanings of the terms “good” and “bad”. There are two ethical approaches to Meta ethics, one being Cognitivism. Cognitivism is the view that ethical language can be known and understood objectively, through empirical experience or intuition. The second approach is Non-Cognitivism, this is the view that ethical language cannot be known and understood, due to subjectivity.
The absolutist's view is that some statements are "objectively true," that is, true independent of whether anybody recognizes their truth. Objectivism is another name for absolutism. The general relativist denies that are any objectively true statements; general relativism is the view that statements are true only from a point of view (individual, community, or culture). As with scepticism and dogmatism, many people are relativists only about some areas. You might be a relativist regarding ethical matters--saying that moral correctness is merely in the mind of the individual, or maybe the dominant group in the society, but remain an absolutist about mathematics, saying that 1+1=2 regardless of whether you or I or anybody else thinks so.
Religious language is the communication of ideas about God, faith, belief and practice. The problem with religious language is that individuals have different interpretations of these concepts and will result in a difference in the use of everyday language. For some it is deemed meaningless because it is equivocal and the meaning is unclear. Yet, for some philosophers, religious language is meaningful and serves a purpose. Some deem religious language meaningless as there is no way of verifying the language.
Duty is something that one is expected or required to do by moral obligation. Kant’s theory of ethics is formed in his book critique of practical reason and his approach is deontological. This means the right or wrongness of the action is the action itself and not its consequences. We should do the right thing because it’s right not because it fulfils our desires or is based on our feelings and from this belief stems his ideas of good will, categorical imperatives and more importantly duty. The idea of good will for Kant is the starting point for morality.
“Compare and Contrast intuitionism and Emotivism” Both Intuitionism and Emotivism are meta-ethical concepts to explain the terms “good” and “bad” without being caught in the naturalistic fallacy described by GE Moore. Moore’s theory states that good cannot be categorised in any physical manner as theories – but instead “good” can not be defined in terms of anything but itself, and following this through to a moral theory we can conclude “that neither science nor religion can establish the basic principles of morality.” Intuitionism holds that there are objective moral truths, but rather than reasoning or deducing these truths, they are self evident to the “mature” mind. Moore contends that just as we know there is a world out there, we know objective moral truths – they are just common sense or intuition. These truths are universal and beyond human experience and reasoning, and from them we gain our sense of what is “good” and what is “bad”. Moore would say we can see these self evident truths when, in an argument, we are reduced to “it’s just wrong,” they require no further explanation, proof or justification.
Finally, explanations will be given why my values would be adding or hindering in any way to my ethical counselling practice? Firstly, I would not adhere to one specific theoretical ethical approach. I would use an eclectic theoretical ethical approach because clients have a diversity of issues that need to be treated individually with numerous ethical approaches. One theory does not fit all. According to Minor & Petocz (2003, p.82) recent ethical decision making models advocate plurality of perspectives however, real life experiences and complex practice problems brings the realisation that good ethical decision making needs to encompass many perspectives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/intro_1.shtml I think that ethics is acknowledging the difference between something right and wrong; it is a thinking procedure of deciding whether something shouldn’t or should be done. In my opinion being ethical is saying something or doing something and keeping you integrity. It is being able to stand up for yourself and what you believe without any negativity that could be offensive to others. Not every person is perfect but when faced with a difficult decision, if you do the best thing you can do then that means you have good morals. When a person’s first instinct is that something is wrong and therefore doesn’t do it that is ethical, however if knowing something is wrong but still do it that is unethical.