PHIL 150 1st Edition Lecture 5 Outline of Last Lecture I. Judging a Cultural Practice to be UndesirableII. Why People are Reluctant to Criticize Other CulturesIII. What we Can Learn From Cultural RelativismOutline of Current Lecture I. The Basic Idea of Ethical SubjectivismII. The Linguistic TurnIII. EmotivismIV. The Error TheoryV. The Denial of ValueCurrent LectureRachels Chapter 3The Basic Idea of Ethical Subjectivism- Basic Idea behind Ethical Subjectivism: The theory that our moral opinions are based on our feelings and nothing more- People have different opinions, but where morality is concerned, there are no “facts”, and no one is “right”- People just feel differently about things, and that’s all there is to it- Morality is a matter of “sentiment” rather than “reason”- There is no such thing as right or wrongThe Linguistic Turn- If ethics has no objective basis, then morality is all just opinion- Our sense that some things are “really” right or “really” wrong is just an illusionThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.- Simple Subjectivism: when a person says that something is morally good or bad, this means that he or she approves of that thing, or disapproves of it, and nothing more- Simple Subjectivism cannot be correct; each side agrees that the other side believes in his or her opinion, no conflictEmotivism- Emotivism: the use of moral language to persuade/express attitudes- Moral language is used to express moral attitudes- Disagreement in belief: people believe different things, both of which cannot be true- Disagreement in attitude: people want different outcomes, both of which cannot occur- Moral disagreement is disagreement in attitudeThe Error Theory- The Error Theory: People are at least trying to say something true when they talk about ethics-John L. Mackie (Subjectivist)- No “facts” in ethics, no one is “right” or “wrong”- People believe they are right, so we should interpret them as trying to state objective truthsThe Denial of Value- Moral theories are primarily about value, not language- Nihilism: belief that values are not real- There is no “right”- Plausible only so long as we consider only difficult or controversial moral issues- Every human being has moral beliefs in addition to having “subjective
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