63. Metaethics - Moral Realism and Antirealism

2015-04-08

Metaethics investigates where morals supposedly come from and how they might (or might not!) be real. Fascinating!

Audio Version MP3

Audio Version MP3

Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma, one of the oldest investigations into metaethics we know of - http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html

A great summary of J.L. Mackie’s position on Moral Error Theory - http://people.umass.edu/ffeldman/Chapter.1.Mackies.Error.Theory+.pdf

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s summary of Hume’s moral philosophy (when in doubt, read some Hume) - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/

Kant’s “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals,” a fantastic starting point for a priori logical justifications for moral principles - http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/kant1785.pdf

Sam Harris’s TED talk on using science to ground moral realism (note: many philosophers don’t find Harris’s points particularly compelling, but he does strike off in an interesting direction worth considering) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww

A.J. Ayer’s “Critique of Ethics and Theology,” a cogent statement of emotivism (a form of noncognitivism, see ch. 6) - http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/heathwood/pdf/ayer.pdf

Cuneo’s “The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism,” one of the more recent texts which has prompted a resurgence in moral realism among philosophers - http://books.google.com/books?hl=enandlr=andid=E10E7k9cJGgCandoi=fndandpg=PP3anddq=cuneo+2007+moral+realismandots=ZG1JukMEOXandsig=M7QS4fWnm-vf9s4TZIBTlxcNwUM#v=onepageandq=cuneo%202007%20moral%20realismandf=true

PhilosphyTube’s fantastic video regarding the issues of noncognitivism, namely The Embedding Problem (The Frege-Geach Problem) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIzsMHApx8I

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