WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

T1 Ethical Thought

Key quote In Principia Ethica he defended his claim that beauty on its own is good by appealing to intuitions about a very specific beautiful world … Moore likewise insisted that before we make judgements of self-evidence we must make sure that the propositions we are considering are clear; failure to do so, he claimed, explained much of the disagreement about ethics. (Stanford / Hurka) AO1 Activity Try to list some examples of virtues that can be seen to be good that arise from personal relationships and think of ways in which these good can become mixed or distorted. For example, agapeic love (see Situation Ethics book 1) can be spoiled by poor intention. Honesty is good but can be affected by the situation that calls for discretion. Study tip Moore’s theory of intuition needs to be carefully explained so that you know exactly what Moore is referring to. It may help by thinking of things that it is not, rather than what it is, to help you. Intuition needs a mature mind so not infallible Intuition in itself as a foundation of knowledge is the belief that at some point there must be a framework, basis, anchor or starting point from which all other judgements can be made. Aristotle recognised this in his book Metaphysics when he stated: ‘Some, indeed, demand to have the law proved, but this is because they lack education; for it shows lack of education not to know of what we should require proof, and of what we should not. For it is quite impossible that everything should have a proof; the process would go on to infinity, so there would be no proof.’ What Aristotle is arguing is that knowledge always rests upon something, for example, evidence or something that is relative to it to help explain it (e.g. hot and cold). If we continue looking retrospectively upon knowledge then there must be a ‘first cause’ (c.f. Cosmological argument year 1 book) otherwise knowledge would be infinite. The basis for knowledge had to begin with something. The key question is whether this begins with our education (nurtured) or whether or not it is simply a priori and innate within us. In other words, Moore suggests that this process of intuition by which we have access to self-evident knowledge is a priori . For Intuitionists, then, knowledge of good is innate and a priori knowledge. However, although not subject to rational proof in the same way empirical knowledge is, the implications of what is recognised as intuitively good does reveal a sense of infallibility to the idea of ‘self-evident’ truths when it comes

1.16 What two things did Moore suggest were self-evidently good?

Key term Infallibility: without error

Platitude: a moral comment that has been used too often to be meaningful, cliché

Specification content Intuition needs a mature mind so not infallible.

DRAFT

Key quotes What then is it for a proposition to be self-evident? Locke says that a self-evident proposition is one that ‘carries its own light and evidence with it, and needs no other proof…’ Price tells us that a self-evident proposition is immediate, and needs no further proof…. Ross writes, a self-evident proposition is ‘evident without any need of proof, or of evidence beyond itself’ (Standford/ Stratton-Lake) If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. (C.S. Lewis)

to consideration of acting upon this knowledge. Moore, as we have seen, conceded that what could be intuitively recognised as good was not to do with actions and consequences but a recognition of the thing that was good in itself. Therefore, any fallibility of intuition is directly related not to the a priori , self-evident awareness and recognition of good, but rather in how we practically put this knowledge into action.

Moore held that although intuition of good was infallible, how we translate this and act upon intuition may well be.

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