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

WJEC / Eduqas Religious Studies for A Level Year 2 and A2 Religion and Ethics

Ethical statements can be persuasive Despite all this, Ayer did give one concession to ethical propositions. In a sense it was a great shame that he did not elaborate further on this aspect; however, it appears that since ethics is only one aspect of his whole theory about LTL, then he dealt with it within the framework of the purposes of his book and the simple notion of verification. As Mary Warnock observed, ‘Ayer, perhaps unwisely, presents his case for emotivism as though it rested primarily on a desire to find an ethical theory which would not conflict with the verification doctrine’. The area he conceded that ethical propositions may have some worth was as means of persuasion. He writes: ‘It is worth mentioning that ethical terms do not serve only to express feeling. They are calculated also to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action. Indeed some of them are used in such a way as to give the sentences in which they occur the effect of commands. Thus the sentence “It is your duty to tell the truth” may be regarded both as the expression of a certain sort of ethical feeling about truthfulness and as the expression of the command “Tell the truth”.’ In conclusion, there is no way that we can find a criterion for determining the validity of ethical judgements according to Ayer. Ethical statements have no objective validity whatsoever. If, as established above, the ethical element says nothing more about the statement then it is illogical to then ask whether that additional element is true or false. According to Ayer, ethical statements are ‘pure expressions of feeling and as such do not come under the category of truth and falsehood’. We cannot verify them just as we cannot verify a cry of pain! Therefore, ethical propositions are simply what Ayer called ‘ pseudo-concepts ’ and unanalysable. Ayer saw this as falling within the discipline of psychology. They are also to do with the moral habits of a given person or group of people, and a study of what causes them to have precisely those habits and feelings. This was an area of study for sociology and anthropology. Even the discipline of casuistry (applying an ethical rule to solve a given moral situation) is not a scientific discipline but rather one of analytical investigation as to how a moral system is structured.

Key quote The sentence ‘You ought to tell the truth’ also involves the command ‘Tell the truth’, but here the tone of the command is less emphatic. In the sentence ‘It is good to tell the truth’ the command has become little more than a suggestion … In fact we may define the meaning of the various ethical words in terms both of the different feelings they are ordinarily taken to express, and also the different responses which they are calculated to provoke. (Ayer)

DRAFT

Key term Pseudo concepts: something treated as a concept but can only be mentally apprehended and not empirically veri ed

Once again, if ethical arguments were formal logic or scientific procedure then the concept of goodness and rightness would be demonstratively different from the actions or situation. Since these concepts have been shown to add nothing to the action or situation then they are not independently verifiable. As Ayer puts it, ‘There is no procedure of examining the value of the facts, as distinct from examining the facts themselves.’ Key quotes Ethical argument is not formal demonstration. And not in a scientific

1.26 What did Ayer compare the

Anthropology studies the evolution of human behaviour and Ayer felt that this was best suited to assess moral behaviours.

veri cation of an ethical proposition to?

sense either. For then the goodness or badness of the situation, the rightness or wrongness of the action, would have to be something apart from the situation, something independently verifiable, for which the facts adduced as the reasons for the moral judgement were evidence. (Ayer) There is no procedure of examining the value of the facts, as distinct from examining the facts themselves. We may say that we have evidence for our

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