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

T1 Ethical Thought

Key quote According to the naturalist, there is only the natural order. If something is postulated or claimed to exist but is not described in the vocabulary that describes natural phenomena, and not studied by the inquiries that study natural phenomena, it is not something we should recognize as real. (Jacobs IEP) Cognitivism and realism Linked to this philosophical approach are the ideas of cognitivism and realism . Cognitivism is very much related to how our mental faculties process information and terms and you will meet this again when studying religious language. Cognitivism holds that a statement or proposition must be related to our experience in order to verify whether or not it makes sense (true), or, whether or not it is meaningless (false). Cognitivism is the linguistic aspect of the empirical approach, that is, it establishes primarily whether or not a proposition has valid empirical meaning. This was crucially important to those philosophers that belonged to what was called the Vienna Circle, or, Logical Positivists . Often, an underlying assumption of cognitivism is that the world around us is objective or real, that is it exists independently of us and our minds and so can be used to establish knowledge and truth. This philosophical position is referred to as realism; however, there are many different discussions within philosophy as to how a realist understanding or interpretation of the world is derived, how this relates to cognitivism, and indeed, what the result of that implies for our knowledge of the world. This is not our concern here. For our studies we take realism to mean that the world around us is simply ‘there’ and it is not just our imagination, a delusion nor psychological projection. In other words, it is a real existence that is mind- independent of us and therefore judgements about moral behaviour are ‘real’ because they directly relate to objective facts of existence. For example, take the statement: ‘The kind neighbour takes out my bins to the road every Monday morning.’ In cognitive terms this makes sense as it concurs with our world of experience and what we know – our minds recognise the notions

1.1 What is the peripatetic axiom?

1.2 What does the word epistemology mean?

DRAFT

Key terms Cognitivism: the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express meaningful propositions and can therefore be true or false Logical Positivists: famous group of philosophers interested in logical philosophy also known as the Vienna Circle Proposition: statement Realism: view that an object exists in reality independently of our mind (mind-independent)

of kindness, neighbour, taking, etc. Realism acknowledges that this is true when we experience, through our sense of sight, the neighbour physically taking out the bins and realism acknowledges that we did not just imagine it. The ‘kindness’ aspect is the final assessment. Therefore, a cognitive, realist approach affirms that a judgement as to the neighbour’s moral character can be found through the experience of this being a helpful act and bringing happiness to others involved (from experience we can see that a ‘kind’ act is that which brings happiness). The language is meaningful, and the moral judgement relates directly to the consequences of the physical act. A cognitive, realist approach, then, sees a moral or ethical proposition as being related directly to the empirical world, truthful and valid.

An act as simple as taking out another’s bin for collection can be seen in ethical terms.

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