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

T1 Ethical Thought

The classical example of Ethical Naturalism as an ethical theory is that of Utilitarianism as proposed by Mill. A Utilitarian approach is typically Naturalistic in that it applies ethical reasoning from the basis of the experience of happiness and that the most useful ethical action is seen as that which brings the maximum levels of ‘happiness or pleasure’. Utilitarians argue that everyone should do the most useful thing. The most useful thing is seen as action or actions that result in maximum levels of happiness or pleasure. Therefore, actions that produce the most happiness are seen as good. However, Mill was very interested in establishing an ethical society, not just individual guidance, and therefore the most important contribution by Mill, then, can be argued to be his introduction of the idea of universalisability . This proposed that everyone ought to aim at the happiness of everyone, as increasing the general happiness will increase individual happiness. This argument then supports the idea that people should put the interests of the group before their own interests. Mill’s theory of Utilitarianism mirrors the progressive statements on the previous page: ■ Moral terms can be understood by analysing the natural world in relation to the effects of our actions. ■ Ethical statements are cognitivist and can be verified or falsified in relation to what we know about actions and their consequences from the empirical world, namely, the amount of happiness or pain they create. ■ Verified moral statements are objective truths and universal so we can establish that everyone ought to aim at the happiness of everyone, as increasing the general happiness will increase individual happiness. ■ The objective features of the world, namely the impact of acts that create happiness and acts that create suffering, make our ethical propositions about the nature of such action true or false. The most important point about Ethical Naturalism is that it supports the view that objective moral laws exist independently of human beings and are grounded in the empirical nature of existence. Having established the link between an objective external existence (realism) and that a cognitivist approach can verify or establish the validity of what we experience (empiricism), then it logically follows that what we know about what we experience makes our ethical statements objective. Therefore, we can recognise objective moral laws that exist independently of human beings and that are located firmly in the world around us. As Naturalism places great emphasis on the empirical then it opens itself up to the realm of the sciences and so we find we have social Naturalism, biological Naturalism, evolutionary ethics, psychological Naturalism and philosophical materialism. There is also the whole question of whether or not the purpose of Naturalism is descriptive or normative , as we shall see later with evolutionary ethics. For the purpose of this Specification, Ethical Naturalism should be understood as set out here, that is, as empirical, cognitive and realist, and also in relation to the contribution to philosophy of F. H. Bradley to which we now turn. AO1 Activity Think of an everyday scenario and write a paragraph describing it with reference to some of the key terms above.

Key terms Descriptive: term used as a criticism of Naturalism that it can only describe and not be prescriptive Normative: to do with ‘norms’ of behaviour used in ethics to describe theories stating what we should do or how we should behave Universalisability: Mill’s utilitarian principle that that everyone ought to aim at the happiness of everyone, as increasing the general happiness will increase individual happiness Utilitarianism: theory rst systematically outlined by Jeremy Bentham stating that we ought to aim to produce the greatest amount of pleasure and the least amount of pain

DRAFT

1.5 How does Utilitarianism de ne the word ‘good’?

Mill’s argument that the interests of the group should come before the interests of the individual is the underlying feature of democracy.

Study tip Start to create a glossary of key terms but make sure that you have a separate column for the definitions so that it makes it easy to cover them up and test yourself.

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