School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemMeaning and use in evaluation( 1962)The most conspicuous of recent developments in ethics is the emergence of that has been variously called by its foes: non-propositlonal ethics: and by its friends metaethics. The former term stresses its conclusions: the latter its method. Neither the method nor the conclusions are altogether new; but I think it is safe to say they are different enough from those of traditional ethical theory to make it dangerous to apply most of the traditional labels. What may seem a "subjectivist" conclusion may stress aspects unlike those important to traditional subjectivism; what may seem an "objectivist" conclusion does not necessarily imply the independent subsistence of moral fact, Thus when us shall: in this thesis: hold that an "objective" or "descriptive" analysis is more appropriate to ethical language than the "subjective" analyses offered by the theories we will consider, we do not at the same time claim to be taking a diametrically opposed stand. Indeed: what we will suggest is no more than a small but important shift of analytic emphasis; and it depends entirely on the acceptance of the bulk of metaethical findings. Two words of warning. First: we have restricted ourselves primarily to that part of ethical language called "evaluative", and characterised by the word "good" more plainly then by "ought", "right" or "duty". It may be that these latter concepts must bear a different logical Interpretation; but if so I do not think those differences would be so great as to require an entirely dissimilar sort of analysis. Our holding; in the main, to evaluation is more a matter of attempting to gain in depth what we might lose in breadth in the space available to us; though I think the conclusions we will reach apply equally to all ethical language. Secondly; we must note that this now metaethics has not come out of a vacuum. It Is simply one part of a larger view of philosophic method end purpose; and at least some of what we will say must be seen y not only as commenting on ethics, but as commenting on the applications of this method. As our title might hint; many of the views we will gut forward are suggested by the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgernstein; both those of the authors we will treat' and our sun. The debt must remain implicit, for Wittgenstein had almost nothing to say about ethics. It is nonetheless, enormous.