Quick questions on Metaethics: realism, relativism and emotivism: QCE Philosophy and Reason

What do moral words mean? Metaethics is about the nature and status of morality.

Moral realism is the cognitivist view that there are objective moral facts, true independently of what anyone thinks, much as mathematical or physical facts are. On this view "slavery is unjust" is objectively true. Strength: it explains moral disagreement as a dispute about facts and supports the idea that some practices are wrong everywhere. Objection: it is hard to say where moral facts exist or how we perceive them (the "queerness" worry pressed by J.

Cultural (descriptive then normative) relativism holds that moral truth is relative to a culture: what is right is what a society approves. Strength: it explains the diversity of moral codes and encourages tolerance. Objections: it cannot condemn another culture's practices (even slavery or genocide) as wrong; it makes the reformer who opposes their society's norms automatically mistaken; and "be tolerant" looks like a non-relative value smuggled in.

David Hume observed that writers slide from statements about what is the case to claims about what ought to be, without explaining the transition. The is-ought gap (and the related charge of the naturalistic fallacy, named by G. E. Moore) warns that you cannot validly derive a moral conclusion from purely factual premises.

Distinguish normative ethics from metaethics. [2 marks]

State one strength and one objection for cultural relativism. [4 marks]

Explain Hume's is-ought gap. [3 marks]