Non-Naturalism (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes
Non-Naturalism
Introduction to non-naturalism
Non-naturalism is a meta-ethical theory that sits alongside naturalism as a cognitivist approach to ethics. Both theories agree that moral facts exist and can be known. However, they differ fundamentally in how these moral facts are understood.
Ethical non-naturalism is the view that moral knowledge consists of factual properties that cannot be defined or explained through natural properties. Instead, these properties are known through intuition or divine revelation. Whilst moral values are real and can be known, they cannot be identified with observable natural properties in the world.
The key distinction is that non-naturalism maintains that moral properties exist but are not reducible to natural facts. This means that whilst we can know what is good or right, we cannot fully explain these concepts by pointing to natural features of the world.
G.E. Moore and the naturalistic fallacy
G.E. Moore (1873-1958) was a Cambridge professor who became one of the most influential figures in establishing non-naturalism as a credible meta-ethical position. His work in Principia Ethica (1903) challenged ethical naturalism and developed ideas originally found in Hume's philosophy.
The naturalistic fallacy
Moore identified what he called the naturalistic fallacy in ethical arguments. This fallacy occurs when philosophers attempt to derive moral values (what 'ought' to be) from factual statements (what 'is').
In many ethical arguments, people begin with observable facts about the world and then slip into making moral claims without recognising they have changed the basis of their reasoning.
Example: The Naturalistic Fallacy in Action
- Fact: "This action causes pleasure"
- Moral claim: "Therefore, this action is good"
Moore argued this leap from fact to value represents a logical error. You cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is' without additional moral premises.
Good is simple and unanalysable
To avoid the naturalistic fallacy, Moore reached a significant conclusion: the term 'good' cannot be defined or explained using anything more basic. This makes him an ethical non-naturalist.
Moore's key argument involves comparing naturalism and non-naturalism:
In naturalist terms: 'Good' is complex and analysable, just like a horse can be broken down into its component parts (head, legs, tail, etc.). Ethical naturalists claim 'good' can similarly be analysed in terms of natural properties such as pleasure, desires or needs.
In non-naturalist terms: 'Good' is simple and unanalysable. Unlike 'horse', the concept of 'good' cannot be broken down into natural properties. Moore believed 'good' was a quality that things could possess, but not one that could be defined.
The yellow analogy
Moore illustrated his argument using the colour yellow as an analogy:
Moore's Yellow Analogy
You can point to objects that are yellow and say they are yellow, but this does not fully explain what yellow is. You can compare yellow with other colours and explain it has different shades, but you cannot define 'yellow' using any simpler concept.
Once we see yellow things pointed out to us, we develop the ability to recognise what they have in common and use the word 'yellow' correctly. However, we do this without ever needing a precise definition. Similarly, Moore claims we have a working sense of what goodness is, even though it always goes beyond any definition.
Moore's famous statement summarises his position: "If I am asked, 'What is good?' my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter." Whilst this might seem disappointing, Moore argued it represents an important philosophical insight.
Cognitivism and non-naturalism
It is important to remember that both naturalism and non-naturalism are cognitivist theories. This means both maintain there are moral facts that we can know. The difference lies in the nature of these facts:
- Naturalist moral facts can be defined and explained
- Non-natural moral facts are real but cannot be defined
Intuitionism
Intuitionism is the primary form of non-naturalism. It argues that our knowledge of right and wrong comes through fundamental moral intuitions rather than through evaluating consequences or following logical arguments.
What are intuitions?
Intuitions are beliefs that are not supported by inference from other beliefs. They are 'stand-alone' beliefs, making moral judgements self-evident to those who hold them. Intuitionism is also a form of moral realism because moral truths are understood to exist independently of persons.
Typically, we hold values for reasons we can explain - perhaps they conform to natural law or are likely to maximise happiness. However, when we exhaust these explanations, we often sense that something is simply the case. For example, torturing or killing an innocent person just feels wrong, even if we could produce reasons why it might be advantageous.
You can identify when someone appeals to intuitions by watching for phrases such as "it seems reasonable to assume that..." This indicates the point where an appeal is made to the listener's moral intuitions.
The Trolley Problem
The Trolley Problem provides a clear example of how intuitions work in moral reasoning:
The Trolley Problem
A runaway railway trolley is hurtling down the track towards five people who cannot escape. The only way to save them is to divert the trolley onto another track where there is just one innocent person. Do you divert the trolley and kill one person, or allow five to die?
From a utilitarian perspective, killing one to save five seems justified. However, many people find they simply cannot bring themselves to take an action that leads to the death of an innocent person. This represents a deeply held intuition that killing the innocent is wrong, even in this situation.
The intuition remains fundamental for many people's thinking, regardless of the arguments presented. They may subsequently justify their position with reference to absolute prohibitions on killing, but the intuition itself is foundational.
W.D. Ross and prima facie duties
W.D. Ross (1877-1971) was a Scottish philosopher who developed intuitionism further. He was a moral realist, ethical non-naturalist and intuitionist who addressed a key problem: how to handle moral disagreement within an intuitionist framework.
Conflicting duties
In The Right and the Good (1930) and The Foundations of Ethics (1939), Ross pointed out that people sometimes face conflicting duties. It may not be obvious which duty should take priority.
Example: Conflicting Medical Duties
A doctor has a duty to keep a seriously ill patient pain-free but also a duty to avoid killing the patient. As pain-killing drugs increase to meet the first duty, they may hasten death, creating a conflict with the second duty.
The six prima facie duties
Ross identified several duties that we feel instinctively we must fulfil:
Ross's Six Prima Facie Duties:
- Keep our promises
- Pay back the harm we do to others
- Not injure others
- Return favours and services given to us by others
- Not harm innocent people
- Look after parents
Ross called these prima facie duties, meaning 'at first face' or 'on the face of it'. If there are no conflicting circumstances between these duties, then each is absolute. However, when two or more duties conflict, we must balance them and consider what to do.
Intuition resolves conflicts
This is where moral intuition becomes crucial. When forced to consider conflicting duties, careful reflection reveals what we ought to do through common sense and intuition.
Example: The Mad Axe-Murderer
Consider the mad axe-murderer who asks for his victim's whereabouts. For Kant, this posed a problem requiring evasive truths. For Ross, the solution is simpler: you would lie to the maniac because you have a prima facie duty to protect the innocent. The vast majority of people would agree with this, and Ross argues this agreement reflects an intuitive truth: the intended victim's life is more important than concerns about lying.
Ross stated: "The moral order expressed in these duties is just as much part of the fundamental nature of the universe as is the spatial or numerical structure expressed in the axioms of geometry or arithmetic."
Providing we have sufficient mental maturity, Ross argues our judgements on prima facie duties will be intuited truths. What is right for particular moral situations is unique to that situation, which explains why moral judgements differ.
Strengths of intuitionism
1. Universal experience
Everyone has moral intuitions and tends to use them to underpin or check moral arguments, whether recognised as such or not. For example, many have the intuition that killing can sometimes be justified (in war or self-defence) whereas murder cannot.
2. Overcomes naturalism problems
Intuitionism addresses one of ethical naturalism's central problems: the lack of agreement about what constitutes moral 'facts'. Different normative theories (Utilitarianism, Situation Ethics, Natural Law, Virtue Ethics) identify different facts as morally relevant.
3. Maintains moral realism
As a form of non-naturalism, Intuitionism remains a form of moral realism, meaning statements can still be true or false. It is realistic in admitting that moral intuition is not perfect, which explains continuing disagreements. For Ross, such disagreements arise because people's thinking about conflicting prima facie duties is not clear or deep enough.
Weaknesses of intuitionism
1. Unexplained origin of intuitions
Intuitionism does not satisfactorily answer how we come to have intuitions about right and wrong. Is intuition a faculty in the brain, or does it amount simply to reasoning? If we cannot observe such a faculty, it seems more likely that it does not exist.
2. Difficult ethical discussion
Intuitionism makes ethical discussion challenging since there seems to be no fundamental, reasoned basis for argument. People may have different intuitions about what is right, but if they cannot justify their intuitions, they can only continue stating them. This raises the question: if people have different moral intuitions, how do we choose between them?
3. Social conditioning
It is easy to be unconsciously influenced by prevailing social norms. Had we lived in the eighteenth century, we might have 'intuited' that slavery is right because that was what we had been brought up to believe. In other words, 'intuition' might be nothing more than unconscious acceptance of societal norms.
4. Led to non-cognitivism
An indirect but major problem with Moore's Intuitionism is that it has led many philosophers to turn to ethical non-cognitivism, which claims ethics has nothing to do with facts at all but instead concerns emotions, wishes or intentions.
A.J. Ayer's Emotivism dismisses ethical statements as mere emotional expressions. For Ayer, someone who says "murder is wrong" is merely making an emotional response, like crying or screaming. This seems deeply unsatisfactory because it reduces the importance of moral thinking. If "killing innocent children is wrong" is equivalent to "I dislike the idea of killing innocent children", this simply raises the question: "Should you be averse to killing innocent children?"
5. Questionable 'naturalistic fallacy'
Moore may have been wrong in dismissing ethical naturalism. Some philosophers question his 'Open Question' argument. As Robin Attfield notes, "it is clear that Moore was assuming that no successful definition will ever be produced, and was thus actually assuming his own conclusion on the way to reaching it."
Neo-naturalism: a response to Moore
One powerful naturalistic description of 'good' has emerged called neo-naturalism. Philosophers such as Philippa Foot (1920-2010), Mary Midgley (b.1919) and Geoffrey Warnock (1923-95) developed this approach.
Neo-naturalism holds that virtue plays a key role in ethics. According to Foot, dispositions and virtues depend on certain biological and sociological facts about humans. Scientific facts do not lead away from virtue but towards it. Biology and sociology can direct us to see what is virtuous.
Individuals should strive to recognise, pursue and attain virtues that lead to human flourishing. Morality has factual content, namely the flourishing of human beings. This content is not absolute but is objective, being really 'in' the natural world. Neo-naturalism is therefore objectivist and cognitivist.
Filling the is-ought gap
Neo-naturalism provides a criterion for judging whether our values are indeed facts: If what we want to do contributes to human flourishing, it is good/right/factual. If it goes against it, it is bad/wrong.
This reasoning also 'fills' the is-ought gap.
Example: Filling the Is-Ought Gap with Neo-Naturalism
Previously we moved from:
- "She is old and lonely" (fact)
- to "You ought to help her" (moral value)
With neo-naturalism, the gap can be filled:
- "She is old and lonely" (fact)
- "The content of morality is the flourishing of human beings" (socio-biological fact)
- "Not helping her does not contribute to human flourishing" (fact)
- Therefore you ought to help her (moral value)
This still leaves room for ethical discussion because it is not always clear what leads to human flourishing. However, it provides a factual basis for moral claims.
Divine Command Theory as non-naturalism
Divine Command Theory is another form of non-naturalism. God's moral commands are seen as grounded in the facts of his divine nature. In effect, Divine Command Theory is a form of theological Intuitionism.
The key difference from naturalism:
- Naturalism grounds its facts in the world - in nature or human nature. Moral facts are discovered through observation.
- Divine Command Theory locates moral commands in a supernatural source: God. God's commands are revealed through scripture and the Church and must be obeyed without reference to other facts about the world.
Many Christians accept this approach, though other Christians, such as John Hick, argue that having to obey God's commands removes the necessary freedom to respond to God. This explains why there are several different kinds of Christian ethics.
Exam tips
- Be clear about the distinction between naturalism and non-naturalism - both are cognitivist but differ in whether moral properties can be defined
- Use Moore's yellow analogy to illustrate his argument effectively
- Understand Ross's prima facie duties and how intuition resolves conflicts between them
- Be prepared to evaluate both strengths and weaknesses of Intuitionism
- Consider neo-naturalism as a response to Moore's arguments
- Remember that Divine Command Theory is a non-naturalist approach
Key Points to Remember:
- Non-naturalism maintains that moral facts exist and can be known, but cannot be defined in terms of natural properties
- Moore's naturalistic fallacy shows the error of deriving 'ought' from 'is' without additional moral premises
- Moore argued 'good' is simple and unanalysable, like the colour yellow - we can recognise it but not define it
- Intuitionism claims moral knowledge comes through fundamental moral intuitions that are self-evident
- Ross identified six prima facie duties that may conflict, with intuition helping us choose between them
- Strengths include the universal nature of moral intuitions and maintenance of moral realism
- Weaknesses include unexplained origins of intuitions, difficulty in ethical discussion, and potential social conditioning
- Neo-naturalism suggests 'good' can be defined as what contributes to human flourishing, filling the is-ought gap