Introduction
In this essay, I will argue that naturalism/descriptivism is an appropriate form of perceiving the world within ontology matters. This paper will analyze basic questions of naturalism/descriptivism and how they reveal moral realism. Moreover, it will be discussed that naturalism/descriptivism is the objective and main cause of moral disagreement since a people is seeking a pretext, yet covering it with the natural aspect of the human being. It will be thoroughly discussed that naturalism/descriptivism examines ontological and conceptual issues better and deeper than any other second-order views of morality. Evidently, moral realism is an ethical view that supports that ethical phrases mean propositions; many of the latter are true while being made true by objective features of the world disregarding the occurred situation or biased opinions. Therefore, moral realism means that moral sentences are necessarily true or false, hence the correctness or falseness of moral arguments do not directly depend on the moral opinions, the commonly accepted canons compose a wonderful method for developing moral knowledge. Provided, the correctness of moral realism is applicable only if there are moral properties defined and there are no beliefs about those properties by anyone. By the right properties are meant: consideration of action as right or wrong, being a praiseworthy person, or on the contrary, vicious. Descriptivism is a theory that argues that every statement, phrase, or utterance has a specific meaning and descriptivism is able to describe every each of them because there are specific objects within the natural world. To be more exact, the implementation of the said above will be the example of the statement of a moral fact ‘chatting id bad’.
Ontological Arguments in Regards to Naturalism/Descriptivism
It is possible to use descriptivism in order to conclude whether someone’s behavior is good or bad, disregarding initial intentions. For example, if a person is likely to help others, and instead an unexpectedly bad circumstance occurs while which the actions of a person are impacted and ultimately considered wrong, then this is biased and cannot be assumed a priori. Descriptivists instead gather the model roles of people’s behaviors and make their own conclusions describing their common traits of linguistic character. Besides, it is impossible to tell if the action is wrong grounding on the person’s intent only because descriptivism regards linguistics as a certain perception by specific people, which is not subordinate to commonly accepted rules. That is why it is pretty hard to claim that a person’s will is something that can be definitely observed as bad or good.
Advantages of Moral Realism
Moral realism is an integrative part of descriptivism. Since descriptivism is a notion itself denoting as a clear assessment and explanation, then it has to be based on some respective theory. In this case the theory is called moral realism. As ethics is a science that speaks about moral judgments and their understanding and perception by individuals than moral realism is what supports every issue of ethics because it offers an outstanding descriptive information of every ethical and moral issue as it is according to natural factors. The advantage of moral realism basically lies in the debatable nature of it when two moral beliefs do not coincide. The moral realism with its diversity of judgments and opinions undermines the fact that moral views can be objective. This is a strong point as per moral realism because it happens to be one of the important and leading features in philosophy’s development since only in debate the truth is born. The ability to solve the problems of moral disagreements is a peculiar feature inherent in descriptivism only. Moreover, contrary theories of meta-ethics are far from being able to formulate the utterance ‘the belief is incorrect’, thus they fail to resolve disagreement so fantastically as moral realism, and hence descriptivism does.
Another advantage of the moral realism is that it is probably the least unjustified and contradictory than, for example, factual belief. It is evident that in contrast to the factual beliefs a moral statement can be observed differently depending on the language chosen to describe it. Although many people consider moral realism to be something intangible, it is very exact and clearer than any other feature of expressivism.
‘Good and Bad’ according to Descriptivism
In order to explain how descriptivism elaborates on the assumption of bad and good it is important to understand the nature of descriptivism. According to meta-ethics Descriptivism is a cognitivist’s view that conveys that moral language is a reflection of the world. It is considered to think that all cognitive utterances are descriptive utterances since it is impossible to convey the meaning and pass it on without actually stating and defining it exactly. So, if someone says that a certain action is wrong or right it is necessary to inquire why they think it is. This way it entails that a person can conclude whether there are any firm ground or explanations of what was claimed to be good or bad. If there is none of the latter t, then it is possible to say those were ‘the expressions of personal preference’ (Rachels, p. 39) Therefore, it is essential you make connections between the judgments and the seasonings given. However, it is also possible to say that the moral statements do not reflect moral judgments, hence an agent is likely to act completely differently then a descriptivist outlines linguistically.
Strong Descriptivism
Describing how one can be descriptive when objectively identifying fact, it is possible to draw an example of philosophy as a subject science. Strong Descriptivism states that Philosophy describes absolute conformity to natural laws. Linguistic communities and the way they implement the linguistic capacity is the right example to overview. Saying that people are confirm to the rules of nature is true, because those rules are appearing from the very behavior f people, the way they conduct impacts the laws they will subconsciously or intentionally make out. Natural laws certainly happen to be regularities. However, it is decidedly true that an object – a person – cannot fully be submissive to these laws, although created by men. The interesting fact here is that a person does not want any kind of law to restrain or limit the span of his/her linguistic freedom. Therefore, objects do not necessarily use descriptivism as per rules accepted, but rather it depends upon the personal traits.
Linguistic/Conceptual
Moral propositions can be considered as effectively presenting their functions under condition of being inter-subjective. Firstly, because the moral propositions, otherwise, would have no sense within the laws and rules making. The inter-subjective meaning of moral propositions have to be taken as essential also because the moral judgments have to present an opportunity to justify oneself to others. If a n issue is subjective fully then the entire theory of moral propositions is false and has no sense because not supported by anyone. Second of all, Moral proposition should consider the fact of the way people want to be treated and those other people’s desire to be treated accordingly well. This way the function of inter-subjective moral propositions is fully implemented. Moral propositions can function only under condition that the separately taken society is submitted to common moral values and everyone of them knows exactly what each is expecting as a moral behavior.
Moral Propositions vs. Moral Sentences
Moral propositions are said to be self-evident. One of the essential remarks to make here is a point that people sometimes misread the conversations’ content. As a matter of fact all it is usually about is a misuse of language or incorrect understanding of it. The definitions of some words may be subjective. This means that if one places one meaning under one statement and other meaning under the same statement it means that one and the same utterance is true and false as looked from different perspectives. Meanwhile, all that occurs to two different statements is the change of the language used – simply paraphrased utterances. So, let’s assume that translating from one language into another one brings some misunderstandings within the process of interpreting or translating. Therefore, the pretension about the phrase being true and the same phrase being wrong in two different languages is a blunder. Moreover, if we regard the importance of the two definitions, it cannot be omitted that those two definitions are not able to make the same proposition correct or false. This all depends upon cultural or personal assessments. What is really interesting within the theme of moral proposition within linguistics is that the true and false propositions are expressed with eh help of the same symbols. Fortunately, the philosophers keep the notions of sentences and moral propositions way far from blending into each other. However, when people think of ethics, they mistakenly assume that changing the words entails changing the propositions – which is untrue. Even more, instead of making the proposition just a different one, a person this way makes it both true and false though without changing the initial meaning largely.
Conclusion
Naturalism/descriptivism can deservedly be called the most efficient theories of percepting of the natural world. There are thousands of explanations a person can make, which can be interpreted variously. However, it is descriptivism that makes it clearly definite: right or wrong, bad or good. There is plenty of advantage descriptivism and moral realism can boast of, one of the most important is the applicability of it to practice that makes many more advancements and developments on Philosophy possible. Moreover, the position of descriptivists has been taken for granted and considered to be the canon of moral realism. Although ‘skeptics about the status of morality claim that evaluative standards must reflect our won appraisals of propriety and worth ’ (Shafer-Landau, p. 2) it is proved throughout the paper that every statement’s successful though conveying depends on the linguistic efficiency.
References
Landau-Shafer, R. Moral Realism: A Defence. Cary: Oxford University Press. 2005.
Rachels J. & Rachels, S. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010.