“Ethical language is meaningless” Discuss Ethics is concerned with what is right and what is wrong. Meta-ethics however looks at the language‚ it asks “What does it mean to say that something is right or wrong”. In the words of Pojman‚ "normative ethics is a philosophical examination of morality‚ meta-ethics is philosophising about ethics -that is‚ about the very terms and structure of ethical theories." I aim to explore the claim that all ethical language is meaningless by looking at some of
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Ethical language is meaningless. Discuss. Twentieth Century ethics has been highly dominated by linguistics. Ethicists now worked to discover the meanings of terms such as “good” or “bad”. This goes beyond normative ethics such as Utilitarianism‚ Kantian ethics or Virtue ethics but rather looks at the usefulness and meaningfulness of ethical language‚ known as Meta ethics. It also tries to understand the meaning of terms used in descriptive ethics usually used by sociologists. Ethical language
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“Religious language is meaningless” The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal‚ infinite‚ and timeless‚ are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe him‚ religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories of religious language either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless‚ or attempt to show how religious language
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religion deal with fact or opinions. There are two types of ethical statement descriptive and normative. Descriptive ethical statements such as “most crime is carried out by young men” are verifiable which means that they can be proved as fact or fiction. The key areas pf philosophical debate during the 20th century concern meta-ethics and meta-physics‚ where the meaning of what is said takes central stage. For instance what is the nature of language and how can statements be shown to be true or false?
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Critically assess the view that religious language is meaningless (35) The view that religious language is meaningless is one that is shared by many as the religious statements claims can’t validated by evidence and equally can’t be falsified. In addition some hold the view that we can’t talk meaningfully about a being greater than ourselves as our language is limited in describing a being as great as God. However‚ there are those that believe we can meaningfully make religious statements so long
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“Critically assess the claim that religious language is meaningless” Religious language has been argued about by many philosophers to whether or not the ways in which we speak about religion are relevant or meaningful. This issue of religious language looks at the way we talk about God‚ debate ideas and communicate our theist or atheist ideologies. For some‚ religious language is meaningful and full of purpose while others see it to being incomprehensible and pointless. The Vienna Circle was
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All Men are Liars: Is Democracy Meaningless? 1 by Gerry Mackie St. John’s College University of Oxford Oxford OX1 3JP United Kingdom gerry.mackie@sjc.ox.ac.uk April 18‚ 1997 Forthcoming in Jon Elster‚ ed.‚ Deliberative Democracy 2 I. Introdu ction. One current of thought within the rational choice approach to the study of politics asserts that democratic voting and democratic discussion are each‚ generally‚ inaccurate and meaningless. 2 I will call an emphasis on these descriptive
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What is Love? Love is a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person‚ attraction that includes sexual desire‚ it is the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship. Love is also an object of attachment‚ devotion or admiration of something. Poets and authors have tried to define love for centuries‚ now even scientists want to discover the human mechanics of what makes us love. Many of us know intuitively that love is a major purpose for living; that connection is inherent
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In the debate about religious language‚ it is important that broadly speaking‚ there are two types of language‚ cognitive and non-cognitive. Cognitive language conveys facts i.e. things that we can know or be cognisant of. Non-cognitive language conveys information that is not factual; feelings and emotional claims. Those who believe that religious language is non-cognitive and so meaningless stem their beliefs from the Logical Positivist. The Logical Positivists were a group of philosophers who
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Meaningless Names The following stories‚ “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen‚ a story about a mother who goes back and forth through her life with her daughter Emily. Emily’s mother is shown as heartless when sending her daughter away‚ or not replying to her night terrors‚ dehumanizing her within the text‚ her name isn’t mentioned in a way to represent this further. In the story “Through the Tunnel” by Doris Lessing‚ a story about a boy (Jerry) becoming a man‚ and having to forget what others
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