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What Does the Term “Ethical Value” Really Denote?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
Extract
The terms we use in putting forward arguments may be ambiguous. When this is the case, our reasoning, however strictly we adhere to formal syllogistic rules, is apt to be fallacious. Here is a familiar text–book example of such a faulty process of thought.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1956
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1 The word “function” is appropriate when used to describe the distinctive purposes for which we employ different kinds of sentences. The “function” of an indicative sentence, e.g. is to make a statement about something. Imperative sentences, however, have a different function. They are not used to make statements about anything, but in order to get things done. When, however, we speak of the “function” of a substantive or adjectival term in an indicative sentence, the word is not so apt as the logician's word “denotation.”
page 214 note 1 It should be noted that, contrary to common usage, I restrict the use of this term to non–voluntary intrinsic values. Moral value, on the other hand pertains only to good will and its acts.
page 216 note 11 Ross: Foundations of Ethics, p. 279.
page 216 note 2 E.g., op. cit., p. 67, “Yet even if Utilitarianism is not true, it is still the case that it is one of our main responsibilities to produce as much good as we can, so that the question whether pleasure is the only good remains a very important question.”
page 219 note 1 R. M. Hare: The Language of Morals, p. 196.
page 219 note 2 Sartre: Existentialism and Humanism, p. 32.
page 220 note 1 P. H. Nowell–Smith: Ethics, p. 313.
page 220 note 2 R. M. Hare: The Language of Morals, p. 91.
page 220 note 3 A. C. Ewing: The Definition of Good, p. 113.
page 220 note 4 R. M. Hare: Op. cit., p. 130.
page 221 note 1 Op. tit., p. 139.
page 221 note 2 Ross: Foundations of Ethics, p. 279.
page 222 note 1 Mind, January, 1912.
page 223 note 1 de Burgh: From Morality to Religion, p. 141; A. C. Garnett: The Moral Nature of Man, p. 54.
page 223 note 2 R. M. Hare: The Language of Morals, pp. 29–31; P. H. Nowell–Smith: Ethics, pp. 34–35.
page 224 note 1 As already indicated, I do not consider it necessary for my purpose to take into account, in stating this principle, Ross's quasi–deontological theory, that some kinds of acts are morally obligatory on the ground of their own inherent “rightness.” This qualification also applies to the problems of “fair distribution” of the greater good.
page 227 note 1 See Sorley: Moral Values, etc., p. 97; and A. C. Ewing: Ethics, pp. 126 ff.