IB Philosophy 4.2.1 the Origins and Nature of Moral Values Key Definitions

Human nature refers to the set of characteristics, capacities, and dispositions thought to be shared by all human beings, independent of culture, upbringing, or historical context, and that define what it fundamentally means to be human.

Moral sense is a theory originating with Francis Hutcheson and developed by Hume and Smith, holding that human beings possess an innate faculty for perceiving moral qualities through sentiment, analogous to the physical senses.

Moral values: standards or principles concerning what is right, wrong, good, or bad that carry a sense of obligation or authority; meta-ethics asks whether moral values are natural or cultural, universal or relative, subjective or objective.

The naturalistic fallacy is G.E. Moore's term for the error of defining the property of goodness in terms of any natural property such as pleasure, evolutionary fitness, or social approval. Moore argued that for any proposed natural equivalent of "good" one can always meaningfully ask whether that property really is good, suggesting that moral goodness is a simple, unanalysable quality irreducible to empirical description.

Objectivism in meta-ethics holds that moral values exist independently of individual opinions, cultural norms, or emotional responses, possessing a validity that is binding on all rational agents. The position implies that genuine moral disagreements have determinate answers, in contrast to subjectivism and relativism, which tie moral truth to the attitudes of persons or communities.

Utilitarianism is the consequentialist moral theory holding that an action is right insofar as it maximises overall happiness or well-being and wrong insofar as it produces the reverse, requiring agents to weigh the interests of every affected party impartially. Developed by Bentham and Mill, the theory provides a powerful framework for public policy but faces objections concerning the rights of minorities and the demandingness of always optimising outcomes.