The nature and validation of moral knowledge

Abstract

This thesis comprises a study in the field of metaethics. It is concerned with what is going on when humans engage in the range of activities they characteristically call 'moral', and how-if at all-such activity differs from the 'non-moral'. It questions whether actions, events, persons, or other existents are appropriate candidates for being called 'good' or 'bad', 'right' or 'wrong', or whether they 'ought' or 'ought not' to exist or be done. That discussion leads to an examination of what it is for a human to judge or declare such moral predicates to be the case, and how such a declaration or judgement can be justified. Are there moral principles or standards applicable to all humans at all times, or are such things culturally or episodically relative? Human knowledge is argued to be conceptual in nature, with the volitional basis of such conceptual ability grounding our need for a system of values to guide our actions. Concepts are founded on the direct evidence of perceptually-based information about the world. A Systems Theory of human cognition is developed, viewing humans as an autonomous biological entities with no state separation into 'mind' and 'body'. Conceptual activity is distinguished into proto-conceptual, primal concepts and sequent concepts. The thesis concludes that moral judgements are complex cognitive schemata, developed by continuing experience and choice at the individual, social and cultural levels. The basis of human knowledge is the conceptual nature of our consciousness. Reality is argued to be the final arbiter of truth, with human life the standard of value against which morality is judged.