25. Ayer A.J Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral Antirealism.

Moral noncognitivism holds that our moral judgments are not in the business of aiming at truth. So, for example, A.J. Ayer declared that when we say “Stealing money is wrong” we do not express a proposition that can be true or false, but rather it is as if we say “Stealing money!!” with the tone of voice indicating that a special feeling of disapproval is being expressed (Ayer [1936] 1971: 110). Note how the predicate “…is wrong” has disappeared in Ayer's translation schema; thus the issues of whether the property of wrongness exists, and whether that existence is mind-dependent, also disappear.

The moral error theorist thinks that although our moral judgments aim at the truth, they systematically fail to secure it. The moral error theorist stands to morality as the atheist stands to religion. Noncognitivism regarding theistic discourse is not very plausible (though see Smith 1980); rather, it would seem that when a theist says “God exists” (for example) she is expressing something that aims to be true. According to the atheist, however, the claim is untrue; indeed, according to her, theistic discourse in general is infected with error. The moral error theorist claims that when we say “Stealing is wrong” we are asserting that the act of stealing instantiates the property of wrongness, but in fact nothing instantiates this property, and thus the utterance is untrue. (Why say “untrue” rather than “false”? See section 4 below.) Indeed, according to her, moral discourse in general is infected with error.

Subjectivism (as it will be called here) allows that moral facts exist but holds that they are, in some manner to be specified, constituted by our mental activity. The slogan version comes from Hamlet: “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Of course, the notion of “mind-independence” is problematically indeterminate: Something may be mind-independent in one sense and mind-dependent in another. Cars, for example, are designed and constructed by creatures with minds, and yet in another sense cars are clearly concrete, non-subjective entities. Much careful disambiguation is needed before we know how to circumscribe subjectivism, and different philosophers disambiguate differently. Many philosophers question whether the “subjectivism clause” is a useful component of moral anti-realism at all. Many advocate views according to which moral properties are significantly mind-dependent but which they are loath to characterize as versions of moral anti-realism.

There is a concern that including the subjectivism clause threatens to make moral anti-realism trivially true, since there is little room for doubting that the moral status of actions usually (if not always) depends in some manner on mental phenomena such as the intentions with which the action was performed or the episodes or pleasure and pain that ensue from it. The issue will be discussed below, with no pretense made of settling the matter one way or the other. Sometimes “subjectivism” is used to denote the thesis that in making a moral judgment one is reporting (as opposed to expressing) one's own mental attitudes (e.g., “Stealing is wrong” means “I disapprove of stealing”). The term “subjectivism” is not used in this way in this entry (though the theory just described would count as a version of subjectivism in the sense that I am using the term).

26. Russells Bertrand, Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Russell's Moral Philosophy Two Arguments for Emotivism: Ayer, Russell & Moore, Russell's Moral Philosophy First published Mon Dec 17, 2007.

27. Kelsen Hans, Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The idea of a Pure Theory of Law was propounded by the formidable Austrian jurist and philosopher Hans Kelsen (1881–1973). (See bibliographical note) Kelsen began his long career as a legal theorist at the beginning of the 20th century. The traditional legal philosophies at the time, were,... Legal positivism is the thesis that the existence and content of law depends on social facts and not on its merits. The English jurist John Austin (1790-1859) formulated it thus: “The existence... Kelsen (1881-1973) and the two dominating figures in the analytic philosophy of law, H.L.A. Hart (1907-92) and Joseph Raz among whom there are clear lines of influence, but also important contrasts. Legal... The Nature of Law: Lawyers are typically interested in the question: What is the law on a particular issue? This is always a local question and answers to it are bound to differ according to the specific jurisdiction... Kelsen, for instance, maintained that the monopolization of violence in society, and the law's ability to impose its demands by violent means, is the most important of law's functions in society. Twentieth... Legal obligation and authority: Whatever else they do, all legal systems recognize, create, vary and enforce obligations. This is no accident: obligations are central to the social role of law and explaining them is necessary to... Kelsen, argue that the content of every legal system can and should be represented solely in terms of duty-imposing and duty-excepting laws. Bentham asks, “What is it that every article of law has... Legal rights are, clearly, rights which exist under the rules of legal systems. They raise a number of different philosophical issues. (1) Whether legal rights are conceptually related to other types... Kelsen) appear to have adhered to the first view, whilst more recent writers (e.g., MacCormick, Raz, Wellman) take the second. The second view has the implication that the force of a right is not necessarily exhausted...

28. Stevenson Charles Metaethics is the attempt to understand the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological, presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and practice. As such, it counts within... Stevenson, Charles, 1937. “The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms,” Mind 46: 14-31. Stevenson, Charles, 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press. Stevenson, Charles, 1963.

Is morality more a matter of taste than truth? Are moral standards culturally relative? Are there moral facts? If there are moral facts, what is their origin? How is it that they set an appropriate standard for our behavior? How might moral facts be related to other facts (about psychology, happiness, human conventions…)? And how do we learn about the moral facts, if there are any? These questions lead naturally to puzzles about the meaning of moral claims as well as about moral truth and the justification of our moral commitments.

Metaethics explores as well the connection between values, reasons for action, and human motivation, asking how it is that moral standards might provide us with reasons to do or refrain from doing as it demands, and it addresses many of the issues commonly bound up with the nature of freedom and its significance (or not) for moral responsibility. [1]

29. Marcuse Herbert, el libertarismo, el polimorfismo sexual. Eros e civilta; a cura Melchiorre, Amore e matrimonio. pp 458. In Elio Sgreccia, Manuale de bioetica Ed. Vita e Pensiero., 2006, pag 389.

30. Sartre J. P. “J’existe mom corp“, Concezione monistica, visione riduzionistica del corpo e della politica. In Elio Sgreccia Manuale di bioetica Ed. 2006. Vita e Pensiero. Pag. 115.

31. Hume D: Liberalismo etico (Hume, Smith, Short Mell,Gregory). In Elio Sgreccia Manuale di bioetica Ed. 2006. Vita e Pensiero. Pag. 16. The most important philosopher ever to write in English, David Hume (1711-1776) — the last of the great triumvirate of “British empiricists” — was also well-known in his own time as an historian and essayist. A master stylist in any genre, Hume's major philosophical works.

32. Herrera Salazar Juan; Es posible Integrar las Diferentes Teorias Eticas, Conciliarlas y Complementarlas. ¿Podemos Superar los Clásicos Modelos Bioéticos? El Panorama de la Bioética Contemporanea. Revista Electrónica Portales Médicos.com 16/08/2010

33. Rusells Bertrand, Consequentialism, Emotivism and Moral Reform Russell's Moral Philosophy by Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy First published Mon Dec 17, 2007. Russell versus Moore: Two Kinds of Consequentialism.

Although Russell became a convert to the doctrines of Principia Ethica, he disagreed with Moore on two important points. Russell, like Moore was what is nowadays known as a consequentialist. He believed that the rightness or otherwise of an act is ‘in some way, dependent on consequences’. But for the young Moore, it is ‘demonstrably certain’ (!) that ‘I am morally bound to perform this action’ is identical [that is synonymous] with the assertion ‘This action will produce the greatest amount of possible good in the Universe’. (PE: ch. 5, §89.) Thus it is analytic that the right thing to do is the action that will, actually produce the best consequences. But in Russell's view this claim is neither analytic nor true. Moore's own Open Question Argument can be deployed to prove that it is not analytic and a little critical reflection reveals that it is not true. ‘It is held [by Moore] that what we ought to do is that action, among all that are possible, which will produce the best results on the whole; and this is regarded as constituting a definition of ought. I hold that this is not a definition, but a significant proposition, and in fact a false one.‘ (RoE: 101/Papers 4: 573.) It is a ‘significant’ or non-analytic proposition because a competent speaker can believe that X is the act that will produce the best consequences without believing that he ought to do it. If the two propositions ‘X is the act available to me that will produce the best consequences’ and ‘I ought to do X’ were really synonymous, then a competent speaker could not believe the one whilst remaining doubt about the other. Since this is perfectly possible (as is shown by the fact that ‘Ought I to do what will have the best results?’ is an obstinately open question for competent speakers of English) the two claims are not synonymous.

But the fact that these claims are not synonymous does not show that it is false that I ought to do that act which will, in fact, produce the best consequences. The latter claim could be synthetic (or, as Russell would have it, ‘significant’) but true. Why does Russell think it false? Russell raises thead hominem objection that Moore's thesis is flatly inconsistent with the moral conservatism that he goes on to embrace. According to Moore, although ‘there are cases where [an established moral] rule should be broken’, since ‘in some cases the neglect of an established moral rule will be the best course of action possible’, nevertheless, ‘we can never know what those cases are, and ought, therefore, never to break it.’ (PE: §99.) ‘The individual, therefore, can be confidently recommended always to conform to rules which are generally useful and generally practiced.’ But if we ought to perform the best action possible, what this implies is that there are some cases (though we can never know which) where we ought to do what it is not the case that we ought to do.