What is the basis of ethics?

The tradition holding that our ethical assertions express sentiments or attitudes has a long history. Its distinguished proponents include the Scottish “sentimentalists” David Hume and Adam Smith, and in the last century Freddie Ayer and Charles Stevenson. But in 1965 Peter Geach produced an argument, derived from points made by Gottlob Frege, which seemed to put a huge spanner in the works – by highlighting that ethical assertions are not logically and semantically consistent.

Professor Simon Blackburn, University of Cambridge will show that, after all, we will be able to retain the traditional view of ethical statements.