Metaethics

Lore & Background

Metaethics is distinguished from normative ethics, which addresses questions like 'What should I do?', and applied ethics, which deals with practical questions of right behavior in specific situations. Metaethics instead focuses on questions about the nature of goodness, how one can discriminate good from evil, and what the proper account of moral knowledge is. The threat of skepticism about the possibility of moral knowledge and cognitively meaningful moral propositions often motivates positive accounts in metaethics. According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of metaethical problems: moral semantics (the meaning of moral terms or judgments), moral ontology (the nature of moral judgments, such as whether they are absolute or relative), and moral epistemology (how moral judgments may be supported or defended). Answers to these three basic questions are not unrelated, and sometimes an answer to one will strongly suggest or entail an answer to another. Metaethical theories are commonly categorized as either a form of realism or as one of three forms of anti-realism regarding moral facts: ethical subjectivism, error theory, or non-cognitivism. Moral realism holds that moral propositions are about robust or mind-independent facts. Ethical subjectivism holds that moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of people. Error theory holds that all ethical claims express propositions but all such propositions are false. Non-realist cognitivism holds that moral propositions are irreducibly normative truth-apt beliefs, some are true, but none are made true by describing or corresponding to how things are in some part of reality.

Reader's Guide

Metaethics is significant because it provides the foundational framework for understanding the nature of moral discourse and justification. By addressing second-order questions about the meaning, ontology, and epistemology of moral judgments, metaethics clarifies the grounds upon which normative ethical theories and applied ethical decisions rest. The distinction between first-order (substantive) and second-order (formal) questions helps philosophers avoid conflating practical moral evaluation with the analysis of moral concepts themselves. The field's legacy includes the development of key debates between moral realism and anti-realism, cognitivism and non-cognitivism, and naturalism versus non-naturalism. The open question argument by G. E. Moore against ethical naturalism was largely responsible for the birth of metaethical research in contemporary analytic philosophy. Metaethical theories do not attempt to evaluate specific choices as better or worse, but they have profound implications for the validity and meaning of normative ethical claims. The ongoing discussion about truthmakers and non-realist cognitivism, including the concept of 'partners in innocence', continues to shape contemporary metaethical inquiry.

Did You Know?

• Metaethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.
• According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of metaethical problems: moral semantics, moral ontology, and moral epistemology.
• Error theory, a form of moral anti-realism, holds that all ethical claims express propositions but all such propositions are false.
• Non-realist cognitivism holds that some moral propositions are true but none are made true by describing or corresponding to how things are in some part of reality.