Meta-Ethical Theory
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A Meta-Ethical Theory is a ethical theory that seeks to understand the nature, status, and foundations of ethical statements, ethical attitudes, moral values, and ethical judgments.
- Context:
- It can address fundamental ethical questions, such as:
- “What is goodness?”
- “How can we tell what is good from what is bad?”
- “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…)?”
- It can (typically) explore the metaphysical status of moral values, questioning whether they exist independently of human beliefs or if they are subjective constructs.
- It can (often) be concerned with the epistemology of ethics, asking how, if at all, we can have knowledge of moral truths.
- It can include Moral Metaphysics (a metaphysics).
- It can include Moral Epistemology (an epistemology).
- It can include Moral Semantics (a semantics).
- It can include Moral Psychology, exploring the psychological underpinnings of moral judgments, such as whether moral statements express beliefs, emotions, or commands.
- It can range from moral realism, which posits that moral facts exist independently of human beliefs, to moral anti-realism, which denies such independent moral facts.
- It can distinguish between descriptive ethics, which studies people’s beliefs about morality, and normative ethics, which prescribes moral rules and principles.
- It can examine the implications of moral discourse, such as whether moral debates can be resolved through rational argument or are merely expressions of individual or cultural preferences.
- It can inform debates in moral philosophy, influencing positions on ethical relativism, objectivism, subjectivism, and nihilism.
- ...
- It can address fundamental ethical questions, such as:
- Example(s):
- a Moral Realism theory that posits the existence of objective moral facts.
- a Moral Nihilism Theory that denies the existence of any inherent moral values.
- a Moral Relativism theory that suggests moral truths are relative to cultural or individual perspectives.
- a Divine Command Theory that bases moral truths on the commands of a deity.
- a Universal Prescriptivism theory that interprets moral statements as universal prescriptions rather than statements of fact.
- ...
- Counter-Example(s):
- a Normative Ethics, which focuses on what people ought to do, rather than the nature of moral judgments.
- an Applied Ethics, which applies normative ethical principles to specific practical issues.
- a Descriptive Ethics, which merely describes moral beliefs and practices without engaging in philosophical analysis of their foundations.
- See: Moral Realism, Moral Anti-Realism, Moral Cognitivism, Moral Non-Cognitivism, Descriptive Ethics, Normative Ethics, Property (Philosophy), Philosophical Question, Property (Philosophy), Philosophical Question.
References
2014
- (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/meta-ethics Retrieved:2014-6-22.
- Meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the four branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being descriptive ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics.
While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should one do?", thus endorsing some ethical evaluations and rejecting others, meta-ethics addresses questions such as "What is goodness?" and "How can we tell what is good from what is bad?", seeking to understand the nature of ethical properties and evaluations.
Some theorists argue that a metaphysical account of morality is necessary for the proper evaluation of actual moral theories and for making practical moral decisions; others reason from opposite premises and suggest that we must impart ideas of moral intuition onto proper action before we can give a proper account of morality's metaphysics.
- Meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the four branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being descriptive ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics.
2013
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/
- 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 its domain a broad range of questions and puzzles, including: 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.