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Concept
Metaethics
Summary
In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought to be and act) and applied ethics (practical questions of right behavior in given, usually contentious, situations).
While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should I do?", evaluating specific practices and principles of action, metaethics addresses questions such as "What is goodness?" and "How can we tell what is good from what is bad?", seeking to understand the assumptions underlying normative theories. Another distinction often made is that normative ethics involves first-order or substantive questions; metaethics involves second-order or formal questions.
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 studying moral judgments about proper actions can guide us to a true account of the nature of morality.
According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of metaethical problems, or three general questions:
What is the meaning of moral terms or judgments? (moral semantics)
Asks about the meanings of such words as 'good', 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' (see value theory)
What is the nature of moral judgments? (moral ontology)
Asks questions of whether moral judgments are absolute or relative, of one kind or many kinds, etc.
How may moral judgments be supported or defended? (moral epistemology)
Asks such questions as how we can know if something is right or wrong, if at all.
Garner and Rosen say that answers to the three basic questions "are not unrelated, and sometimes an answer to one will strongly suggest, or perhaps even entail, an answer to another.
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