Information AboutMeta-ethics |
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In that seeks to understand the nature of ethical Properties , and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being Ethical Theory and Applied Ethics . Ethical theory and applied ethics make up Normative Ethics . Meta-ethics has received considerable attention from academic philosophers in the last few decades. While normative ethics addresses such questions as "Which things are (morally) good and bad?" and "What should one do?", thus endorsing some ethical evaluations and rejecting others, meta-ethics addresses the question "What is (moral) goodness?", seeking to understand the nature of ethical properties and evaluations. META-ETHICAL QUESTIONS According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of meta-ethical problems, or three general questions:
A question of the first type might be, "What do the words 'good', 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' mean?" (see Value Theory ). The second category includes the question of whether moral judgments are Objective or Relative . Questions of the third kind ask, for example, 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." META-ETHICAL THEORIES A meta-ethical theory, unlike a Normative Ethical theory, does not attempt to evaluate specific choices as being better, worse, good, bad, or evil; although it may have profound implications as to the validity and meaning of normative ethical claims. An answer to any of the three example questions above would not itself be a normative ethical statement. The major meta-ethical views are commonly divided into ''realist'' and ''anti-realist'' views (despite the fact that some labels, such as Cognitivism , do not recognize the realist/anti-realist distinction). Moral realism Moral Realism holds that there are Objective Moral Values . Moral realists believe that evaluative statements are factual claims, which are either true or false, and that their truth or falsity does not depend on our beliefs, feelings, or other attitudes towards the things that are evaluated. Moral realism comes in two main variants: # Ethical Intuitionism and Ethical Non-naturalism , which hold that there are objective, irreducible moral properties (such as the property of 'goodness'), and that we sometimes have intuitive awareness of moral properties or of moral truths. (See G.E. Moore .) # Ethical Naturalism , which holds that there are objective moral properties but that these properties are Reducible to entirely non-ethical properties. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledge of moral truths. (See Alasdair MacIntyre ) Moral anti-realism Moral Anti-realism holds that there are no objective moral values. This view comes in three main variants: # Ethical Subjectivism , which holds that moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of observers. There are several different versions of subjectivism, including:
# Non-cognitivism , which holds that ethical sentences are neither true nor false because they do not express genuine Propositions . Non-cognitivism encompasses:
# Error Theory (also known as Moral Nihilism ) holds that ethical claims are generally false. They hold that there are no objective values---that nothing is morally good, bad, wrong, right, etc.---because there are no moral truths. For example, an error theorist would say that murder is not wrong, but it's not right either. J. L. Mackie is probably the best-known proponent of this view. (Note that error theory is also sometimes associated with Moral Skepticism , but they have some slight differences. Error theories are a type of moral skepticism, but there are other types of moral skepticism.) Subjectivism, non-cognitivism, and error theory are the only forms of anti-realism: If there are no objective values, this must be either because ethical statements are subjective claims (as subjectivists maintain), because they are not genuine claims at all (as non-cognitivists maintain), or because they are mistaken objective claims. The only alternative is for ethical statements to be correct objective claims, which entails moral realism. Another way of categorizing meta-ethical theories distinguishes between monistic theories (in which there is one true, or at least one highest, good) and Pluralistic Theories . .) REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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