3.1.1: Introduction

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The prefix “meta” is derived from the Greek for “beyond”. Metaethics is therefore a form of study that is beyond the topics considered in normative or applied ethics. Recall as we stated in the introduction, the differences between these forms of ethical study are helpfully captured in an analogy put forward by Fisher (2011) involving different participants in a game of football.

Applied Ethics is the study of how we should act in specific areas of our lives; how we should deal with issues like meat-eating, euthanasia or stealing (to use examples familiar to this textbook). To use the football analogy, the applied ethicist kicks the philosophical football around just as a footballer kicks the ball on the field. A good applied ethicist might score goals and be successful by offering specific arguments that convince us to change our moral views in a particular corner of our lives.
Normative Ethics is focussed on the creation of theories that provide general moral rules governing our behaviour, such as Utilitarianism or Kantian Ethics. The normative ethicist, rather than being a football player, is more like a referee who sets up the rules governing how the game is played. Peter Singer, for example, focuses on advancing applied ethical arguments within the normative framework of his Preference Utilitarianism (discussed in Chapter 1.1).
Metaethics is the study of how we engage in ethics. Thus, the metaethicist has a role more similar to a football commentator rather than to a referee or player. The metaethicist judges and comments on how the ethical game is being played rather than advancing practical arguments, or kicking the football, themselves. For example, the metaethicist might comment on the meaning and appropriateness of ethical language, just as the football commentator might remark on the appropriateness of particular tactics or set-piece routines.

Nobody is perfect, and it is therefore possible that some of you are not avid football fans. To respect this possibility, here is a non-football based explanation of what Metaethics amounts to. Metaethical conclusions do not tell us how we should morally act or which type of decision is morally correct in any one particular circumstance. Instead, Metaethics is focussed on questions regarding how ethical study — at both normative and applied levels — works. Some typical metaethical questions are:

When we say something is “morally good”, what do we mean?
If the claim that “euthanasia is morally wrong” is true, what makes it true?
If moral claims are sometimes true, what methods do we use to access these moral truths?

You should not expect a metaethical argument to provide specific guidance regarding how to act, but you should expect a metaethical argument to critique the foundations of normative or applied action-guiding moral theories.