3.1.2: The Value of Metaethics

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A former colleague once suggested that Metaethics was entirely and frustratingly pointless — academia for academia’s sake, she thought. There are, however, good reasons for thinking that metaethical arguments can be just as worthy and valuable as their normative and applied counterparts.

One such factor in favour of Metaethics is as follows. If ethics is fundamentally concerned with good behaviour or, as per Aristotle (his theory is detailed in Chapter 1.3), good characters, then it would seem to be desirable to properly understand what exactly “good” amounts to.

Analogously, we would not consider attempting applied mathematics without first understanding what was meant by fundamental concepts like addition or subtraction. Nor would we consider attempting surgery on a person without being sure of the meanings of terms like blood, heart or liver. Understanding goodness — what it is and how we might access it — seems like a fundamental presupposition of successful ethical study, rather than a merely abstract topic of philosophical debate.