3.1.17: Summary

There is much more that could be said in this chapter. Metaethical theories are as varied and nuanced as their normative rivals, and it is impossible to give a fair hearing to all of them in a single chapter. Catherine Wilson has authored an enquiry into Metaethics that reflects the challenge of coming to your own, first-person, view on these issues. However, we have tried as far as possible on this whistle-stop tour to outline these theories clearly and to give them such a fair hearing. It is for you to decide where you sit in the debate between Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism, Realism and Anti-Realism, and, more generally, to decide how much importance Metaethics has relative to the normative and applied camps of ethical study.

COMMON STUDENT MISTAKES

• Not breaking down the chapter so as to be firmly in grasp of the meanings of key terms, and then the nature of the theories, before trying to engage in evaluation.
• Confusing Cognitivism, Non-Cognitivism, Realism and Anti-Realism.
• Misunderstanding the queerness complaint.
• Forgetting the importance of asking a meaningful question when explaining the mechanism of the Open Question Argument.
• Not using analogies appropriately — think of other realist/naturalist/cognitivist/non-cognitivist disciplines and examples, then compare these to ethics.
• Ignoring the explanations of disagreement offered by intuitionists.
• Not linking criticisms of one position to support for another position; e.g. Moore’s attack on Naturalism explains his intuitionist views and Mackie’s attack on Realism justifies his anti-realist position.
• Not using examples to aid explanation because not directly dealing with obviously normative or applied issues.

ISSUES TO CONSIDER

1. Can you create your own Metaethical Map? Try drawing out a flow-chart style diagram that separates Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism, followed by the associated theories. If feeling confident, then try to add weaknesses and strengths to your map. We recommend this as an excellent study aide!18
2. Does Emotivism lend support to Relativism?
3. Does Naturalism lend support to Absolutism?
4. Does something being queer (in Mackie’s sense of the term) make it less likely that it exists?
5. Does moral disagreement lend support to Anti-Realism?
6. Can a philosopher ever know what you mean better than you know?
7. Is Metaethics as important as normative or applied ethics?
8. Are moral judgments meaningless if they are about non-natural properties? If they are non-cognitive?
9. Do we just know what is right or wrong based on common sense? Does this support Intuitionism?
10. Can you give another example of an Open Question Argument, with a different candidate natural moral property?
11. Is there such a thing as moral progress? What does this suggest in terms of Metaethics?
12. Can a non-cognitivist properly explain moral disagreement?
13. What is the Humean account of motivation? Why does it support Non-Cognitivism?

KEY TERMINOLOGY

A priori

A posteriori

Anti-Realism

Cognitivism

Empirical

Naturalistic Fallacy

Non-Cognitivism

Normative

Prescriptivism

Prima facie

Queer

Realism

Relativism

Semantic

Truth-apt

Verificationism

References

Ayer, A. J., ‘A Critique of Ethics’, in Ethical Theory, ed. by Russ Shafer-Landau (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).

―, ‘The Emotive Theory of Ethics’, in Ethics: Essential Readings in Moral Theory, ed. by George Sher (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 103–10.

Blackburn, Simon, Ruling Passions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Brandt, Richard, Ethical Theory: The Problems of Normative and Critical Ethics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1959).

Fisher, Andrew, Metaethics: An Introduction (Oxford: Routledge, 2011), https://doi.org/10.1017/upo9781844652594

Harman, Gilbert, Explaining Value and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).

Hume, David, A Treatise on Human Nature (London: John Noon, 1739), freely available at http://www.davidhume.org/texts/thn.html

Joyce, Richard, The Myth of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511487101

Kahane, G., ‘Must Metaethical Realism Make a Semantic Claim?’, Journal of Moral Philosophy, 10.2 (2013): 148–78, https://doi.org/10.1163/174552412x628869

Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin, 1977).

Miller, A., An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).

Moore, G. E., ‘The Open-Question Argument: The Subject Matter of Ethics’, in Arguing About Metaethics, ed. by Andrew Fisher and Simon Kirchin (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 31–47.

Price, Richard, ‘A Review of the Principle Questions in Morals’, in The British Moralists 1650–1800, ed. by D. D. Raphael (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 131–98.

Railton, Peter, ‘Moral Realism’, The Philosophical Review, 95.2 (1986): 163–207, https://doi.org/10.2307/2185589

Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), https://doi.org/10.1093/0199252653.001.0001

Tanner, Julia, ‘The Naturalistic Fallacy’, The Richmond Journal of Philosophy, 13 (2006), freely available at http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/rjp13_tanner.php

Wedgwood, Ralph, The Nature of Normativity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251315.001.0001

Wilson, Catherine, Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2016), https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0087; freely available at https://www.openbookpublishers.com/reader/417