Metaethics

Metaethics is a specialized branch of philosophy that examines the foundations of morality. While other types of ethics focus on how to act, metaethics looks at the nature of morality itself. It is distinct from normative ethics, which asks questions like "What should I do?" It is also different from applied ethics, which deals with practical dilemmas in specific situations. Instead, metaethics addresses second-order or formal questions. These questions explore the meaning of moral judgment and the scope of ethical belief. Philosophers use metaethics to understand the very essence of goodness and evil.

To understand the mechanics of metaethical study, we can look at three core problems. Thinkers Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen identified these as semantic, ontological, and epistemological questions. Moral semantics asks about the meaning of terms like "good," "bad," "right," or "wrong." Moral ontology asks about the nature of these judgments. It investigates whether moral truths are absolute or relative to different groups. Moral epistemology asks how we can support or defend these judgments. It seeks to determine if we can actually know if something is right or wrong. These three areas are deeply connected, as an answer to one often suggests an answer to the others.

One major way to categorize metaethical theories is through the lens of realism and anti-realism. Moral realism is the view that moral propositions are about objective facts. These facts are mind-independent, meaning they do not depend on any person's opinion. Realism is often divided into two distinct types. Ethical naturalism holds that moral properties are reducible to non-ethical, natural properties. Many utilitarians have historically assumed this view. In contrast, ethical non-naturalism suggests that moral properties are irreducible. G. E. Moore was a key figure here. He argued that "goodness" is a unique property discovered through intuition.

Anti-realism offers several different perspectives on why moral facts might not exist. Ethical subjectivism is one form of anti-realism. It claims that moral statements are made true or false by human attitudes or social conventions. Some subjectivist views are universalist, such as ideal observer theory. This theory suggests rightness is determined by a hypothetical, perfectly rational being. Another universalist subjectivist view is divine command theory. This holds that rightness is defined by the approval of a god. While Plato criticized this idea in the Euthyphro, some modern thinkers like Robert Adams still defend it.

Another form of anti-realism is error theory. This theory is famously associated with J. L. Mackie. Error theorists believe that while moral claims try to express facts, they are all actually false. This is because the properties they describe, such as "virtue" or "evil," do not exist in reality. This view leads to moral skepticism and moral nihilism. A different path is non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivists argue that ethical sentences are not true or false because they do not express propositions at all. For example, emotivism suggests that saying "killing is wrong" is just an expression of emotion, like saying "Boo on killing!"

There is also a complex position known as non-realist cognitivism. Proponents like Derek Parfit argue that moral propositions can be true without corresponding to anything in reality. They claim that normative truths do not require "truthmakers," which are things that make a statement true. This challenges the standard theory known as Truthmaker Maximalism. Some thinkers, such as Farbod Akhlaghi, discuss these as "partners in innocence." They argue that certain truths, like mathematical or logical claims, might also lack truthmakers. This theory attempts to provide an alternative to both naturalism and traditional non-naturalism.

Metaethics also explores the relationship between different types of moral concepts. Philosophers often distinguish between "thin" and "thick" concepts. Thin concepts include general terms like "good" or "wrong." Thick concepts are more descriptive and carry specific moral weight. Another way to organize these ideas is by looking at how moral statements function. R. M. Hare proposed universal prescriptivism, where moral statements act like universal commands. For instance, "Killing is wrong" might function as a command: "Don't kill!" By studying these structures, metaethics helps us understand the very framework of human value and thought.