Metaethics

Prepared by:
Anthony Encarnacion
King Aljon Alberto
Michael Dave Bellen
Three branch of ethics
To easily get the relationship of this topics here is the analogy of a football game
Ethics In football we have

 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.
The players are concerned with the specific strategies

of getting the ball in the net just like applied ethics is concerned
with how ethics is applied strategically on a certain issue.
 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.
It is because the normative ethicist is concerned with

underlying principles which guide the applied ethics
 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.
It is because commentator does not apply the ethics

or interpret the rules but tries to understand what is
going on the game itself.
So basically a metaethicist look at the work of ethics

And tries to make sense of everything that is going on.
 Cognitivism says moral claims are describing or attempting to describe reality.
-if someone expresses a moral claim they are expressing a belief.
Example:
If a cognitivist says it is wrong to steal and she is said:
 Non-Cognitivism do not think moral

are attempt to describe reality
When people typically express moral claims they intuitively assume cognitivism
-In saying something like killing is wrong we tend to believe this can be
either true or false which would be cognitivism
Semantic Non-Cognitivism and Psychological

Non-Cognitivism
Non-cognitivist do not think moral claims can be either true or false therefore they
lack truth-aps status, it also say moral claims have no truth condition.
When someone says
“Killing is wrong”
They are not expressing a cognitive state of mind but rather they're expressing a non
cognitive attitude like a desire or emotion.
 Realism
-is a view about what exists
 Anti-Realism
-is simply the denial of Realism
Peter Railton (1950–) - “stark, raving Moral Realism” which in virtue of believing that mind-
independent moral truth exists in the world.
-in ethics, realists hold that certain moral properties or facts exist and that they exist
objectively and independently of the minds or beliefs of individual people
-realists thus believe in the possibility of error — believing that “murder is wrong” does
not make murder wrong.What would make murder wrong would be the presence of an actual
moral property of wrongness (objective and mind-independent) associated with the act of
murder.
It is under the non cognitivism
-Emotivism states moral judgements are not claims about reality, but are emotional
expressions of the speaker
It is under the non cognitivism

-Prescriptivism says that that moral claims are not claims about reality but are
personal prescription
If I say, “KILLING IS WRONG “
Do not kill I do not prescribe killing

 Expressivism says moral claims express a desire like attitude
If I say “Killing is wrong I am expressing a desire I have, namely I
don’t like killing .
It is more similar to emotivism
Naturalists hold that there are moral properties in the world that make true at
least some of our ordinary moral beliefs so that the philosophical and ethical
naturalist actually means by the term “natural’’.
Moral Naturalism - They only seeks to fit moral properties into the non-
mystical world of ordinary science.
Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that is underpinned by a

metaethical Naturalism where Utilitarians thus view good as an entirely natural
properties for there is nothing mystical, enchanted or supernatural about pleasure
G. E. Moore was a supporter of Cognitivism and Realism but a non-naturalist
where he objected to the idea that moral properties were natural properties.
If I am asked, ‘What is good?’ my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the
matter. Or if I am asked ‘How is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot be
defined, and that is all I have to say about it.8
 Moore’s critique of Naturalism sets the scene for his own metaethical view.
According to Moore, moral properties do exist but they are fundamentally simple
non-natural properties.
 Richard Price (1723–1791) suggested that truths are intuited when they are
acquired “without making any use of any process of reasoning”.
 W. D. Ross (1877–1971) suggested that we intuit self-evident moral truths “without
any need of proof, or of evidence beyond itself”.11 An example should make this
method of intuiting non-natural moral properties much clearer.
 Firstly, Intuitionism might be thought to struggle when explaining moral
disagreement. If moral truths are self-evident and can be intuited, then why do
even self-professed intuitionists such as Moore and Ross have radically different
ethical views (Moore is a teleologist, whereas Ross intuits protoKantian moral
truths).
 Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) suggested that, amongst other things, stupidity may
lead to our intuitions going astray and this may explain continuing moral
disagreement. If only we were less daft, our intuitive moral sense might be more
reliable!
 Cognitivism tends to be associated with Realism.
 In Mackie’s own words, “Although most people in making moral judgments
implicitly claim, among other things, to be pointing to something objectively
prescriptive, these claims are all false”.
Argument from Relativity
Mackie’s first objection to Realism is built out of his appreciation of the depth of moral
disagreement, and so shares something with one of the objections to Intuitionism offered in
the previous section.
 Error theory is a cognitivist view of metaethics that put forward by JL Mackie
-Moral judgement express beliefs that have truth-value
-our moral judgements are false
-we think we have true moral beliefs, but we are really don’t because
objective moral facts are duties do not exist in the real world so our beliefs cannot
correspond anything objective so we are in ERROR for thinking we have true moral
beliefs.
Mackie says that it doesn’t assert our beliefs are true to us, or within a specific
culture
 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.17 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 NonCognitivism, Realism and Anti-Realism, and, more generally, to decide how
much importance Metaethics has relative to the normative and applied camps of
ethical study

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Prepared by:

Ethics In football we have

The players are concerned with the specific strategies

It is because the normative ethicist is concerned with

It is because commentator does not apply the ethics

So basically a metaethicist look at the work of ethics

If a cognitivist says it is wrong to steal and she is said:

 Non-Cognitivism do not think moral

Semantic Non-Cognitivism and Psychological

It is under the non cognitivism

Do not kill I do not prescribe killing

Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that is underpinned by a

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