Metaethics

In philosophy, metaethics (meta-ethics) is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought to be and act) and applied ethics (practical questions of right behavior in given, usually contentious, situations).

While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should I do?", evaluating specific practices and principles of action, metaethics addresses questions about the nature of goodness, how one can discriminate good from evil, and what the proper account of moral knowledge is. Similar to accounts of knowledge generally, the threat of skepticism about the possibility of moral knowledge and cognitively meaningful moral propositions often motivates positive accounts in metaethics. Another distinction is often made between the nature of questions related to each: first-order (substantive) questions belong to the domain of normative ethics and applied ethics, whereas metaethics addresses second-order (formal) questions.

Some theorists argue that a metaphysical account of morality is necessary for the proper evaluation of actual moral theories and for making practical moral decisions; others reason from opposite premises and suggest that studying moral judgments about proper actions can guide us to a true account of the nature of morality.

Metaethical questions

According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of metaethical questions:

What is the meaning of moral terms or judgments? (moral semantics)

Asks about the meanings of such words as 'good', 'bad', 'right', and 'wrong' (see value theory)

What is the nature of moral judgments? (moral ontology)

Asks questions of whether moral judgments are absolute or relative, of one kind or many kinds, etc.

How may moral judgments be supported or defended?