Meta-ethics
In Philosophy, Ethicscommonly divided into two branches, normative ethicsmeta-ethics. Normative ethics addresses questions such as "What actionsgoodbad?""What should we do?" Thus,theorynormative ethics will endorse some ethical evaluations. Meta-ethics, onother hand, seeksunderstand the nature of ethical evaluations. Thus, examplesmeta-ethical questions include:
- What doesmeansay something"good"?
- How, if at all, do we know whatrightwrong?
- How do moral attitudes motivate action?
- Are there objective values?
Inlast century,fieldmeta-ethics has been dominated by five kindstheories:
- Ethical intuitionism, which holds that thereobjective, irreducible moral properties (such asproperty'goodness'),that we sometimes have intuitive awarenessmoral properties ormoral truths.
- Ethical naturalism, which holds that thereobjective moral properties, but that these propertiesreducible. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledgemoral truths. Several have argued that moral knowledge can be gained bysame means as scientific knowledge.
- Ethical subjectivism, which holds that moral statementsmade true or false byattitudes and/or conventionsobservers. An examplethis isview that forthingbe morally rightjustitbe approvedby society; this leads toview that different thingsrightdifferent societies.
- Non-cognitivism, which holds that ethical sentencesneither true nor false becausedo not assert genuine propositions. Some have held that ethical sentences such as "Stealingwrong"merely expressionsemotion; others have argued that theymore like imperatives.
- Moral skepticism, which holds that ethical sentencesgenerally false. Moral skeptics hold that thereno objective values, but thatclaim that thereobjective valuespart ofmeaningordinary ethical sentences; thatwhy,their view, ethical sentencesfalse.
