Ethics Unit 12 Review: Metaethics - The Nature of Morality

What is Metaethics?

• Metaethics is a branch of moral philosophy that investigates the nature of moral properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments
• Focuses on the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and practice
• Explores questions such as "What is morality?" "What makes an action right or wrong?" and "How can we know what is morally right?"
• Differs from normative ethics which examines the practical means of determining a moral course of action and applied ethics which looks at controversial topics like war, animal rights, and capital punishment
• Metaethical theories can be categorized based on their positions on moral realism, cognitivism, relativism, and naturalism
• Key metaethical issues include the semantics of moral language, the ontology of moral facts, the relationship between morality and rationality, and moral epistemology
• Metaethical debates have important implications for the justification and objectivity of moral claims and the possibility of moral knowledge

Moral Realism vs. Anti-Realism

• Moral realism is the view that there are objective moral facts and properties independent of what anyone thinks about them
  • Moral facts are mind-independent features of reality that make moral claims true or false
  • Moral realists believe in moral truth and that some moral claims are objectively true (murder is wrong)
• Moral anti-realism denies the existence of objective moral facts and holds that morality is mind-dependent
  • Moral claims do not refer to objective features of reality but are expressions of emotions, prescriptions, or cultural conventions
  • Includes theories like moral subjectivism (morality is relative to individual opinions), cultural relativism (morality is relative to cultures), and moral non-cognitivism (moral claims are neither true nor false)
• The debate between moral realism and anti-realism concerns the metaphysical status of morality
• Moral realists face challenges such as accounting for moral disagreement and explaining how we can have knowledge of objective moral facts
• Moral anti-realists must grapple with moral phenomenology (the objective seeming nature of morality) and moral motivation (why be moral if morality is not objective)

Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

• Moral cognitivism holds that moral statements express propositions that can be true or false
  • When we make moral judgments, we are expressing beliefs about objective moral facts
  • Cognitivist theories include moral realism and moral subjectivism
• Moral non-cognitivism claims that moral statements do not express propositions but are expressions of emotions (emotivism) or prescriptions for action (prescriptivism)
  • Moral judgments are not truth-apt and cannot be objectively true or false
  • "Stealing is wrong" does not describe a fact but expresses a negative attitude or commands others not to steal
• The debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism concerns the semantics of moral language and judgments
• Cognitivists can easily account for the surface grammar of moral discourse which appears truth-apt
• Non-cognitivists can explain the close connection between moral judgment and motivation, as emotions and prescriptions are inherently motivational

Moral Relativism and Absolutism

• Moral relativism is the view that moral truths are relative to some standpoint such as an individual, culture, or historical period
  • There are no universal moral principles that hold for all people at all times
  • What is morally right for one person or culture may be wrong for another
• Moral absolutism holds that there are objective moral principles that are universally valid regardless of what anyone thinks about them
  • Certain actions (rape) are morally wrong for all people in all circumstances
  • Moral truths are discovered through reason, intuition, or divine revelation rather than being relative to subjective standpoints
• Moral relativism is often motivated by observations of cultural diversity in moral practices and beliefs
• Relativists face challenges such as moral contradiction (conflicting moral views cannot both be true) and moral progress (how can we make moral progress if morality is relative)
• Moral absolutists must explain widespread moral disagreement and how we can come to know objective moral truths

Naturalism and Non-Naturalism

• Moral naturalism is the view that moral properties are natural properties that can be studied using the methods of science
  • Moral facts can be reduced to or identified with natural facts about well-being, social stability, or evolutionary fitness
  • Science can help us discover objective moral truths by investigating the natural world
• Moral non-naturalism holds that moral properties are sui generis (unique) and cannot be reduced to or identified with natural properties
  • Moral facts are irreducible, objective features of reality that are known through a priori reasoning or moral intuition
  • Science is not equipped to study the moral realm which is autonomous from the natural world
• The debate between naturalism and non-naturalism concerns the metaphysics of moral properties
• Moral naturalists can avoid charges of metaphysical queerness and adopt a parsimonious ontology by fitting morality into our scientific worldview
• Non-naturalists argue that moral properties (goodness) seem fundamentally different from natural properties and that naturalism cannot account for the normativity or reason-giving force of morality

Moral Epistemology

• Moral epistemology investigates how we can come to have moral knowledge or justified moral beliefs
• Moral realists believe in moral facts, so they must explain how we can access the moral truth and avoid moral skepticism
• Foundationalist moral epistemologies hold that some moral beliefs are self-evident or self-justifying and form the basis for other moral beliefs
  • Candidates for foundational moral beliefs include intuitive principles (suffering is bad) or judgments about particular cases (torturing babies for fun is wrong)
• Coherentist moral epistemologies claim that moral beliefs are justified by their coherence with other beliefs in a holistic web, rather than by a foundational basis
• Moral intuitionists believe that we can directly perceive objective moral truths using rational intuition
• Reflective equilibrium is the process of mutually adjusting our moral intuitions, principles, and background theories to achieve a coherent worldview

Key Thinkers and Their Ideas

• Plato (moral realism): Believed in eternal, objective Forms including the Form of the Good which exists independently of subjective minds
• David Hume (moral sentimentalism): Argued that morality is based on emotions or sentiments rather than reason and is not objective
• Immanuel Kant (moral absolutism): Believed in an objective moral law, the Categorical Imperative, that is derived from pure practical reason
• John Stuart Mill (moral naturalism): Held that morality is based on the natural property of utility or well-being and that we can empirically determine moral truths
• G. E. Moore (moral non-naturalism): Argued that goodness is an irreducible, non-natural property and that moral realism is true
• A. J. Ayer (emotivism): Claimed that moral judgments are neither true nor false but are expressions of emotion used to influence behavior
• J. L. Mackie (moral error theory): Held that all moral claims are false because they presuppose the existence of objective moral facts which do not exist

Real-World Applications

• Metaethical theories have implications for the possibility of moral expertise and who should be moral authorities (philosophers, scientists, religious leaders)
• Moral realism and absolutism are often invoked to justify international human rights and prohibitions on practices like slavery and genocide
• Moral relativism is sometimes used to argue against imposing "Western values" on other cultures and to defend tolerance of diverse moral views
• The existence of objective moral truths is relevant to the legal status of conscientious objection (refusing to fight in wars believed to be unjust)
• Moral naturalism and non-naturalism disagree about the relevance of science to ethics and whether we should consult psychologists or biologists to help resolve moral debates
• Metaethics is important for determining the possibility and foundations of moral education and whether morality can be taught
• Metaethical disagreements often underlie applied ethical debates about controversial issues like abortion, animal rights, and climate change