Questions tagged [metaethics]
Metaethics is the attempt to understand the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological, presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and practice.
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Is claiming that killing non-human animals is morally neutral a defensible position?
When I search "amoral" in general I seem to only find results about one taking a completely amoral position, nihilistic like, of all ethics/morality. If I search "amoral" with &...
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Do any mainstream philosophers talk about a duty to being to true to yourself?
I'm just wondering who has taken Kant's ideas and still explicates on duties to oneself including the duty of being true to who you are, to be authentic. I know existentialism also considers the ...
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Do Kant or Aristotle ever comment on the line between self-interest/preservation and helping others?
Im wondering whether either of them ever talked about limits to helping others and when we should choose ourselves.
Ive tried doing some research but unfortunately to not avail.
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Does the so-called "Copenhagen interpretation of ethics" have a formal name in moral philosophy?
I was recently introduced to the term Copenhagen interpretation of ethics in an interesting blog post that defined it thusly:
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or ...
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Where does ethics place the line between self interest and altruism?
Assuming I were to decide between getting Benefit A myself or somebody else getting A. All things being equal (need, desire, etc), is it correct to say most ethical theories (other than egoism) would ...
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Understanding Aristotle's views on pleasure/fun
I feel like Aristotle gives us conflicting messages on whether we can do things for fun/pleasure. Would doing things done for pleasure such as going on holiday or playing video games be considered ...
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What separates a "normal" person from a morally excellent person? [closed]
Is it simply doing all the duties that Deontology (Kant) requires of you while doing them out of a sense of duty, or having all the virtues suggested by Aristotle while enjoying doing them or even ...
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Does Hume's Is-Ought Thesis imply moral nihilism?
Assuming you are an atheist, cognitivist, and a moral objectivist, does Hume's Is-Ought Thesis imply you must be a moral nihilist (or perhaps more weakly, at least a moral skepticist)?
Put another ...
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Is prescriptive moral relativism about universalism or absolutism?
Is prescriptive moral relativism about universalism or absolutism?
I just can't get this straight in my head. It seems that I can be an absolutist about an ethics that only applies to me. In which ...
user46524
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Stupidity and morality, how do they relate? [closed]
I think most people concerned with philosophy would think that morality is at least a type of intelligence, one way of being intelligent. Some forms of "ethical realism" must surely rely on ethical ...
user46524
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Why is moral cognitivism called 'cognitivism'
I don't get it? "Cognitive" usually refers to do with the mind, mental processes, thinking, or the brain. In ethics, it refers to whether or not something is a "statement" or can be "true or false".
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What terminology is neutral in meta-ethics?
Meta-ethics concerns whether at least some ethical judgments are what one might call facts. In particular, a cognitivist who subscribes to realism, rather than the error theory or something similar, ...
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Is Bernard William's argument for equality a teleological argument?
Bernard Williams wrote in his essay “The Idea of Equality”:
Leaving aside preventive medicine, the proper ground of distribution of medical care is ill health: this is a necessary truth. Now in ...
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Can a moral code develop from one person's integrity?
Just for a moment picture, not all the evil and bad in the world, but the good.
If you think about it and 'see' in your mind's eye all of the normal, everyday families in any given neighborhood who ...
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What is the idea that a moral system is ethical if it can function when everyone in a community adheres to it?
What is the ethical paradigm from the title called?
To restate the concept in the negative, a moral system would be considered unethical if, when universally adhered to by everyone in a community, ...
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If we are rationally obliged to be moral, and morality is not arbitrary, then are some decisions not freely made?
If we are rationally obliged to be moral, and morality is not arbitrary, then are some decisions not freely made?
I mean 'not arbitrary' to mean that some values, e.g. courage, are more rational than ...
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What sort of values are Nietzsche's?
What sort of values are Nietzsche's? They are not, according to some, moral ones, or at least Christian ones. Do they all share in any (other) quality?
To be more specific: how can we tell some ...
user38026
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How does particularism fare with descriptive relativisim and its relation to moral skepticism?
As I understand it, descriptive relativism, acknowledging that there are very many disagreements about morality, ones which are often practically intractable, feeds into moral skepticism. As I'd ...
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What is value, for Nietzsche?
What is value, for Nietzsche? He's often claiming we should decide (make?) our own values, but it's not clear what that word means. Is it enough to have a genuine sense of preference for something? ...
user38026
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Is the normative value of linguistic usage a counterexample to the impossibility of deriving " ought" from "is"?
I really believe that one cannot derive " ought" from "is".
But the case of linguistic usage causes me some intellectual trouble.
(1) Linguistic usage is a simple fact.
(2) Linguistic usage ...
user37859
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What is moral particularism if there are no morally perfect persons?
Moral Particularism, at its most trenchant, is the claim that there
are no defensible moral principles, that moral thought does not
consist in the application of moral principles to cases, and ...
user38026
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Are deontologists arguing against virtue ethics, and if so does it matter?
This question got me thinking.
If deontology and virtue ethics are not reconcilable but in direct competition with each other, does that mean that in arguing for one we are arguing against the other? ...
user38026
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Can we measure "braverity" objectively?
By saying "bravery/courage", we implicitly mean a hard task that we wouldn't do it in daily life, and we have to sacrifice something to get it - we are scared. It is, after all, just a cost-benefit ...
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A Ground or Foundation of Morality
I am currently reading the very fascinating paper Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law by Arthur Allen Leff. It seems that the thrust of his paper is that there is no "naturalistic" way of grounding or ...
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Is Nietzsche 'power' neither value neutral nor practical?
Main question
Is Nietzsche 'power' neither value neutral nor practical?
Subsidiaries that I considered in asking it
If so, how can it be demarcated from the object of philosophy, generally enough ...
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Can you argue against a moral absolute by saying yes it's rational, but not practically so?
Can you argue against a moral absolute by saying yes it's rational, because it's true, but not practically so?
So can you, in principle, coherently claim that it is true that not lying is good, and ...
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What are the most popular arguments against moral universalism, rather than for relativism or nihilism?
What are the most popular arguments against moral universalism, rather than for relativism or nihilism?
I'm asking in case deontology is the only viable universalist ethics, because deontology seems ...
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Why did Nietzsche think that only the happiness of higher types mattered?
Why did Nietzsche think that only the happiness of higher types mattered?
Was it due to some repulsion from normal people and their behaviours? Or was he just fascinated by greatness?
I would assume ...
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Is Nietzsche an anti-realist about moral disagreement?
This question got me thinking:
What is the difference between the Superman and the Ultimateman?
As I understand it, moral anti-realism is the thesis that there are no moral facts outside the ...
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If people didn’t have a moral sense, would we still have enforced cultural moral codes?
Diverse, contradictory, and bizarre as they are, people commonly feel that everyone ought to conform to their culture’s moral norms and even feel violators deserve punishment, though perhaps that ...
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Defending the value of Moral Philosophy against Scientism
What are the best arguments against someone who believes 'Moral philosophy is useless, what we call morality is simply evolutionary instincts to do what we were designed to do as a species'. This ...
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Could Ethical subjectivism be classified as Moral realism if we include God?
For the sake of my question, God = "an omnipotent being". I am not referring to any specific gods that come from any past or present religions.
Ethical subjectivism generally stands in opposition to ...
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Are prescriptions truth-apt?
Considering the presupposition that there are objective answers to prescriptions, are prescriptions truth-apt? My definition of a prescription is that it is simply an conditional.
Example
You ...
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Has anyone claimed that no decision is inherently better or more rational than any other decision?
The is-ought problem, for those who believe it is an actual problem, is the problem that you can not deduce an ought statement from any number of is statements.
It seems natural for this to lead to a ...
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Proof of objective moral values [closed]
Definitions: Objective moral values= a particular moral action which you ought to do.
1)Someone makes the statement "There are objective moral values".
2)People respond and say 'there are no ...
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Are there contemporary adherents to this view about systemised ethics?
In some parts of the field of truth, no doubt, men who work
by these divergent ways are apt as men to represent
antithetical types. But over the whole field this need not be
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can a dog give consent?
We know consciousness requires a specific level of awareness. Many people view other life forms who have a lower level of awareness as having a lower level of consciousness. Thus consciousness ...
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Making Moral Judgement: Thick Concepts versus Normative Concepts
In G. E. Anscombe's article "Modern Moral Philosophy", she thinks that it is meaningless to make moral judgements such as something is right, wrong, permissible and impermissible. Secondly, she thinks ...
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Do virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism all just assume their sets of preferences?
The way I understand it, there are three main branches of ethics:
Virtue Ethics: have a list of virtues to cultivate
Deontology: obey a list of moral rules
Consequentialism: the consequences of an ...
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Is there a hybrid between non-cognitivism and cognitivism?
Non-Cognitivism is the view that ethical sentences cannot be true or false (that they do not form propositions) and Cognitivism that it can. I hold to the notion that ethical sentences such as "...
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Does normative ethics apply to moral anti-realism?
Normative Ethics is often described as prescriptive. Do the questions posed by these ethical theories apply in moral anti-realist frameworks?
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'What to do?' versus 'Who to be?' and the focus of moral philosophy
In Normative Ethics, Shelly Kagan writes:
I have suggested that the central question of moral philosophy as a whole, and of normative ethics in particular, is how one should live. I take this ...
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What good is it to ground morality?
What good is it to ground morality? It's a somewhat bad question. Philosophers like proving things. But, specifically, does it make me more moral if I can ground my moral values?
What generated the ...
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Does moral anti-realism preclude anyone from being a better judge of value?
It seems to me that moral anti-realism, by which I mean the view that no judgments of intrinsic value are true, implies that nothing is intrinsically better or worse.
Does this preclude the idea ...
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Nietzsche’s despising of the herd
A question that I haven’t been able to answer:
Nietzsche despised the herd and mentioned in many essays that we must reevaluate our ethics and the set of moralities Christianity has provided us (not ...
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Is it possible to be ethical subjectivist and realist at the same time?
I assert that people say something is right/wrong only basing on their desires. They do not want X to be done, either under particular circumstances or any. Desires, indeed, are real. Therefore, moral ...
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What makes moral realism so popular a standpoint?
According to wikipedia page on moral realism:
A survey from 2009 involving 3,226 respondents found that 56% of philosophers accept or lean towards moral realism (28%: anti-realism; 16%: other).
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Is there any author that argues for radical moral pluralism?
Let me first clarify what I mean with "radical" here. While many modern authors, if not all, accept moral pluralism of sorts, all that I know of express either the hope, if not the conviction, that ...
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Into what category does following view place me in moral philosophy?
At first, I believe the statements like "Pete is wrong" and "Mike acts in a bad way" have some cognitive value. At first glance, this puts me to ethical cognitivism.
But at the same time I think the ...
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Instrumentalist value theory. Is it morally nihilistic? Is it science?
I could not give a better name for this theory, so I call it "Instrumentalist value theory". According to this theory nothing is intrinsically valuable. Nothing and no one can be treated as ends, but ...
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