Metaethics: Exploring Foundational Questions About Morality

Metaethics explores foundational questions about morality and ethics.
This lecture breaks down metaethics by focusing on common meta-ethical theories.
Goal: To understand the theories, appreciate their differences, and comprehend what's at stake to decide which combination makes the most sense.

Meta-ethical position that moral statements express propositional beliefs that are truth-apt.
Moral statements are comparable to statements like "that tree is 20 feet tall."
Both statements express propositional beliefs, meaning they are truth-apt (have a truth value; either true or false).

Meta-ethical position that moral statements do not express propositional beliefs and are not truth-apt.
Two types:
- Emotivism
- Prescriptivism

Moral statements like "murder is wrong" are comparable to statements like "down with AI" or "Buddha torture."
These are expressions of preferences, desires, or emotions.
These statements are not truth-apt.

Moral statements are comparable to statements like "eat your vegetables" or "don't kick puppies."
These statements are commands.
They are not propositional beliefs and are not truth-apt.

Cognitivists: Moral statements express truth-apt propositions concerning beliefs about the world.
Non-Cognitivists: Moral statements express personal preferences, desires, emotions, or commands and have nothing to do with truth or falsity.

Does morality exist outside of subjective minds (e.g., human mind, mind of God), or is it created by subjective minds?
Is "murder wrong" because wrongness exists objectively and applies to murder, or is it created by human minds?
Is morality like mathematical principles or subjective opinion?

Meta-ethical position that morality exists objectively outside of human minds.
Humans don't create morality, so it's not a matter of subjective opinion.
Statement "murder is wrong" either accurately or inaccurately describes an objective fact.
Aligns with cognitivism because it maintains that moral claims express truth-apt propositional beliefs.

Meta-ethical position that morality does not exist objectively outside of intelligent minds.
Morality originates in or is created by some form of intelligent mind (human minds or the mind of God).
Morality is either an expression of preference or a matter of subjective opinion of that mind or those minds.

Forms of moral anti-realism that see moral claims as expressions of preference fall into non-cognitivism.
However, beliefs can be truth-apt but subjective:
- Individual Subjectivism: Each individual is the source of their own morality.
- Cultural Subjectivism: Each culture decides what is moral for that culture.
Both individual and cultural subjectivism are examples of cognitivism because they involve truth-apt beliefs. They are also examples of moral anti-realism, as morality originates in human minds.
Cognitive Moral Realist:
- Moral statements are propositional beliefs that are truth-apt.
- These statements refer to objective facts about the world.
Cognitive Moral Anti-Realist:
- Moral statements express propositional beliefs that can be true or false.
- These statements do not refer to objective facts.
- They only refer to the subjective opinions of individuals or groups.

Maintains that moral statements express propositional beliefs that are truth-apt (cognitivism).
However, people making moral claims are mistaken; their beliefs do not align with objective facts.
Every substantive moral statement is automatically false.
Example: Unicorns
- If someone makes a claim about unicorns as if they were real, for example, the claim “unicorns are really fast,” that statement would automatically be false.
- It's false because it rests on an assumption that isn't true: unicorns exist.
- There are no unicorns, so unicorns can't be really fast.
Because morality doesn’t exist as an objective fact about the world, every moral statement that assumes morality does exist in this way is false.

If you're a moral realist, what makes morality moral?
When someone says “murder is wrong,” what do we mean by wrongness/badness/goodness?
Two basic options: Naturalism and Non-Naturalism.

Meta-ethical theory that moral qualities align with natural qualities of the world.
Example: pleasure and pain.
Something is wrong inasmuch as it causes displeasure or pain.
Murder is wrong because it causes displeasure or pain.
Issues:
- How to make the leap from natural to good?
- How to verify that the natural thing is actually good?

Meta-ethical theory that moral qualities are non-natural.
Moral terms (good/evil) can't be identified with natural qualities (pleasure/pain).
Moral terms aren’t reducible to natural qualities.
Good means good, and wrong means wrong.
Issues:
- Lacks specificity.
- Problem of verification remains.

Doubt or denial that people can have moral knowledge.
Non-cognitivists: Moral statements aren't truth-apt, so you can’t know if it's true or false.
Error theorists: All substantive moral statements are false, so how can someone know moral statements are true?

Different people and cultures have different moral viewpoints.
Practices like child sacrifice, slavery, and genocide have been viewed as morally acceptable by different cultures.
Raises the question: how can we say which version of morality is the true one?
Even if moral realism is accurate, how can we arrive at true moral knowledge?

Rationality and logic (Kant).
Intuition (G.E. Moore).
Observing nature.
Issues:
- Rational people disagree.
- Morality is so self-evident that we can intuit it, why do so many people come to so many different variations of morality?
- How do we make the leap from what is natural to what is moral?

When someone says "murder is wrong" or "justice is good," what is murder? What is justice?
Defining terms is an essential meta-ethical component of any moral discussion.
Example: What is murder? Is it just killing?
- Self-defense?
- Killing the innocent?

Discussed metaethics and some common meta-ethical concepts and theories and explored how they relate to one another.