META-ETHICS, Christraj M.

META-ETHICS, Christraj M.

 

The term "meta" means after or beyond, and, consequently, the notion of metaethics involves a removed, or bird's eye view of the entire project of ethics. We may define metaethics as the study of the origin and meaning of ethical concepts. When compared to normative ethics and applied ethics, the field of metaethics is the least precisely defined area of moral philosophy.Metaethics is the attempt to understand the metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and psychological, presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and practice. As such, it counts within its domain a broad range of questions and puzzles, including: Is morality more a matter of taste than truth? Are moral standards culturally relative? Are there moral facts? If there are moral facts, what is their origin? How is it that they set an appropriate standard for our behavior? How might moral facts be related to other facts (about psychology, happiness, human conventions…)? And how do we learn about the moral facts, if there are any? These questions lead naturally to puzzles about the meaning of moral claims as well as about moral truth and the justification of our moral commitments. Met-ethics explores as well the connection between values, reasons for action, and human motivation, asking how it is that moral standards might provide us with reasons to do or refrain from doing as it demands, and it addresses many of the issues commonly bound up with the nature of freedom and its significance (or not) for moral responsibility.

Typically, it concentrates to the simplest ethical beliefs, such as 'stealing is wrong' and 'it is better to give than to receive', and proceeds by analyzing the concepts in virtue of which these beliefs are ethical and examining their logical basis. Metaethics is the nature of judgments to effect that certain things are good or bad, right or wrong, or just or unjust. "Goodness can be more or less. But being cannot be more or less. Therefore goodness differs from being". In other words, goodness is a relative property. Some people are morally better than other people. It is characteristic of philosophers, when reflecting on such systems of belief to examine the nature and grounds of these beliefs.