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Meta-Ethics
- Seeks to explore and discover the meaning
of words used in ethical statements
- Compared to Normative Ethics
- Discusses whether something is right
or wrong; good or bad
- Discusses whether something is right
or wrong; good or bad
- Compared to Normative Ethics
- Cognitive
- Subject to being true or false
- Subject to being true or false
- Non-Cognitive
- Statements not
subject to truth or
falsity:
'Booh/Hoorah'
- Statements not
subject to truth or
falsity:
'Booh/Hoorah'
- For many people, ethical statements are
usually cognitive statements; and use
empirical evidence
- Links to the Vienna Circle and Logical Positivism
- Ethical statements are either;
- Analytic
- Statements true by definition;
Tautologies
- Statements true by definition;
Tautologies
- Synthetic
- Statements are true by how their meaning
relates to the world
- Statements are true by how their meaning
relates to the world
- Analytic
- Ethical statements are either;
- Key idea from Wittgenstein
- 'Whereof we cannot speak,
thereof we must remain silent'
- Suggest it impossible to even discuss
ethical theories at all before we
understand the terminology used
- 'Whereof we cannot speak,
thereof we must remain silent'