Meta-ethics

Meta-ethics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Metaethics)

Jump to: navigation, search

Ethics

Theoretical

Meta-ethics Normative · Descriptive Consequentialism Deontology Virtue ethics Ethics of care Good and evil · Morality

Applied

Bioethics · Cyberethics · Medical Engineering · Environmental Human rights · Animal rights Legal · Media Business · Marketing Religion · War

Core issues

Justice · Value Right · Duty · Virtue Equality · Freedom · Trust Free will · Consent Moral responsibility

Key thinkers

Confucius · Mencius Aristotle · Aquinas Hume · Kant Bentham · Mill Kierkegaard · Nietzsche Hare · Rawls  · Nozick

Lists

List of ethics topics List of ethicists

This box: view • talk • edit

In philosophy, meta-ethics (sometimes called "analytic ethics")^[1] is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being ethical theory and applied ethics. Ethical theory and applied ethics make up normative ethics. Meta-ethics has received considerable attention from academic philosophers in the last few decades.

While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should one do?", thus endorsing some ethical evaluations and rejecting others, meta-ethics addresses the question "What is (moral) goodness?", seeking to understand the nature of ethical properties and evaluations.

Some theorists argue that a metaphysical account of morality is necessary for the proper evaluation of actual moral theories and for making practical moral decisions, however others make the (reverse) claim that only by importing ideas of moral intuition on how to act can we arrive at an accurate account of the metaphysics of morals.

Contents [hide] 1 Meta-ethical questions 2 Meta-ethical theories 2.1 Moral realism 2.2 Moral anti-realism 3 Centralism and non-centralism 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Meta-ethical questions

According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of meta-ethical problems, or three general questions:

1. What is the meaning of moral terms or judgments?
2. What is the nature of moral judgments?
3. How may moral judgments be supported or defended?^[2]

A question of the first type might be, "What do the words 'good', 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' mean?" (see value theory). The second category includes the question of whether moral judgments are objective or relative. Questions of the third kind ask, for example, how we can know if something is right or wrong, if at all. Garner and Rosen say that answers to the three basic questions "are not unrelated, and sometimes an answer to one will strongly suggest, or perhaps even entail, an answer to another."^[2]

[edit] Meta-ethical theories

A meta-ethical theory, unlike a normative ethical theory, does not attempt to evaluate specific choices as being better, worse, good, bad, or evil; although it may have profound implications as to the validity and meaning of normative ethical claims. An answer to any of the three example questions above would not itself be a normative ethical statement.

The major meta-ethical views are commonly divided into realist and anti-realist views (despite the fact that some labels, such as cognitivism, do not recognize the realist/anti-realist distinction).

[edit] Moral realism

Moral realism holds that there are objective moral values. Some philosophers also hold that moral realism requires the belief that evaluative statements are factual claims, which are either true or false, and that their truth or falsity does not depend on our beliefs, feelings, or other attitudes towards the things that are evaluated. Under this definition, Richard Hare's "universal prescriptivism" would count as a non-realist, for he does not believe that ordinary moral sentences like "murder is wrong" are statements with truth values; however he does believe that it is objectively irrational to fail to endorse this and many other moral sentences, so he is a moral realist (spefically, a moral rationalist) in the broader sense. Some other philosophers believe that moral realism includes only those views according to which the status of moral claims are independent of the desires, beliefs, etc. of particular beings, including supernatural ones. Under this restriction, the divine command theory is not a form of moral realism, although again it could be counted as a form of objective morality more broadly because the commands of god would be unalterable by any non-divine being.

Moral realism comes in several main variants:

1. Ethical intuitionism and ethical non-naturalism, which hold that there are objective, irreducible moral properties (such as the property of 'goodness'), and that we sometimes have intuitive or a priori awareness of moral properties or of moral truths. (See G.E. Moore.)
2. Ethical naturalism, which holds that there are objective moral properties but that these properties are reducible or stand in some metaphysical relation (such as supervenience) to entirely non-ethical properties. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledge of moral truths. (See Alasdair MacIntyre.)
3. Moral rationalism, also called ethical rationalism, which holds that there are objective moral properties which are reducible to or derived from principles of practical reasoning. Our moral intuitions may sometimes be based on an implicit awareness of such reasoning, which philosophical reflection can make explicit. (See Immanuel Kant.)

[edit] Moral anti-realism

Moral anti-realism holds that there are no objective moral values, or perhaps simply that such values are not robust (mind-independent) or that moral statements, though objective, do not assert true or false statements. There are several versions of such views:

1. Ethical subjectivism, which holds that moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of observers. There are several different versions of subjectivism, including:
   • Moral relativism (compare "cultural relativism"): This is the view that for a thing to be morally right is for it to be approved of by society; this leads to the conclusion that different things are right for people in different societies and different periods in history. Though long out of favor among academic philosophers, this view has been popular among anthropologists, such as Ruth Benedict.
   • Individualist subjectivism: Another view is that there are as many distinct scales of good and evil as there are subjects in the world. This view was put forward by Protagoras.
   • Ideal observer theory: Another subjectivist theory holds that what is right is determined by the attitudes that a hypothetical ideal observer would have. An ideal observer is usually characterized as a being who is perfectly rational, imaginative, and informed, among other things.
   • Divine command theory: This form of subjectivism holds that for a thing to be right is for a unique being, God, to approve of it, and that what is right for non-God beings is obedience to the divine will. This view was criticized by Plato in the Euthyphro (see the Euthyphro problem) but retains some modern defenders (Robert Adams, Philip Quinn, and others).
2. Non-cognitivism, which holds that ethical sentences are neither true nor false because they do not express genuine propositions. Non-cognitivism encompasses:
   • Emotivism, defended by A.J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson, which holds that ethical sentences serve merely to express emotions. So "Killing is wrong" means something like, "Boo on killing!"
   • Prescriptivism, defended by R.M. Hare, which holds that moral statements function like imperatives. So "Killing is wrong" means something like, "Don't kill!" As noted above, Hare's version of prescriptivism requires that moral prescriptions be universalizable, and hence actually have objective values, in spite of failing to be statements with truth-values.
   • Quasi-realism, defended by Simon Blackburn, which holds that ethical statements behave linguistically like factual claims and can be appropriately called "true" or "false", even though there are no ethical facts for them to correspond to. Projectivism and moral fictionalism are related theories.
3. Error theory holds that ethical claims are generally false. on an error theory, all ethical statements have a truth value: false. Thus the statement "Murder is bad" is false AND the statement "Murder is good" is false according to an error theory. J. L. Mackie is probably the best-known proponent of this view. (Note that error theory is also sometimes associated with moral skepticism, but they have some slight differences. Error theories are a type of moral skepticism, but there are other types of moral skepticism.)

Subjectivism, non-cognitivism, and error theory are the only forms of anti-realism: If there are no objective values, this must be either because ethical statements are subjective claims (as subjectivists maintain), because they are not genuine claims at all (as non-cognitivists maintain), or because they are mistaken objective claims. The only alternative is for ethical statements to be correct objective claims, which entails moral realism.

Another way of categorizing meta-ethical theories distinguishes between monistic theories (in which there is one true, or at least one highest, good) and pluralistic theories.

Value pluralism contends that there are two or more genuine values, knowable as such, yet incommensurable, so that any prioritization of these values is either non-cognitive or subjective. A value pluralist might, for example, contend that both the life of a nun and that of a mother realize genuine values (in an objective and cognitivist sense), yet there is no purely rational measure of which is preferable. A notable proponent of this view is Isaiah Berlin.

[edit] Centralism and non-centralism

The debate between centralism and non-centralism revolves around the relationship between the so-called "thin" and "thick" concepts of morality. Thin moral concepts are those such as good, bad, right, and wrong; thick moral concepts are those such as courageous, inequitable, just, or dishonest.^[3] While both sides agree that the thin concepts are more general and the thick more specific, centralists hold that the thin concepts are antecedent to the thick ones and that the latter are therefore dependent on the former. That is, centralists argue that one must understand words like "right" and "ought" before understanding words like "just" and "unkind." Non-centralism rejects this view, holding that thin and thick concepts are on par with one another and even that the thick concepts are a sufficient starting point for understanding the thin ones.^[4][5] Non-centralism has been of particular importance to ethical naturalists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as part of their argument that normativity is a non-excisable aspect of language and that there is no way of analyzing thick moral concepts into a purely descriptive element attached to a thin moral evaluation, thus undermining any fundamental division between facts and norms. Allan Gibbard, R.M. Hare, and Simon Blackburn have argued in favor of the fact/norm distinction, meanwhile, with Gibbard going so far as to argue that even if conventional English has only mixed normative terms (that is, terms that are neither purely descriptive nor purely normative), we could develop a nominally English metalanguage that still allowed us to maintain the division between factual descriptions and normative evaluations.^[6][7]

[edit] References

1. ^ Cline, Austin "Analytic Ethics (Metaethics)," URL = http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blfaq_phileth_anal.htm."
2. ^ ^{a b} Garner, Richard T.; Bernard Rosen (1967). Moral Philosophy: A Systematic Introduction to Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics. New York: Macmillan, 215. LOC card number 67-18887. 
3. ^ Jackson, Frank "Critical Notice" Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 70, No. 4; December 1992 (pp. 475-488).
4. ^ Hurley, S.L. (1989). Natural Reasons: Personality and Polity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. ^ Hurley, S.L. (1985). "Objectivity and Disagreement." in Morality and Objectivity, Ted Honderich (ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 54-97.
6. ^ Couture, Jocelyne and Kai Nielsen (1995). "Introduction: The Ages of Metaethics," in On the Relevance of Metaethics: New Essays in Metaethics, Jocelyne Couture and Kai Nielsen (eds.). Calgary: University of Calgary Press, pp. 1-30.
7. ^ Gibbard, Allan (1993). "Reply to Railton," in Naturalism and Normativity, Enrique Villanueva (ed.). Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, pp. 52-59.

[edit] External links

• Metaethics entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Geoff Sayre-McCord.
• The Language of Morals (1952) by R.M. Hare.
• Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant.
• Metaethics - §1 of the "Ethics" entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy by James Fieser.
• Essays by philosopher Michael Huemer on meta-ethics, especially intuitionism.
• Relativity theory of ethics by J.J. Mittler.

 

 ◆ 정의
윤리적 명제를 분석함에 있어서 그 명제의 실천적 내용과 규범성 그리고 지시적 내용에는 관심을 두지 않고 그 명제의 개념적 명석뿐만 아니라 그 개념의 검증의 가능성에 관심을 두고 이런 것을 분석하는 과정에서 얻어진 명제, 즉 의미의 명석함이 드러나는 새로운 윤리적 명제를 얻고자 시도함이 소위 말하는 메타윤리학이다.
◆ 메타 윤리학의 대상

규범 윤리적인 문제보다는 윤리적 개념의 명료화나 해명의 작업에 일 차적인 관심을 갖는다. 메타윤리학은 다음과 같은 문제들을 풀어낸다.
1) “옳다”, “그르다”, “좋다” 등의 윤리적 용어나 개념의 의미는 무엇이며 어떻게 정당화 되는가?
2) 윤리적 용어들이 도덕적으로 사용하는 경우와 도덕과 무관하게 사용하는 경우는 어떻 게 구별되는가?
3) 윤리적 용어와 관련되어 있는 용어나 개념은 어떻게 분석되고 그 의미는 무엇인가?
4) 윤리 판단이나 가치판단이 증명되거나 정당화가능한가? 가능하다면 어떤 의미에서이며 도덕적 추론이나 가치에 관한 논거는 무엇인가?

◆ 등장배경

전통적인 규범윤리학은 인간이 마땅히 해야 할 행위원리 내지 도덕법칙의 탐구를 윤리학의 주된 임무로 생각하고 그러한 원리와 법칙의 보편적 근거를 여러 가지 측면에서 설득력 있게 제시해 왔다. 그러나 근세 자연과학의 발달 이후 심리학, 사회학, 인류학, 민속학 분야에서의 제반 성과는 전통 규범윤리학의 도덕적 입론의 제반 근거들을 회의어린 눈길로 바라보게 하였고 급기야는 전통적 윤리학의 방법에 대해, “그것은 주로 주관에 기초하는 가치관련적인 성과의 독단적 일반화에 불과한 것으로서 전혀 학문적, 객관적 토대를 갖는 것이 아니”라는 이른바 윤리학적 회의론을 태동시키기에 이르렀다.

◆ 고전적 윤리학( 규범 윤리학 )과 현대 윤리학( 메타 윤리학 ) 차이

윤리학을 크게 고전적 윤리학( 규범 윤리학 )과 현대 윤리학( 메타 윤리학 )으로 구분한다. 이렇게 구분하는 근거는 역사적인 이유와 윤리학의 성격 두 가지이다.
고대 희랍으로부터 19세기말까지의 윤리학이 고전 윤리학의 범위에 속한다. 고전 윤리학은 모두 윤리학적 절대론의 입장을 가진다. 이에 반하여 20세기 이후의 현대 윤리학은 일반적으로 고전 윤리학에 있어서의 언명들을 분석하고 비판하기 때문에 메타 윤리학이라고 일컬어진다. 현대 윤리학은 분석철학의 영향 아래서 언어분석에 의존하여 윤리학이 학으로서의 성립할 수 있는지의 여부에 관심의 초점을 모은다.
.....
규범 윤리학은 고대부터 근세에 이르기까지 모든 윤리학설 들을 지칭한다. 이것은 주로 올바른 실천을 궁극적 목적으로 삼는 당위의 학이 주류를 이룬다. 규범 윤리학은 도덕적 규범을 인생의 길잡이로 설정한다. 그리고 도덕 이론을 연구하며, 도덕원리들을 합리적으로 정당화 할 수 있는 기반 위에 구축한다. 어떤 규범 윤리학자들은 우리의 도덕적 의무와 책임을 제시하는 객관적인 도덕적 진리가 있다고 믿는 반면, 어떤 학자들은 이와 반대로 윤리적인 원칙이나 규범은 우리들이 요구하거나, 할 만한 가치가 있는 것으로 믿는 것에 불과하다고 주장한다.
....
현대의 새로운 윤리학은 고전적 윤리학에 만족하지 못하고 윤리적 상대주의나 윤리적 회의론의 영향을 받아 주로 분석철학의 입장에서 고전적인 당위의 학으로서의 윤리학이 학으로 성립할 수 있는지의 여부를 탐구하는데 초점을 맞추고 있다. 그러므로 지금까지의 규범의 학으로서의 고전적 윤리학과 달리 현대 윤리학은 고전적 윤리학의 이론들을 검토․비판하고자 한다. 따라서 현대 윤리학을 일컬어 메타 윤리학(Meta-ethics)이라고 한다. 이 용어는 1949년에 에이어에 의해 처음 만들어져 쓰인 말이다.

메타윤리학은 규범윤리학의 전제를 탐구한다. 만일 철학자가 도덕규범의 체계를 세우고 이러한 규범이 모든 사람에게 정당하게 구속력을 가진다고 주장한다면, 그는 도덕규범이 정당화될 수 있는 절차가 있고 또 자신도 이러한 절차를 따르고 있다는 것을 전제한다. 바꾸어 말해, 그는 도덕적 지식을 가지고 있다는 것을 주장하며 따라서 이러한 지식이 가능하다는 것을 가정한다. 실로 메타윤리학에서 문제가 되는 것은 바로 이러한 가정이다. 도덕판단에서 "안다", "참인", "타당한", "정당화될 수 있는"과 같은 단어를 사용하고 있다는 바로 그 점이 메타윤리학의 문제가 된다. 이런 단어들은 규범윤리학에서도 사용되지만 분명하고 주의깊게 분석되지 않은 채 사용되고 있다. 이러한 말들을 분석하는 것이 바로 메타윤리학의 과제이다. 따라서 메타윤리학 또는 분석윤리학은 규범윤리학에 논리적으로 선행한다고 주장할 수 있을 것이다. 메타윤리학의 문제는 규범윤리학의 완전한 발전이 성공적으로 이룩되기 전에 먼저 해결되어야만 한다.