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Everything about Metaethics
Branch of ethics
In philosophy, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics. Wikipedia →
🧠Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: MetaethicsA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: Kelsen’s MetaethicsInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: MetaethicsThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: What is Constructivism in Ethics and Metaethics?Cited 156 times
- Go sideways: Cognitivism (ethics)A closely related topic
- Go sideways: Ethical subjectivismA closely related topic
đź“– Definitions
Noun The study of the nature and meaning of moral judgments, and the foundations and the possibility of ethical reasoning as such.
🗂️ The subject at a glance
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
What is Constructivism in Ethics and Metaethics?
Asimov’s “three laws of robotics” and machine metaethics
Contemporary Environmental Ethics From Metaethics to Public Philosophy
Anti-Realist Pluralism: a New Approach to Folk Metaethics
Beyond Individual Rights and Freedoms: Metaethics in Social Work Research
Nietzsche's Metaethics: Against the Privilege Readings
Political Realism as Methods not Metaethics
Really taking Darwin seriously: An alternative to Michael Ruse's Darwinian metaethics
🆕 Influential since 2022
đź“š Books worth reading
MetaethicsMark van Roojen · 2015
Comparative MetaethicsColin Marshall · 2019- 📕Ethics, Persuasion and TruthJ. J. C. Smart · 2020
- 📕Toward a Pragmatist MetaethicsDiana Heney · 2016
- 📕Foundations of an Ethics of BeliefAnne Meylan · 2013
- 📕Principles of New Ethics IWang Haiming · 2020
Impassioned BeliefMichael Ridge · 2014- 📕Evolution and the Foundations of EthicsJohn Mizzoni · 2017
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
đź”— Related topics
- Cognitivism (ethics) Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false (they are truth-apt), which noncognitivists…
- Ethical subjectivism Ethical subjectivism (also known as moral subjectivism and moral non-objectivism) is the meta-ethical view which claims that: Ethical sentences express…
- Moral constructivism Moral constructivism or ethical constructivism is a view both in meta-ethics and normative ethics which posits that: Ethical sentences express propositions…
- Moral realism Moral realism (also ethical realism) is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world (that is…
- Expressivism In metaethics, expressivism is a theory about the meaning of moral language. According to expressivism, sentences that employ moral terms – for example…
- Non-cognitivism Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are…
- Ethical naturalism Ethical naturalism (also called moral naturalism or naturalistic definism) is a position in metaethics that holds that moral properties or facts are reducible…
- Ethical non-naturalism Ethical non-naturalism (or moral non-naturalism) is the meta-ethical view which claims that: Ethical sentences express propositions. Some such propositions…