Claudia Fernández Essay 3:

METAETHICS
Quiestioni di Filosofia Morale
Sofia Bonicalzi

Claudia Fernandez Villamayor

UNIVERSITÀ ROMA TRE
METAETHICS
CLAUDIA FERNÁNDEZ VILLAMAYOR

INDEX:

1. Introduction to Metaethics
2. General classification
3. Naturalism vs non-naturalism
4. Emotivism, universal prescriptivism and expresivism
5. Error theory
6. Monism, pluralism, incommesurability and moral relativism
7. Bibliography
 1. INTRODUCTION TO METAETHICS

Metaethics is a part of ethics dedicated to analyzing the scope and basis of moral values
and properties, investigating the problems of logical analysis of moral judgments. In order
to explain in depth you must keep in mind that it is one of the three branches that make
up ethics, along with normative ethics and applied ethics. Metaethics would be the
underlying basis of the other two and focuses on what morality itself is. First of all, we
find applied ethics, this addresses particular ethical problems such as justice, abortion,
euthanasia, animal rights, etc. Secondly, we find normative ethics, which is quite related,
but instead of focusing on specific problems of morality, it tries to discover and analyze
the general rules and principles that guide our behaviors, developing general theories of
ethics such as utilitarianism, Kant's categorical imperative, virtue ethics, etc. These
provide frameworks and theories to address the problems that arise in applied ethics.
Finally, metaethics is something very different from the two that you just mentioned,
since it addresses questions such as the meaning of moral statements, whether they can
be true or false, whether objective moral facts exist, whether morality is universal or false.
relative, etc. We are not really addressing moral issues as such, for example, whether
abortion is right or not, but rather we are going to ask what it means to say whether
abortion is right or not, what these statements express. In short, it tries to make an
examination of ethics from a bird's eye view, with perspective, questioning the very
project of ethics and exploring its limits, it deals with the nature of moral language itself.
Metaethics does not aim to moralize, but rather aims to analyze the characteristic
judgments of ethics, that is, moral judgments. Its fundamental purpose or objective is to
carry out a study about moral concepts and their meaning. We could also say that
metaphysics is responsible for determining whether or not a moral language exists and
what its specific problems would be. Metaethical analysis is not concerned with whether
a specific fact is good or bad, but with the judgment in which beliefs about that fact are
expressed. The central object of study is not the fact itself, but the moral language with
which that fact is referred to, that is, the meaning of ethical judgment.
 METAETHICS

Non-
Cognitivism
cognitivism

Realism Anti-realism Emotivism Prescriptivism

Non-
Naturalism Individualism
naturalism

Cultural
Utilitarianism Intuitionism
relativism

Divine
Natural Moral
Kantian Ethics Command
Law
theory

2. GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

First of all, metaethics is divided into two major schools of thought: cognitivists and non-
cognitivists.

Noncognitivism is a variety of irrealism about ethics with several influential variants.

Non-cognitivists agree with error theorists that there are no moral properties or facts. But
rather than thinking that this makes moral claims false, non-cognitivists hold that moral
claims are not intended to predicate properties or make claims that can be true or false in
any substantial sense. Broadly speaking, non-cognitivists consider that moral claims do
not have substantial truth conditions. Furthermore, according to non-cognitivists, when
people utter moral sentences they are not typically expressing mental states that are beliefs
or cognitive in the way that beliefs are. Rather, they are expressing noncognitive attitudes
more akin to desires, approval, or disapproval.

Cognitivism is the denial of non-cognitivism. Therefore, he maintains that moral

statements express beliefs and that they are capable of being true or false. But cognitivism
need not be a kind of realism, since a cognitivist can be an error theorist and think that all
moral claims are false. Still, moral realists are cognitivists to the extent that they think
that moral claims are amenable to robust truth and falsity and that many of them are in
fact true.
Regardless of whether cognitivism is correct or not, it has implications for several central
problems in moral philosophy, such as the possibility of moral truths, the existence of
moral properties, the objectivity of morality, the nature of moral disagreements, and the
connection between moral language and attitudes. Consequently, cognitivism has become
a focal point of much discussion in contemporary moral philosophy within the analytic
tradition, although related questions have also been addressed by various classical
philosophers (Hume, David) and philosophers within other traditions.

Focusing on cognitivism, we can differentiate two major theories: realistic and anti-
realistic.

First, realists address the ontological question by arguing that moral values are an intrinsic
part of the objective structure of reality, where "objective" is understood as something
independent of the mind. Consequently, they answer the semantic question by
considering that moral judgments describe this reality and, therefore, are susceptible to
being evaluated as true or false. Furthermore, in opposition to error theory, they maintain
that some of these judgments are true. In epistemological terms, they adopt a cognitivist
position by affirming the existence of a type of moral knowledge. Moral realism presents
two main variants: one non-naturalistic and the other naturalistic, which we will see in
depth later.

Second, all antirealist moral theories offer negative answers to ontological and
epistemological questions: they maintain that values are not an objective part of reality
and that there is no such thing as moral knowledge. However, when it comes to the
semantic issue, we can identify two different forms of irrealism. On the one hand, non-
cognitivism argues that moral judgments are not descriptive propositions that can be true
or false. On the other hand, error theory maintains that these judgments are descriptive,
but that they are all false.

3. NATURALISM VS ANTI-NATURALISM

If we look at realist theories, as we have seen, we find, on the one hand, non-naturalistic
realism, and on the other, naturalistic realism.
 3.1.Anti-naturalism realism

Contemporary analytical moral philosophy has a founding milestone in 1903 with the
publication of G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica. We can find different later positions as
reactions to three of Moore's theses: moral realism, non-naturalism and intuitionism.
Moore maintains that there are objective moral facts, for example, that do not depend on
moral agents, that is, moral value belongs to objects regardless of whether they are desired
or valued by the subject. Furthermore, Moore opts for an anti-naturalist line of this
realism. This is explained as the thesis that defends that moral values are not identical or
are not reducible to any property belonging to the natural sciences or psychology, nor to
any metaphysical or supernatural property.

Moore criticizes ethical naturalism, accusing it of committing what he calls the

"naturalistic fallacy," which consists of assuming that the normative can be deduced
exclusively from the merely factual. In contrast, he maintains that the fundamental moral
concept, the concept of goodness, is simple and indefinable. To demonstrate this, he uses
the famous Open Question Argument. Imagine any attempt to define the good in terms of
a "natural" property N, such as, for example, the pleasant. You can always question: "X
is pleasurable, but is it good?" This question remains open because it is not contradictory
to say that X is pleasant, but not good. However, if the good were simply the pleasant,
this question would be meaningless, it would be like asking: "X is pleasant, but is it
pleasant?" That is, it is analytical to say that pleasure is pleasurable, but not that pleasure
is good. Moore suggests that this argument could also apply to any supernatural property.

Regarding intuitionistic cognitivism, Moore defends that moral judgments are descriptive
statements that can be true or false, and that we reach correct moral judgments through
cognitive contact with independent facts. However, since Moore holds that goodness is a
non-natural property, he argues that we cannot access it through empirical methods, as
we do with natural truths. His proposal is that we possess a direct moral intuition of this
property, knowledge that is not derived from non-moral truths, but rather is based on our
self-evident recognition of certain moral claims. This intuitionist perspective regarding
how we can access moral properties had already been defended by other philosophers.
 3.2.Naturalism realism

Defenders of moral naturalism, like Moore, agree on the acceptance of realism regarding
values. However, naturalism, which holds that all facts are of the type studied by the
natural or social sciences, is an attractive perspective. One reaction to Moore's ideas has
been to adopt his premise that there are objective moral facts and properties, but to argue
that these are natural facts and properties that can be known by the empirical methods of
ordinary observation and science. Although they share cognitivism with Moore, natural
realists reject the idea that moral knowledge is achieved through mysterious intuition.
They argue that just as we do not come to know that water is H2O by intuition, knowledge
of moral facts is obtained in a similar way to knowledge of other natural facts.

Moral naturalism presents two main approaches. According to the non-reductionist

variant defended by the Cornell realists, moral properties, although not identical or
reducible to natural properties, are constituted by, supervene on, or are multiply realizable
by them. On the other hand, reductionists maintain that moral properties are identical or
reducible to non-moral natural properties. Some authors advocate reductionism. A
specific form of reductionism is analytical naturalism, which seeks an a priori reduction
and argues that moral predicates and sentences can be analyzed in terms of necessary and
sufficient conditions. Moral functionalism is an influential version of analytical
naturalism that draws on observations of "mature folk morality" and classifies moral
concepts according to entry clauses, internal roles, and outcomes, holding that moral
concepts are fixed by their place in this network of clauses.

Regarding objections to moral naturalism, some critics point out that this approach does
not adequately explain the relationship between moral judgments and practical reason,
nor the intrinsic motivation that moral judgments offer. While internalists hold that moral
judgments are intrinsically motivating, externalists consider this connection to be
contingent and dependent on the agents' desires.

4. EMOTIVISM, UNIVERSAL PRESCRIPTIISM AND EXPRESIVISM

First of all, emotivism is known as the initial version of non-cognitivism, proposed by
Carnap, Ayer and Stevenson. According to this view, moral judgments are not
descriptions of an objective reality nor do they have cognitive meaning; Instead, they
express feelings or attitudes of approval or disapproval. It is known as "nihilism about
values." However, many have misinterpreted moral non-cognitivism as a rejection of
intrinsic value, which is a mistake. Non-cognitivists do not deny the existence of values,
but rather maintain that they depend on the subjects who make the evaluations.

The emotivist position cannot be as simple as suggesting that moral judgments are mere
expressions of emotions or attitudes. This would imply the impossibility of moral
disagreements. If my judgment "Sartre was morally despicable" and your judgment
"Sartre was not morally despicable" were just expressions of emotions, we would simply
be expressing different attitudes toward Sartre, without reaching a real disagreement. The
emotivist position must be more complex. Especially these authors insisted that making
a moral judgment is expressing an attitude with the intention of influencing the attitudes
or actions of other people. In cases of moral disagreement, each party attempts to change
the attitudes of the other.

However, this solution is not satisfactory, since people not only disagree in their attitudes
and seek to influence others, but they also claim that their attitudes are correct and those
of others are incorrect. Moral judgments require support from reasons: if someone claims
that X is wrong and cannot justify why, then they should retract their judgment. Ayer
attempts to avoid this problem by arguing that disagreement is only possible when moral
disputes are based on factual premises, while disagreement over value judgments cannot
be the subject of reasoning.

Secondly, a later perspective called universal prescriptivism focuses on the directive or

prescriptive character of moral judgments. According to the universal prescriptivism
proposed by Hare, moral judgments are commands or prescriptions about how we should
act. These moral prescriptions are similar to orders or imperatives, but with the
particularity that they must be universalizable and predominant. Universalization implies
that, if a moral judgment is made about a particular case, the same judgment should be
made about cases similar in all relevant respects. Predominance means that a person
making moral judgments considers the prescriptions expressed by them to prevail over
any other non-moral considerations.

In response to Ayer's position on the limits of moral reasoning, Hare argues that moral
judgments, being universalizable, are subject to the requirement of consistency: we must
make similar evaluations about similar cases. In his work "Freedom and Reason," he
considers the case of a Nazi who maintains that it is his moral duty to kill Jews. To be
consistent, the Nazi must claim that others would have to kill him if he were a Jew. If we
discovered that, unbeknownst to him, he and his family were Jewish, he would have to
consistently accept his own sentence and say, "Okay, send me and my family to
Buchenwald." Hare concludes that very few people could be consistent Nazis.

One possible objection to Hare's position is that he offers no reasons to find the Nazi's
moral views abhorrent, but simply points out the difficulty of being a consistent Nazi. He
recognizes that a fanatical Nazi, who subscribes to an impersonal ideal, might be
consistent if he hates Jews so much that he wants his own moral principles to be applied
against them and those he loves. This admission raises the question of whether such hatred
is rational, and it clearly is not. However, Hare responds that the question of the rationality
of hatred depends on many false beliefs. A Nazi could be consistent if he wanted to apply
his principles against them, but he could not be consistent and adequately informed about
factual matters relevant to his moral views.

Non-cognitivists face the challenge of providing a non-realist explanation for why it

seems plausible that moral judgments do not express emotions or formulate prescriptions,
but rather express true or false beliefs. In the 1980s, Simon Blackburn and Alan Gibbard
introduced the version of non-cognitivism that currently dominates, known as
expressivism. More recently, the expressivist program has been developed by Horgan and
Timmons and by Mark Schroeder.

Blackburn defines his quasi-realism as the attempt to explain and justify, from an
expressivist perspective, the apparent realist nature of our moral discourse. The central
idea is that we can understand our moral thought and discourse as a fundamental
expression of our affective attitudes or commitments, which in turn generate legitimate
thought and discourse about the corresponding properties, truths, facts, etc. Blackburn
supports his position with two main moves.

One of them is deflationism, which maintains that our discourse about properties, truths,
facts, etc., is economic: once it is sincerely stated "lying is wrong," no further
commitments are made if we add "lying has the property of being incorrect", "it is true
that lying is incorrect", etc. Thus, the semantic thesis associated with non-cognitivism can
be adjusted: if a deflationary theory of truth is accepted, it can be said that moral
judgments are deflationarily true or false.

The other maneuver is projectivism, which is the Humean idea that evaluative properties
are projections of our feelings. For example, when a subject assaults a pedestrian, an
observer can form certain beliefs that generate an emotion, such as disapproval. You then
"project" that emotion onto your experience of the world and judge the action to be
impermissible. But impermissibility is not something you perceive in the sense in which
you perceive the sequence of events; rather, it is a "new creation" of the mind, as Hume
described, resulting from the mind's ability to color natural objects with colors taken from
inner feelings.

On the other hand, Gibbard proposes normative expressivism, according to which moral
judgments express our acceptance of norms. Gibbard understands them as statements
about the rationality (or appropriateness) of feelings of guilt or anger. On this view, what
a person does is morally wrong if it is rational for her to feel guilty about doing it and for
others to feel angry or resentful because she did it. He defends an expressivist analysis of
rationality, arguing that to say that something is rational is to express our acceptance of
the norms that allow it.

5. ERROR THEORY

Mackie in 1977 proposed a form of moral irrealism that is not based on non-cognitivism.
He calls it moral subjectivism, since, according to this position, values are not objective
and do not belong to "the fabric of the world." Kant established the distinction between
two types of judgments containing "oughts": hypothetical imperatives and categorical
imperatives. A categorical imperative, such as "If you are a moral agent, you ought to
treat people as ends in themselves, not as means," expresses an unconditional obligation,
not dependent on contingent desires or purposes of agents. Kant argued that moral
judgments are categorical imperatives. Mackie also calls his position moral skepticism
because it denies that there are facts that are objectively and categorically prescriptive.

More specifically, Mackie describes his position as a "error theory." Like non-
cognitivists, it is not morally realist. However, unlike them, he believes that moral
judgments express beliefs, purport to state facts, and are evaluable in terms of truth or
falsity. For them to be true, it would be necessary for there to be objective and
categorically prescriptive facts that support them, which Mackie calls "intrinsically
prescriptive facts." But as there are no such facts, no moral judgment can be true. This
error theory is, in ethics, similar to atheism in religion. It is implausible to be non-
cognitivist regarding the theistic claim "God exists," since the theist who utters it is
expressing a belief purporting to be true. Similarly, for Mackie, the claim "Stealing is
wrong" expresses a belief purporting to be true, but since there cannot be objective and
categorically prescriptive facts supporting it, it is false. In general, moral discourse is
fraught with errors.

This position conflicts with common sense and requires a solid foundation. Mackie offers
two arguments in this regard:

1. The argument of relativity, which is commonly used in favor of subjectivism and

will be briefly mentioned later.

2. The argument based on what he terms "queerness":

i. From a metaphysical standpoint, if objective values existed, they

would be very strange entities, "wholly different from anything else in
the universe." Mackie criticizes Moore's position for postulating the
existence of metaphysically anomalous properties that are outside the
causal order.
ii. From an epistemological standpoint, accessing these strange
properties would require "some special faculty of moral perception or
intuition, wholly different from our ordinary ways of knowing
 anything." Mackie considers moral objectivism closely tied to
intuitionism but rejects the notion of moral intuition as obscurantist.

6. MONISM, PLURALISM, INCOMMESURABILITY AND MORAL

RELATIVISM

In conclusion, I would like to raise the issue of whether there is a single intrinsic or

ultimate value, or there is a plurality of different irreducible values.

According to monists, there is a single dominant intrinsic value to which all other possible

values can be reduced. For hedonists, who include figures such as Epicurus, Bentham,

Mill, Lewis, Smart, and others, only pleasurable experiences are considered intrinsically

good. Utilitarians, in general, maintain that the maximization of well-being, pleasure or

happiness constitutes the only intrinsic value, while the rest of the values, such as

friendship or knowledge, are seen as instrumental, valuable to the extent that They

contribute to well-being or pleasure. On the other hand, antihedonists propose alternative

criteria of intrinsic value, such as communion with God (according to Augustine and

Thomas Aquinas), knowledge (according to Spinoza), or power (according to Nietzsche).

On the other hand, for pluralists, such as Plato, Scheler, or Moore, the idea arises that

there are multiple intrinsic values, which include diverse states of consciousness, personal

relationships such as friendship or family relationships, intellectual, artistic or moral

excellence. , knowledge and human life itself. Importantly, many consequentialists reject

the idea of reducing all values to a single value, such as pleasure or desire satisfaction,

and therefore defend a pluralist theory. Although Moore, as a consequentialist, considered

that the concept of intrinsic goodness was fundamental in ethics and that right and

obligatory could be defined in terms of it, he also recognized the existence of different
kinds of things, besides pleasure, that are intrinsically good, such as knowledge, personal

relationships or beauty.

Bentham argued that, stripped of prejudice, the simplest sensations could be equally
valuable as the most refined arts if they provided the same pleasure. Instead, Mill
defended the existence of higher and lower pleasures, which implied that no lower
pleasure could be compared to a higher one. According to him, it is preferable to be a
dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig. This perspective suggests that pleasures are
evaluated on different scales, supporting the notion of discontinuities in the measurement
of value and thus pluralism.

One argument for pluralism is based on its ability to explain the phenomenon of rational
lamentation. It may be rational to regret the outcome of a correct moral choice, since there
are always unrealized "residues." This implies that even when the correct decision is
made, the rejected option may be reasonably regretted, reflecting a genuine conflict of
values. This phenomenon would not be possible if all values were compared in terms of
a single supreme value.

The most acute case of discontinuity in moral evaluation is incommensurability or

incomparability (when two values cannot be ordered at all). Is Tolstoy a better artist than
Verdi? Is Verdi a better artist than Tolstoy? Are they equally good? If none of these three
situations applies, we have an example of incomparability in artistic quality.

Some thinkers, like Isaiah Berlin, accept incommensurability as an inevitable feature of

the texture of our moral situation. Berlin defends a pluralism of values that can come into
conflict, and when they do, it cannot be said a priori that one is always more important
than another. Freedom may conflict with equality or public order; social and moral
commitment with the disinterested pursuit of truth or beauty; knowledge with happiness;
and so on. Berlin argued that values can be incommensurable in the sense that there is no
"common currency," no guiding principle, such as the principle of utility.

Aristotle, on the other hand, thought that virtues cannot come into conflict, so that, for
example, courage never demands performing an unjust act. The thesis of the unity of
values has been recently defended by Ronald Dworkin (2011), who has argued that
freedom cannot conflict with equality. It is not true, for example, that the existence of
taxes is always an invasion of freedom. It will only be so if the tax system is unfair, if it
does not treat everyone with the same consideration and respect.

Berlin has been accused of leading his pluralism to relativism. But it must be borne in
mind that pluralism is compatible with the thesis that there are absolute values, and one
way to define relativism is to say that it involves subjectivism or irrationalism, positions
that Berlin does not subscribe to. Metaethical relativism can be characterized as the
position according to which the truth or justification of moral judgments is always relative
to particular situations. There are no universally valid values. For example, freedom may
be a value in one place and time, but not in others. In this, Berlin's pluralism also opposes
relativism. For him, some values are intrinsically good and universally valid – even if that
universal validity is not recognized. Berlin noted that historically, freedom has been
advocated as an ideal only by a minority; however, he argued that it is a genuine value
for all human beings, given how they are constituted.

An argument used by relativists against moral universalism or objectivism starts from a

descriptive anthropological premise: the dissonance between moral codes; there is
diversity and even incompatibility among various moral codes, either between different
societies or within a complex plural society. Wong (1984) and Harman (1996) have
defended metaethical relativism based on these dissonances and on the thesis that
fundamental moral disagreements cannot always be rationally resolved. Mackie, who
employs the anthropological argument, acknowledges that disagreement does not imply
the non-existence of objective values. Disagreements over issues of biology or
astrophysics do not mean that there is no objective matter about those issues. But he points
out that realism about a discipline requires that its disputes be resolvable in principle, and
while most disputes in science seem resolvable, many moral disputes do not. Moral
disagreements are not the result of a lack or insufficiency of evidence, but arise from
adherence to, and participation in, different forms of life.

Another argument used in favor of relativism appeals to tolerance: we must respect the
moral viewpoints of others; however, moral universalism, it is argued, implies that many
of those viewpoints are erroneous and not deserving of respect or tolerance.

Universalists have offered various replies to relativists. One response is the theory of the
ideal observer, according to which "ideally or fully rational" individuals would not have
moral disagreements. An ideal observer is characterized as fully informed, disinterested,
dispassionate, consistent, and normal in other respects. There are versions of this theory
in Hume, Adam Smith, Richard Brandt, and Roderick Firth.

Another possible reply is that it is not the codes that are universal, but certain basic general
principles that are recognized, at least implicitly, by all societies; for example, the
principle of universalizability.

Finally, few philosophers take the tolerance argument seriously. At the risk of making
tolerance an absolute value, the relativist cannot claim that tolerance is obligatory or
permissible because he is forced to say that the statement "We must be tolerant" can be
valid in one society and invalid in another, but not absolutely valid in any society. Some
universalists would add that only universalism can establish that in some cases we should
be tolerant of those with whom we disagree, for example, drawing arguments from the
liberal tradition of Locke and Mill.

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY

§ Ayer, A. J. ([1936] 1946): Language, Truth and Logic, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
§ Brink, D. (1989): Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, Cambridge
University Press.
§ Frankena, W. (1937): Ethics, Prentice-Hall.
§ J. Wolff (2020), An Introduction to Moral Philosophy, W. W. Norton &
Company
§ Mackie, J. L. (1977): Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Penguin.
§ Smith, M. (1994): The Moral Problem, Wiley-Blackwell.
§ Williams, B. (1981): Moral Luck, Cambridge University Press.