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The Invention and Re-invention of Meta-ethics

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Abstract

In this article we pose three questions: 1) What are the questions that gave rise to the introduction of the concept and subdiscipline of meta-ethics? 2) What characterises the view of meta-ethics as a subdiscipline of moral philosophy? And 3) is it in fact possible to uphold a systematic distinction between normative moral philosophy and meta-ethics in a way that allows us to see these two aspects of moral philosophy as independent subdisciplines? In trying to answer these questions, we trace two different roads in the shaping of the current understanding of meta-ethics: the introduction of the word in analytical moral philosophy and the characterisation of meta-ethics in the formative period of meta-ethics and in contemporary introductions. Among the characteristics ascribed to meta-ethics, we identify a special focus on normative neutrality, and we furthermore show that this idea of neutrality as the defining characteristic of meta-ethics cannot be upheld. Our aim is to show that meta-ethics cannot be characterised or construed in a way that is normatively neutral and independent of other work done in normative ethics. We therefore challenge the claim that meta-ethics makes up a subdiscipline that is independent of other work done in moral philosophy. Instead, we suggest a reflective view of the relationship between meta-ethics and normative ethics, according to which we should acknowledge that meta-ethics is inherently normative, and that meta-ethical questions are interwoven with normative questions in moral philosophy.

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Notes

  1. Dworkin also critically investigates whether normative neutrality can be used to characterized meta-ethical theories, but his aim is different from ours. Arguing that the claim to neutrality cannot be upheld, Dworkin concludes that meta-ethics in effect collapses into normative ethics (1996). For an insightful discussion of the relationship between meta-ethics and normative ethics including Dworkin’s use of neutrality as a constraint on metaethical theory, see [25].

  2. We are not committed to the distinction between ‘analytical’ and ‘continental’ philosophy, but rather point to the facts that the distinction has been widely accepted by academics identifying as analytical philosophers (see e.g. [6], and that ‘meta-ethics’ never came to be a self-explanatory subdiscipline in what would on this terminology be described as ‘continental philosophy’.

  3. See, for example, the entry on ‘Metaethik’ in Ritter et al. 1980; [19],Regenbogen and Meyer 2013. See also [10] and [33]. For an anachronistic approach, see e.g., Abelson and Nielsen: “History of Ethics” and Nielsen: “Problems of Ethics” (both in [13] and Olson: “Metaethics” (in [22].

  4. Finlay claims, although without elaboration, that “many Moorean lines of argument can be found in Henry Sidgwick’s earlier Methods of Ethics” (2012). Hurka argues that we should not see Moore as “starting a new era, but as coming near the middle of a sequence of ethical writing that runs roughly from the first edition of Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics in 1874 to Ross’s Foundations of Ethics in 1939” (2003, 600). And Walker argues that Sidgwick in part initiated a process to make moral theory more ‘scientific’ (1995).

  5. Deigh has pointed to Edel as the one who introduced the notion of meta-ethics in analytical philosophy (2018, p. 255, the footnote).

  6. The English translation reads: “Clarification of the traditional philosophical problems leads us partly to unmask them as pseudo-problems, and partly to transform them into empirical problems and thereby subject them to the judgment of experimental science” [39], p. 306).

  7. Translation: “human reason impressing its form on the material” (1973, p. 312).

  8. Translation: “scientific description can contain only the structure (form of order) of objects, not their ‘essence'” (1973, p. 309).

  9. Translation: “knows no unconditionally valid knowledge derived from pure reason [apriorism], no ‘synthetic judgments a priori'” (1973, p. 308).

  10. In his influential introduction to ethics from 1963, Frankena notes that some philosophers consider meta-ethics to cover the whole of moral philosophy, but that, in contrast, he thinks moral philosophy also includes normative ethics (1973, p. 5).

  11. In this way, Sumner's response to difficulties in identifying normatively neutral meta-ethical theories is the opposite of Dworkin’s collapsing of meta-ethics and normative ethics, see 1996 and footnote 1.

  12. In his criticism of Sumner, Solomon argues that he fails to show the truth of his claim about an analytical connection between meta-ethics and neutrality [37], p. 226).

  13. For the first strategy, see also, e.g., [42]. Some introductions to ethics simply avoid the notion of meta-ethics altogether, such as [34].

  14. Many of the suggestions also raise questions about the status and role of applied or practical ethics, but these questions are beyond the scope of the present article.

  15. Fischer 2011 represents this view.

  16. Throughout the paper, we use the notion ‘moral life’ to indicate a comprehensive and encompassing view of morality. For an introduction to this notion see [4], pp. 7-9.

  17. The authors want to thank an anonymous reviewer for The Journal of Value Inquiry for truly insightful and very helpful comments and suggestions. We also want to thank Hans Fink for valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.

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  1. Department of Media, Design, Education and Cognition, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    Anders Hee Nørbjerg Poulsen & Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen

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Poulsen, A.H.N., Christensen, AM.S. The Invention and Re-invention of Meta-ethics. J Value Inquiry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09935-8

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