Introductory: Meta-Ethics, Normative Ethics and Morality

Abstract

Within the general area of ethics and morality we encounter problems and theorizing about them at different levels. For example, we encounter such problems as: ‘Ought I really to tell him the truth when it is simply going to make him miserable?’, ‘What kinds of things and actions are good and obligatory?’, ‘What am I doing when I make a moral judgment?’ Although the conclusions arrived at on one level may bear on those of other levels, it is useful to distinguish the problems and levels of theorizing. Three levels are commonly distinguished: (i) Morality and ordinary moral judgments. This is an area in which every moral agent is a participant. In expressing what he thinks he ought to do, the moral agent is giving expression to his morality; and his morality may have no theoretical background but be simply the collection of his moral judgments. Normative ethics which is directed at discovering the kinds of things, actions and the like, which are good, right, obligatory, i.e. which judgments and principles are to be adopted and why. Meta-ethics which is concerned with the analysis of ethical expressions, i.e. with their meanings, import, and, more generally, their logical functions.