- Explain the questions studied in ethics and metaethics.
- Distinguish moral realism from moral antirealism.
- Compare moral absolutism, moral relativism, and the descriptive and normative forms of cultural relativism.
- Explain moral subjectivism and the grounding problem.
- Describe how starting assumptions and moral principles support ethical theories.
From Ethical Questions to Metaethical Foundations
Ethics studies morality, while metaethics asks what morality itself is and whether it is objective or subjective.
Is stealing wrong when it is done to feed a family? Could a lie ever be good? Ethics, the branch of philosophy concerned with morality, examines questions about right and wrong conduct. Before addressing such dilemmas, metaethics looks beneath them to investigate morality's foundations.
Metaethics begins with several fundamental questions:
- What is morality?
- What kind of thing is morality?
- Does morality exist objectively, like discoverable scientific facts?
- Or does it consist of preferences, opinions, or cultural conventions?
Different metaethical positions can be tested against difficult cases, including stealing food, lying for a good purpose, or trying to cause harm but accidentally producing a beneficial result.
Suppose someone tries to hurt another person but accidentally saves that person's life. Was the action good, and should the person receive praise or blame?
Objective Truth, Subjective Judgment, and an Accidental Rescue
The burglar case tests how intention and outcome affect moral evaluation.
One view treats ethics somewhat like science: it seeks moral truths that can be tested and proved, and those truths do not depend on anyone's opinion. Another view regards morality as subjective, more like a personal preference, with no single correct answer.
Two people may reach the same judgment about whether something is immoral yet strongly disagree about the reason for that judgment. Their explanations can reveal different metaethical commitments.
The case establishes two central facts:
- The burglar meant to steal from the resident.
- His action unintentionally saved her life.
Those facts produce three questions:
- Did he perform a good action?
- Should he be praised although helping was never his intention?
- Should he be blamed although he stole nothing and saved someone?
Moral Realism and Its Grounding Problem
Moral realism affirms objective moral facts, but it must explain their basis and how people can know them.
Moral realism is widely held and fits the intuition that some things are simply wrong while others are unquestionably right. Gratuitous violence is often treated as always wrong, whereas nurturing children is often treated as always right, whatever the situation.
This position soon encounters four challenges:
- Source: If moral facts exist, what produces or grounds them?
- Knowledge: How can people discover what the moral facts are?
- Testing: Can moral facts be tested and falsified as scientific facts can?
- Disagreement: Why is moral disagreement so extensive when science often has greater consensus?
What four issues make up the grounding problem for moral realism?
The issues concern where moral facts come from, how they are known, whether they are testable and falsifiable, and why moral disagreement remains widespread.
Antirealism, Absolutism, and Cultural Relativism
Antirealism rejects objective moral facts, while forms of realism differ over whether moral truth is fixed or relative.
An antirealist would deny that gratuitous violence is inherently wrong. Observing that animals do not always prioritize care for their offspring may likewise suggest that morality is not identical for everyone. Even so, most people remain committed to some version of moral realism.
Unchanging Moral Facts
For an absolutist, something that is wrong stays wrong regardless of context. Such facts apply universally and constantly, like gravity or the speed of light.
More Than One Correct Moral Position
Cultural relativism is a prominent form of this position, but the label can express two distinct claims:
- Descriptive Cultural Relativism observes that cultures hold different moral beliefs. For example, some cultures approve of capital punishment, while others reject it as the inherently unethical killing of a human being.
- Normative Cultural Relativism claims that moral facts themselves vary between cultures. On this account, capital punishment can be morally right in one culture and morally wrong in another.
Difficulties for Normative Cultural Relativism
Normative cultural relativism can initially appear inclusive and tolerant because it discourages judging other cultures. However, it produces two serious problems:
- No cultural wrongdoing: If a culture alone decides what is right for it, that culture cannot be mistaken. Nazi culture would then have been right for its members, while a German dissenter in 1940 who supported equal treatment for Jewish people would have been wrong by that standard.
- No moral progress: If whatever a culture currently does is right for that culture, there is no independent reason to change or improve society.
Concerns like these can prompt a reassessment of the antirealist position.
A person says that cultures disagree about capital punishment. Another says its moral truth changes with the culture. Which form of cultural relativism does each statement express?
The first statement is descriptive cultural relativism because it reports differing beliefs. The second is normative cultural relativism because it makes moral facts culture-dependent.
Moral Truth as Personal Attitude
Moral subjectivism treats moral statements as expressions of individual attitudes rather than reports of objective facts.
From this perspective, capital punishment is not objectively right or wrong. One person may favor it as just, while another may oppose it as unjust. These positions reveal personal attitudes, not deeper moral facts waiting to be found.
Using Ethical Theories to Reason Consistently
Ethical theories organize moral reasoning through starting assumptions and moral principles.
Metaethics examines what morality is. Ethical theories instead supply frameworks for reaching consistent conclusions about right and wrong conduct, helping people navigate difficult moral problems.
The Beliefs a Theory Starts From
- Natural law theory begins by assuming that God made the universe according to a well-ordered plan.
- Utilitarianism begins by assuming that every being shares a desire to pursue pleasure and avoid pain.
A theory's later beliefs can follow from its assumptions. If someone rejects those foundations, however, the remainder of the theory will not follow for that person.
The Principles That Build a Theory
Different theories may share a principle. Many, for example, agree that causing unjustified suffering is wrong. Their principles can also separate them:
- Some theories condemn every unjustified killing, including the killing of animals.
- Other theories condemn unjustified killing only when the victim is human.
Most people do not adopt a single ethical theory in full. They combine principles from several theories to shape their own moral views. Examining which elements they accept or reject helps turn initial moral intuitions into clearer, more reasoned positions.
What two kinds of components support ethical theories, and what role does each play?
Starting assumptions supply the basic beliefs on which a theory rests. Moral principles are its building blocks and may be shared with, or differ from, those of other theories.
Common misconceptions
Watch out: Descriptive cultural relativism says that moral truth itself changes between cultures.
Instead: It reports only that cultures hold different moral beliefs. Normative cultural relativism makes the stronger claim that moral facts vary by culture.
Watch out: Moral subjectivism treats personal judgments as discoveries about objective moral reality.
Instead: It connects moral statements to individual attitudes and preferences while denying any underlying objective moral facts.
Lesson recap
- Ethics is the philosophical study of morality and right or wrong behavior.
- Metaethics examines morality's basic nature, including whether it is objective or subjective.
- Moral realism affirms objective moral facts and treats moral propositions as true or false.
- The grounding problem asks about the source, knowability, testability, and disputed status of moral facts.
- Moral absolutism says that some moral facts apply universally and never change with culture or circumstance.
- Moral relativism allows more than one correct moral position on a topic.
- Descriptive cultural relativism records variations in moral beliefs across cultures.
- Normative cultural relativism makes moral facts culture-dependent, creating problems for criticizing cultures and explaining moral progress.
- Moral antirealism denies that objective moral facts exist.
- Moral subjectivism bases moral statements on individual attitudes and preferences rather than objective truths.
- Ethical theories are frameworks for forming consistent judgments about right and wrong conduct.
- Every ethical theory rests on foundational starting assumptions.
- Moral principles form a theory's building blocks and may overlap with or differ from principles in other theories.
- Most people shape their moral outlook by drawing principles from several ethical theories.