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Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Series Editor's Preface -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- 1 What Is Metaethics? -- 1.1 Starting thoughts -- 1.2 The main questions and some standard positions -- 1.3 Moral psychology -- 1.4 Moral relativism again -- 1.5 Concluding remarks and a plan -- 2 Moral Realism: Mind-Independence -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Why realism? -- 2.3 Moral properties and humans -- 2.4 Objectivity and subjectivity -- 2.5 Why be an IMRealist? -- 2.6 Concluding remarks -- 3 Moral Realism: Naturalism and Reductionism -- 3.1 Introduction

"Do moral facts exist? What would they be like if they did? What does it mean to say that a moral claim is true? What is the link between moral judgment and motivation? Can we know whether something is right or wrong? Is morality a fiction? Metaethics: An Introduction presents a clear and engaging survey of the key concepts and positions in what has become one of the most exciting and influential fields of philosophy. In a work free of technicality and jargon, the book covers the main ideas that have shaped metaethics from the work of G.E. Moore to the latest thinking. Written specifically for beginning students, the book assumes no prior philosophical knowledge. The book highlights ways to avoid common errors, offers hints and tips on learning the subject, includes a glossary of key terms and provides guidance for further study."--Publisher description

Cover -- Copyright and Use -- Title Page -- Contents -- A Note on the Author -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1. Introducing the Issues -- 1.1 Some Everyday Moral Utterances -- 1.2 What are they about? -- 1.3 The Attractions of a Popular Picture -- 1.4 Rules: A Patch on Morality's Surface? -- 1.5 From Angry Young Men and Women to …? -- 1.6 Metaethics and Normative Ethics Revisited -- 1.7 Summary and Reflection -- Chapter 2. Cognitivism and Noncognitivism -- 2.1 The Basic Distinction -- 2.2 Moral Realism and Moral Irrealism -- 2.3 Error and Success Theories -- 2.4 Moral Knowledge Again -- 2.5 The Truth Conditions of Moral Statements -- 2.6 Critical Reflections on the Proposed Truth Conditions of Moral Statements -- 2.7 Divine Command Theory of Morality -- 2.8 Kantianism -- Chapter 3. Objectivist Realism under Siege -- 3.1 A Philosophical Health Warning -- 3.2 David Hume -- 3.3 Hume's Arguments Considered -- 3.4 Mackie's Argument from Queerness -- 3.5 So Where are We? -- 3.6 Emotivism -- Chapter 4. Out on the Street -- 4.1 The Death of God -- 4.2 The Death of Deference -- 4.3 Moral Disagreement -- 4.4 Multiculturalism -- 4.5 Rejection of Specific Moral Beliefs -- 4.6 Seedy Underbelly of Conventional Morality -- 4.7 Decline in Communal and Symbolic Life -- 4.7 Reluctance to be Judgemental -- 4.8 Postmodern Irony -- Chapter 5 A Naturalist Objectivist Realism? -- 5.1 The Basic Features -- 5.2 Moore's Open Question Argument -- 5.3 Empirical Reasoning and Moral Facts -- 5.4 Morality and Objectivist Naturalism -- 5.5 Ethics and Natural Disciplines -- Bibliography.

This Element presents an interpretation and defence of Philippa Foot's ethical naturalism. It begins with the often neglected grammatical method that Foot derives from an interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This method shapes her approach to understanding goodness as well as the role that she attributes to human nature in ethical judgment. Moral virtues understood as perfections of human powers are central to Foot's account of ethical judgment. The thrust of the interpretation offered here is that Foot's metaethics takes ethical judgment to be tied to our self-understanding as a sort of rational animal. Foot's metaethics thereby offers a compelling contemporary approach that preserves some of the best insights of the Aristotelian tradition in practical philosophy.

This new edition of Alexander Miller's highly readable introduction to contemporary metaethics provides a critical overview of the main arguments and themes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century contemporary metaethics. Miller traces the development of contemporary debates in metaethics from their beginnings in the work of G. E. Moore up to the most recent arguments between naturalism and non-naturalism, cognitivism and non-cognitivism. From Moore's attack on ethical naturalism, A. J. Ayer's emotivism and Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism to anti-realist and best opinion accounts of moral truth and the non-reductionist naturalism of the 'Cornell realists', this book addresses all the key theories and ideas in this field. As well as revisiting the whole terrain with revised and updated guides to further reading, Miller also introduces major new sections on the revolutionary fictionalism of Richard Joyce and the hermeneutic fictionalism of Mark Kalderon. The new edition will continue to be essential reading for students, teachers and professional philosophers with an interest in contemporary metaethics. Alexander Milleris Professor of Philosophy at the University of Otago.

Metaethics is concerned to answer second-order non-moral questions about the semantics, metaphysics, and epistemology of moral thought and discourse and is often traced to G.E. Moore work. These essays represent the most up to date work in the field, after and in some cases directly inspired by Moore

Metaethical questions have occupied some of the greatest philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hume and Nietzsche, amongst many others, have all written on issues about the nature of moral thinking and moral practice. In the last 40 years, interest in metaethics has increased greatly, driven by developments in other areas of philosophy - principally, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophical psychology. This collection presents original and ground-breaking research on metaethical issues from some of the very best younger philosophers working in this field. Topics covered include: the nature of practical reasonsnaturalist and non-naturalist approaches to metaethicsexpressivist accounts of moral language, aesthetic, epistemic and social normativity.