Maintenance - We're currently working on things and you might experience some issues. Should be wrapped up soon!

This post has been de-listed

It is no longer included in search results and normal feeds (front page, hot posts, subreddit posts, etc). It remains visible only via the author's post history.

7
Do all normative ethical theories presuppose some meta-ethical view?
Post Body

I am diving into meta-ethics for the first time to ground my normative ethical thinking. I was trying to classify meta-ethical positions succinctly and came up with the following:

  • Cognitivism: Moral expressions are truth-apt.
    • Realism: There are mind-independent moral facts (objective).
      • Naturalism: Moral facts are reducible to non-moral facts.
      • Non-naturalism: Moral facts are not reducible to non-moral facts.
    • Anti-Realism: There are no mind-independent moral facts.
      • Non-objectivism: Moral facts exist, but they are all mind-dependent (subjective).
      • Error Theory: Moral facts do not exist.
  • Non-Cognitivism: Moral expressions are not truth-apt.
    • Emotivism: Moral statements express emotional attitudes. (A.J. Ayer)
    • Universal Prescriptivism: Moral statements prescribe behaviors which are universalizable. (R.M. Hare)
    • Quasi-Realism: Moral statements project emotional attitudes as though they were real properties. (Simon Blackburn)
    • Many others...

First, is this characterization of the various views in meta-ethics generally correct or am I making any big errors or leaving anything out?

Second, does having a normative ethical theory presuppose moral cognitivism? The reasoning would be that to argue what is right/wrong, good/bad, virtuous/vicious, etc. (as normative ethical theories do) we need to agree first that these concepts can be expressed as truth-apt propositions.

Finally, do any of the major normative ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics, divine command theory, etc.) entail one or more of these views, or can they all be realized independent of a person's meta-ethical views? (If the answer to question 2 is yes, then I am referring only to the varieties of cognitivism expressed above for this question.)

EDIT: I have changed my scheme above to include error theory as a form of anti-realism. Also, by "fact" I simply mean "true proposition".

Author
Account Strength
100%
Account Age
8 years
Verified Email
Yes
Verified Flair
No
Total Karma
6,835
Link Karma
1,234
Comment Karma
5,601
Profile updated: 1 week ago
history of philosophy, early modern

Subreddit

Post Details

We try to extract some basic information from the post title. This is not always successful or accurate, please use your best judgement and compare these values to the post title and body for confirmation.
Posted
8 months ago