Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values.It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought to be and act) and applied ethics (practical questions of right behavior in given, usually contentious, situations).
Ideal observer theory is the meta-ethical view which claims that ethical sentences express truth-apt propositions about the attitudes of a hypothetical ideal observer. In other words, ideal observer theory states that ethical judgments should be interpreted as statements about the reactions that a neutral and fully informed observer would have ...
Business ethics operates on the premise, for example, that the ethical operation of a private business is possible—those who dispute that premise, such as libertarian socialists (who contend that "business ethics" is an oxymoron) do so by definition outside of the domain of business ethics proper. [citation needed]
Thus, Blackburn's theory of quasi-realism provides a coherent account of ethical pluralism. It also answers John Mackie's concerns, presented in his argument from queerness, about the apparently contradictory nature of ethics. Quasi-realism, a meta-ethical approach, enables ethics based on actions, virtues and consequences to be reconciled.
Meta-ethical moral relativists believe not only that people disagree about moral issues, but that terms such as "good", "bad", "right" and "wrong" do not stand subject to universal truth conditions at all; rather, they are relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of an individual or a group of people. [7]
Ethical subjectivism claims that the truth or falsehood of ethical claims is dependent on the mental states and attitudes of people, but these ethical truths may be universal (i.e. one person or group's mental states may determine what is right or wrong for everyone). [18] The term "ethical subjectivism" covers two distinct theories in ethics.
In meta-ethics, expressivism is a theory about the meaning of moral language.According to expressivism [citation needed], sentences that employ moral terms – for example, "It is wrong to torture an innocent human being" – are not descriptive or fact-stating; moral terms such as "wrong", "good", or "just" do not refer to real, in-the-world properties.
However, applied ethics still requires theories and concepts found in meta-ethics and normative ethics to adequately address applied ethical problems. For example, one cannot confidently assert the moral permissibility of abortion without also assuming that there is such a thing as morally permissible actions, which is a fundamental meta ...