metaethics

See also: meta-ethics

English

Alternative forms

• meta-ethics
• metaëthics
• metethics

Etymology

From meta- +‎ ethics. First attested in the 1930s.

Noun

metaethics (uncountable)

1. (ethics) The study of the nature and meaning of moral judgments, and the foundations and the possibility of ethical reasoning as such.
   • 1985, Kenneth Blackwell, The Spinozistic Ethics of Bertrand Russell, volume 1, →ISBN, page 6:

     However, he holds that ethics is not capable of proving cruelty—or happiness, for that matter—to be either good or bad. This view of the limitations of the reasoning of normative ethics belongs to metaethics.

   • 2006, Frederic G. Reamer, Social Work Values and Ethics, 3rd edition, →ISBN, page 62:

     With respect to metaethics, some philosophers, known as cognitivists, believe that it is possible to identify objective criteria for determining what is ethically right or wrong, or good and bad. Others, however, question whether this is possible.

Derived terms

• metaethical
• metaethic

References

• “metaethics”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
• The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards (ed.), Macmillan, 1967. See: "Ethics, Problems of" by Kai Nielsen, vol. 3, pp. 117-134.