Metaethics Explored

The book begins with an overview of metaethics and

a rejection of the metaethics/normative ethics

distinction. Chapter 1 also considers the strengths

and limitations of the popular idea that morality is a

set of rules for how we treat one another, pointing to

the heart of the topic. Chapter 2 introduces the

distinction between cognitivism and noncognitivism,

and explains subjectivist, intersubjectivist, and

objectivist accounts of the truth conditions of moral

statements. Divine Command Theory and Kant's

categorical imperatives, as in his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, are explained and

considered. Chapters 3 and 4 consider the hostility,

philosophical and popular, towards objectivist

realism. This includes some discussion of David

Hume’s arguments in A Treatise of Human Nature

and Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals,

and of A. J. Ayer's emotivism. It is argued that the

said hostility is unwarranted. Chapter 5 sketches a

naturalist objectivism and suggests that the

obstacles to its acceptance are typically grounded

on spurious asymmetries between ethics and other

disciplines.

"... an introduction to some of the main questions of current

philosophical discussions of metaethics. Davis’s writing

style is engaging and accessible, and he approaches

issues from a refreshingly commonsensical point of view.

... This book will be useful to students coming to

metaethics for the first time as well as interested

laypeople."

Matthew Chrisman, Dept. of Philosophy, University of

Edinburgh