Метаэтика: природа и основания моральных суждений.

Branch of ethics seeking to understand ethical properties

In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. 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). While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should I do? ", evaluating specific practices and principles of action, metaethics addresses questions such as "What is goodness?" and "How can we tell what is good from what is bad? ", seeking to understand the assumptions underlying normative theories. Another distinction often made is that normative ethics involves first order or substantive questions; metaethics involves second order or formal questions. Some theorists argue that a metaphysical account of morality is necessary for the proper evaluation of actual moral theories and for making practical moral decisions; others reason from opposite premises and suggest that studying moral judgments about proper actions can guide us to a true account of the nature of morality.

Moral universalism (or universal morality) is the metaethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is to all intelligent beings regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexuality, or other distinguishing feature. The source or justification of this system may be thought to be, for instance, human nature, shared vulnerability to suffering, the demands of universal reason, what is common among existing moral codes, or the common mandates of religion (although it can be argued that the latter is not in fact moral universalism because it may distinguish between Gods and mortals). Moral universalism is the opposing position to various forms of moral relativism. Universalist theories are generally forms of moral realism, though exceptions exists, such as the subjectivist ideal observer and divine command theories, and the non cognitivist universal prescriptivism of R. M. Hare. Forms of moral universalism include:
Value monism is the common form of universalism, which holds that all goods are commensurable on a single value scale. Value pluralism contends that there are two or more genuine scales of value, knowable as such, yet incommensurable, so that any prioritization of these values is either non cognitive or subjective. A value pluralist might, for example, contend that both a life as a nun and a life as a mother realize genuine values (in a universalist sense), yet they are incompatible (nuns may not have children), and there is no purely rational way to measure which is preferable. A notable proponent of this view is Isaiah Berlin.

Moral relativism maintains that all moral judgments have their origins either in societal or in individual standards, and that no single standard exists by which one can objectively assess the truth of a moral proposition. Metaethical relativists, in general, believe that the descriptive properties of terms such as "good", "bad", "right", and "wrong" do not stand subject to universal truth conditions, but only to societal convention and personal preference. Given the same set of verifiable facts, some societies or individuals will have a fundamental disagreement about what one ought to do based on societal or individual norms, and one cannot adjudicate these using some independent standard of evaluation. The latter standard will always be societal or personal and not universal, unlike, for example, the scientific standards for assessing temperature or for determining mathematical truths.

Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the metaethical view that nothing has intrinsic moral value. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is intrinsically neither morally right nor morally wrong. Moral nihilism must be distinguished from moral relativism, which does allow for moral statements to be intrinsically true or false in a non universal sense, but does not assign any static truth values to moral statements. Insofar as only true statements can be known, moral nihilists are moral skeptics. Most forms of moral nihilism are non cognitivist and vice versa, though there are notable exceptions such as universal prescriptivism (which is semantically non cognitive but substantially universal).

Moral epistemology is the study of moral knowledge. It attempts to answer such questions as, "How may moral judgments be supported or defended?" and "Is moral knowledge possible?" If one presupposes a cognitivist interpretation of moral sentences, morality is justified by the moralist's knowledge of moral facts, and the theories to justify moral judgements are epistemological theories. Most moral epistemologies posit that moral knowledge is somehow possible (including empiricism and moral rationalism), as opposed to moral skepticism. Amongst them, there are those who hold that moral knowledge is gained inferentially on the basis of some sort of non moral epistemic process, as opposed to ethical intuitionism.

Moral rationalism, also called ethical rationalism, is the view according to which moral truths (or at least general moral principles) are knowable a priori, by reason alone. Plato and Immanuel Kant, prominent figures in the history of philosophy, defended moral rationalism. David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche are two figures in the history of philosophy who have rejected moral rationalism. Recent philosophers who defended moral rationalism include R. M. Hare, Christine Korsgaard, Alan Gewirth, and Michael Smith. A moral rationalist may adhere to any number of different semantic theories as well; moral realism is compatible with rationalism, and the subjectivist ideal observer theory and non cognitivist universal prescriptivism both entail it.

Ethical intuitionism is the view according to which some moral truths can be known without inference. That is, the view is at its core a foundationalism about moral beliefs. Such an epistemological view implies that there are moral beliefs with propositional contents; so it implies cognitivism. Ethical intuitionism commonly suggests moral realism, the view that there are objective facts of morality and, to be more specific, ethical non naturalism, the view that these evaluative facts cannot be reduced to natural fact. However, neither moral realism nor ethical non naturalism are essential to the view; most ethical intuitionists simply happen to hold those views as well. Ethical intuitionism comes in both a "rationalist" variety, and a more "empiricist" variety known as moral sense theory.

Moral skepticism is the class of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modal, claim that moral knowledge is impossible. Forms of moral skepticism include, but are not limited to, error theory and most but not all forms of non cognitivism.