All you can and must do is introduce something you assume as an axiom, and then you reason from there. You can’t (by definition) motivate your axioms against some other set, and the reasoning is straight-forward by the standards of most philosophy.
So for instance, Peter Singer’s version of utilitarianism is an internally consistent product of some particular minimal set of axioms. If you fiddle with the axioms to re-introduce species-specific morality, okay you’ll get different results—but it won’t be terribly hard to reason out what the resulting ethical position is given the axioms.
You can’t (by definition) motivate your axioms against some other set,
I don’t see why not. In fact, I also don’t see why it should be axioms all the way down. Metaethicisiss often start with
a set of first-order ethical intutions. and use those to test axioms.
Is there really so much to say about “ought”?
All you can and must do is introduce something you assume as an axiom, and then you reason from there. You can’t (by definition) motivate your axioms against some other set, and the reasoning is straight-forward by the standards of most philosophy.
So for instance, Peter Singer’s version of utilitarianism is an internally consistent product of some particular minimal set of axioms. If you fiddle with the axioms to re-introduce species-specific morality, okay you’ll get different results—but it won’t be terribly hard to reason out what the resulting ethical position is given the axioms.
Yes. Metaethics is very complex.
I don’t see why not. In fact, I also don’t see why it should be axioms all the way down. Metaethicisiss often start with a set of first-order ethical intutions. and use those to test axioms.