I’ve never studied any branch of ethics, maybe stumbling across something on Wikipedia now and then. Would I be out of my depth reading a metaethics textbook without having read books about the other branches of ethics? It also looks like logic must play a significant role in metaethics given its purpose, so in that regard I should say that I’m going through Lepore’s Meaning and Argument right now.
The best way to tell is to read the metaethics textbook and see what happens. If it turns out you need a crash course on (say) utilitarian thinking, you can always do that and then return to metaethics.
What is your reason for wanting to read a metaethics textbook? I ask because the most obvious reason (I think) is “because I want to live a good life, so I want to figure out what constitutes living a good life, and for that I need a coherent system of ethics” but I’d have thought that most people thinking in those terms and inclined to read philosophy textbooks would already have looked into (at least) whatever variety of ethics they find most congenial.
Good point. I ordered it yesterday, and it’s supposed to be an easy introduction, so we’ll see what happens.
Well it seems to me that there are so many different schools of normative ethics, that unless we’re all normative moral relativists (I don’t think we are), most people must be wrong about normative ethics. I’ve seen claims here that mainstream metaethics has it all wrong, I just found out that lukeprog’s got his own metaethics sequence, and some of the things that he claims to resolve seem like they would have profound implications for normative ethics. I guess I feel like I’m saving myself time not reading about a million different theories of normative ethics (kind of like I think I’m saving myself time not reading about a million different types of psychotherapy, unless it’s for some sort of test) and just learning about where the mainstream field of metaethics is, and then seeing where Eliezer and Luke differ from it, and if I agree.
Is it crazy to want to have some idea of what ethical statements mean before I use them as a justification for my behavior? That you say “whatever variety of ethics they find most congenial,” makes me think that you might not think it is that crazy. And I mean, I’m at least not murdering anyone right now; I have time for this. And if I don’t ever take the time, then I could end up becoming the dreaded worse-than-useless.
I’m also curious about FAI so I’m generally schooling myself in LW-related stuff, hence the books on logic and AI and ethics. I’m working towards others as well.
I don’t read much on normative ethics, but Smart & Williams’ Utilitarianism: For and Against has some good back-and-forth on the major issues, at least up to 1973. The other advantage of this book is that it’s really short.
But there are probably better books on the subject I’m just not aware of.
From what I see, he seems to attribute a similarly low significance to most of contemporary normative ethics.
Also, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has been suggested twice, in case I do need to know anything in particular about normative ethics. I’ll keep that in mind.
For posterity, as far as I can tell, the most popular undergraduate text on normative ethics is Rachels’ The Elements of Moral Philosophy. The 7th edition has good reviews on Amazon. Apparently the 8th edition is too new to have reviews.
and Eliezer’s new sequence (most of it’s not metaethics, but it’s required reading for understanding the explanation of his 2nd attempt to explain metaethics, which is more precise than his first attempt in the earlier Sequences).
Where is this 2nd attempt to explain metaethics by Eliezer?
I was looking at this article as a starting point. I end up at either error theory or non-cognativism. Is there value in reading further down the tree or would it be like learning more phlogiston theory (at least for me)?
Does it matter? It’s not very hard to get up to speed on ethics. Either skim an introductory textbook, or spend a few hours on the Stanford Philosophy encyclopedia.
I’ve never studied any branch of ethics, maybe stumbling across something on Wikipedia now and then. Would I be out of my depth reading a metaethics textbook without having read books about the other branches of ethics? It also looks like logic must play a significant role in metaethics given its purpose, so in that regard I should say that I’m going through Lepore’s Meaning and Argument right now.
You could dip a toe on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The best way to tell is to read the metaethics textbook and see what happens. If it turns out you need a crash course on (say) utilitarian thinking, you can always do that and then return to metaethics.
What is your reason for wanting to read a metaethics textbook? I ask because the most obvious reason (I think) is “because I want to live a good life, so I want to figure out what constitutes living a good life, and for that I need a coherent system of ethics” but I’d have thought that most people thinking in those terms and inclined to read philosophy textbooks would already have looked into (at least) whatever variety of ethics they find most congenial.
Good point. I ordered it yesterday, and it’s supposed to be an easy introduction, so we’ll see what happens.
Well it seems to me that there are so many different schools of normative ethics, that unless we’re all normative moral relativists (I don’t think we are), most people must be wrong about normative ethics. I’ve seen claims here that mainstream metaethics has it all wrong, I just found out that lukeprog’s got his own metaethics sequence, and some of the things that he claims to resolve seem like they would have profound implications for normative ethics. I guess I feel like I’m saving myself time not reading about a million different theories of normative ethics (kind of like I think I’m saving myself time not reading about a million different types of psychotherapy, unless it’s for some sort of test) and just learning about where the mainstream field of metaethics is, and then seeing where Eliezer and Luke differ from it, and if I agree.
Is it crazy to want to have some idea of what ethical statements mean before I use them as a justification for my behavior? That you say “whatever variety of ethics they find most congenial,” makes me think that you might not think it is that crazy. And I mean, I’m at least not murdering anyone right now; I have time for this. And if I don’t ever take the time, then I could end up becoming the dreaded worse-than-useless.
I’m also curious about FAI so I’m generally schooling myself in LW-related stuff, hence the books on logic and AI and ethics. I’m working towards others as well.
I found my own answer in the comments of the course recommendations for friendliness thread. Luke says:
On normative ethics, Luke says elsewhere:
From what I see, he seems to attribute a similarly low significance to most of contemporary normative ethics.
Also, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has been suggested twice, in case I do need to know anything in particular about normative ethics. I’ll keep that in mind.
For posterity, as far as I can tell, the most popular undergraduate text on normative ethics is Rachels’ The Elements of Moral Philosophy. The 7th edition has good reviews on Amazon. Apparently the 8th edition is too new to have reviews.
Where is this 2nd attempt to explain metaethics by Eliezer?
I’m pretty new, I couldn’t tell you for sure. I’m pretty sure it’s two posts in that second sequence: Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project and By Which It May Be Judged. I’m pretty sure the rest of the sequence at least is necessary to understand those.
I was looking at this article as a starting point. I end up at either error theory or non-cognativism. Is there value in reading further down the tree or would it be like learning more phlogiston theory (at least for me)?
Does it matter? It’s not very hard to get up to speed on ethics. Either skim an introductory textbook, or spend a few hours on the Stanford Philosophy encyclopedia.
Oxford’s Rhetoric could be helpful in this area.