Thanks for all the useful links! I’m also always happy to receive more feedback.
I agree that the sense in which I use metaethics in this post is different from what academic philosophers usually call metaethics. I have the impression that metaethics, in academic sense, and metaphilosophy are somehow related. Studying what morality itself is, how to select ethical theories and what is the process behind ethical reasoning seems not independent. For example if moral nihilism is more plausible then it seems to be less likely that there is some meaningful feedback loop to select ethical theories or that there is such a meaningful thing as a ‘good’ ethical theory (at least in an observer independent way) . If moral emotivism is more plausible then maybe reflecting on ethics is more like emotions rationalisation, e.g. typically expressing in a sophisticated way something that just fundamentally means ‘boo suffering’. In that case having better understanding of metaethics in the academic sense seems to bring some light to a process that generates ethical theories, at least in humans.
Thanks for all the useful links! I’m also always happy to receive more feedback.
I agree that the sense in which I use metaethics in this post is different from what academic philosophers usually call metaethics. I have the impression that metaethics, in academic sense, and metaphilosophy are somehow related. Studying what morality itself is, how to select ethical theories and what is the process behind ethical reasoning seems not independent. For example if moral nihilism is more plausible then it seems to be less likely that there is some meaningful feedback loop to select ethical theories or that there is such a meaningful thing as a ‘good’ ethical theory (at least in an observer independent way) . If moral emotivism is more plausible then maybe reflecting on ethics is more like emotions rationalisation, e.g. typically expressing in a sophisticated way something that just fundamentally means ‘boo suffering’. In that case having better understanding of metaethics in the academic sense seems to bring some light to a process that generates ethical theories, at least in humans.