How To Explain Metaethics

Metaethics consists of first-cause questions. These are not questions about specific ethical choices (should I be nice to my mother-in-law?) but about the rules of doing ethics prior to hearing a questions about specifics. Most questions are second-cause, which means they have questions beneath them that add to their understanding.

If an ethical process was a house, metaethics would be the soil and the foundation, a specific choice might be a window. The window is dramatically effected by the foundation, but not the other way around.

In even greater detail, we might identify the character of one primary metaethical question: Are ethics subjective or objective? Are they opinion or fact? Another way to put it is this: Are ethics real?

Another question might be: Who decides? A person, Bob, a teacher, God? Before one attempts an ethical choice, this is the kind of thing one works out metaethically. Rand was clear about this exact question. She said, "No one." This was her way of stressing objectivity (her philosophy was Objectivism), which means an ethical premise that exists whether you want it to or not.

Not all thinkers agree. It is actually quite popular post-Kant to be confident and critical about ethical subjectivity. It does not mean they are right, just critical (or deep). At the core, this position claims that ethics exist in context, different at different times or places or in different cultures.

So, here are two answers to the same fundamental question and these differences will determine how one handles the actual choice.

Who decides? No one (nature/reality) or everyone (in different situations). What is important here is not the actual outcome, but the recognition that there is a difference between clearly tackling a first-cause question. It is important above all else in the beginning to see the unique status of a question about how once can determine the rules before beginning a process of choosing.

It should be obvious then that the status of a metaethical question is as a primary question, one to which other question cannot be asked. There are no questions to add that might be more preliminary or helpful. Can we do ethics? Once we figure that out, the picture and path to right and wrong becomes intentional.