Metaethics

As we mentioned already, and will now repeat, those philosophers who reject substantive theories are often motivated by a strict empiricism, the view that all genuine knowledge is linked, more or less directly, to observations. Facts determine whether something is true or false. Since no moral facts exist, according to philosophers such as A.J. Ayer, then the only job of a philosopher is to show that moral statements have no objective status, or are meaningless. In effect, statements ethical sentences simply appeal to emotions or feelings, much like poetry. Whether poetic statements are true or false is not the point. The way poems affect our sensitivities is what counts.

A. J. Ayer, a contemporary British philosopher, helped to popularize logical positivism, a philosophical school of thought claiming that all meaningful statements must either be logical or mathematical truths or else must be verifiable in experience. His book Language, Truth, and Logic was quite well known, one of the first wide-ranging treatments of logical positivism to appear in English. In the work, Ayer rejects inquiry into substantive moral issues. While the positivism and Ayer's outlook were widely respected, around the 1950's the influence of positivism began to wane.

Other philosophers claim that the correct function of a philosopher rests entirely in analyzing language. These analytic philosophers often declared that substantive ethics is outside philosophy's proper domain. Instead, metaethics helps to sort out the use of moral language. It helps decide whether moral statements -- such as Doing action X is morally obligatory (with 'X' used as a variable to represent any action at all) -- follow an implicit logic. That is, if a person makes this claim, can we derive other statements from the speaker's belief? If Jane thinks that action X is obligatory for John, does that imply that Jane should also consider that X is obligatory for Alice, whose situation is similar to John's?

Suppose that when I claim that X is obligatory for person P, I imply that X is also obligatory for all people whose situation is similar to P's. Kant says something like this, except that he goes a step further. For him proper universal claims in ethical discourse are morally binding on everyone. However, the morally binding nature of such claims does not derive from an analysis of language. An analysis of language makes claims about how language is used. This does not mean that we are morally bound to act in ways dictated by the common use of language.

The distinction here is not completely sharp; after all, when we are told about the logic of moral terms, we are also told how we ought to use them. If Jane thinks that it is wrong for her to do X, she is inconsistent if she does not think Alice -- who faces nearly identical circumstances -- is also obligated to do X. (Do you think that is correct? Can you think of circumstances in which that would not be true?) But there is a difference between an analysis of consistent use of language and moral obligation. Kant thought that certain actions, regardless of how we use words or the values we hold, are morally prohibited; a strict analysis of language simply tells how to use words consistently and how to make moral evaluations depending on the moral claims we make.

If I claim that you are wrong to tell a lie, then I may be inconsistent if I also claim that it is acceptable for me to lie in similar circumstances, but whether telling a lie is actually prohibited, as Kant thought, is not a matter that cannot be resolved by the logic of moral language.