Metaethics

A Contemporary Introduction

Mark van Roojen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317448686
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

Metaethics: A Contemporary Introduction provides a solid foundation in metaethics for advanced undergraduates by introducing a series of puzzles that most metaethical theories address. These puzzles involve moral disagreement, reference, moral epistemology, metaphysics, and moral psychology. From there, author Mark van Roojen discusses the many positions in metaethics that people will take in reaction to these puzzles. Van Roojen asks several essential questions of his readers, namely: What is metaethics? Why study it? How does one discuss metaethics, given its inherently controversial nature? Each chapter closes with questions, both for reading comprehension and further discussion, and annotated suggestions for further reading.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• A Brief Introduction
• A Subject Matter for Ethics?
• Moral Epistemology and the Empirical Underdetermination of Ethical Theory
• The Practicality of Morality and the Humean Conception of Reason and Motivation
• Error Theory
• Simple Subjectivism
• The Cognitivist Heirs of Simple Subjectivism: Ideal Observers and Ideal Agents
• Noncognitivist Heirs of Simple Subjectivism
• Fictionalism
• Externalist Backlash
• Scientific Naturalism I: Cornell Realism
• Scientific Naturalism II: Moral Functionalism and Network Analyses
• Nonnaturalism and Antireductionism
• Odds, Ends, and Morals
• Glossary
• Bibliography