metaethics
metaethics noun: the study of the nature and meaning of moral judgments, and the foundations and the possibility of ethical reasoning as such.
Noun
metaethics (uncountable)
- The study of the nature and meaning of moral judgments, and the foundations and the possibility of ethical reasoning as such.
- However, he holds that ethics is not capable of proving cruelty—or happiness, for that matter—to be either good or bad. This view of the limitations of the reasoning of normative ethics belongs to metaethics.1985, Kenneth Blackwell, The Spinozistic Ethics of Bertrand Russell, volume 1, →ISBN, page 6
- With respect to metaethics, some philosophers, known as cognitivists, believe that it is possible to identify objective criteria for determining what is ethically right or wrong, or good and bad. Others, however, question whether this is possible.2006, Frederic G. Reamer, Social Work Values and Ethics, 3rd edition, →ISBN, page 62
Forms of metaethics
| alternative form | meta-ethics |
|---|---|
| alternative form | metaëthics |
| alternative form | metethics |
Origin of metaethics
From meta- + ethics. First attested in the 1930s.
Words formed from metaethics
Questions about metaethics
- What does metaethics mean?
- Metaethics means the study of the nature and meaning of moral judgments, and the foundations and the possibility of ethical reasoning as such.
- What part of speech is metaethics?
- Metaethics is a noun.
Words near metaethics in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: metaethics (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “metaethics.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metaethics. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.