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IS METAETHICS MORALLY NEUTRAL?
Author(s) -
FANTL JEREMY
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0114.2006.00246.x
Subject(s) - denial , philosophy , argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , statement (logic) , position (finance) , psychology , psychoanalysis , chemistry , economics , biochemistry , finance
I argue, contra Dreier, Blackburn, and others, that there are no morally neutral metaethical positions. Every metaethical position commits you to the denial of some moral statement. So, for example, the metaethical position that there are no moral properties commits you to the denial of the (quite plausible) moral conjunction of 1) it is right to interfere violently when someone is wrongly causing massive suffering and 2) it is wrong to interfere violently when only non‐moral properties are at stake. The argument generalizes to all metaethical positions.