3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Are there objective moral truths, or is morality just a matter of opinion? When someone says that ‘lying is wrong,’ or ‘you shouldn’t steal,’ what do these sentences mean? The branch of philosophy concerned with questions like these is called metaethics. Metaethics is distinct from ordinary (or first order) ethics. Ethics concerns what we ought to do, and whether various actions and choices are right or wrong. Metaethics, by contrast, is about what moral sentences mean, whether they assert (or describe) objective facts, what it means for a moral sentence to be ‘true,’ and more. In this course, we will use the tools of philosophical analysis to examine these questions and engage with the five most prominent answers to them. Students will discover where they stand on important metaethical issues, and then develop their own arguments to defend their position. Recommended Course Background: at least one course in philosophy.