Meta-ethics

The study of what moral values ARE and where they come from — not which acts are right or wrong.

Are moral values out there to be found (like facts), or made by us (like money and manners)?

Reason, emotion, nature and culture — each a possible root of right and wrong.

It comes from feeling, not pure reason — we feel wrongness (sympathy, disgust) before we reason it.

Reason serves our feelings: it works out how to get what we care about, but feeling sets what we care about.

List every fact of a cruel act and 'wrong' isn't among them — so wrongness comes from our response, not a fact in the act.

Right and wrong are worked out by thinking clearly — being inconsistent, or willing a rule you'd hate applied to you, is a moral failing.

Values are handed down by the group you grow up in — its traditions, rules and shared way of life.

The view that there are real moral facts, true independently of what any person or culture believes.

The view that there are no mind-independent moral facts; moral claims express human attitudes, not facts.

Objectivism: moral facts are real and true for everyone. Subjectivism: moral claims express our attitudes, not facts.

A society approving of genocide would be WRONG, not right — and you can only be mistaken about a fact, so moral facts must be real.

Measure a cruel act fully and 'wrongness' isn't among its properties — so 'wrong' expresses our attitude, not a fact.

Realism: discovered (like maths). Anti-realism: invented (a feature of us, not the universe).

Realism explains absolute wrongs but owes us the 'facts'; anti-realism avoids spooky facts but struggles to call cruelty mistaken.

You can't measure numbers either, yet maths is true — moral facts might be real without being physical.

The view that right and wrong depend on your culture or situation — no single morality stands above them all.

The view that some moral principles hold for everyone, everywhere — e.g. needless cruelty is wrong wherever it happens.

It seems humble and anti-arrogant: 'who am I to judge another culture by my standards?'

If each culture is right by its own lights, we can't call another's cruelty wrong, and its reformers become the rule-breakers.

Badly — if each culture is right for itself, abolishing slavery isn't 'progress', just a different culture; that seems clearly wrong.

'Don't impose your morality on others' is itself a universal rule — so relativism assumes the universalism it denies.

Yes — you can hold that cruelty is universally wrong while staying curious and respectful about how other cultures live.

'You should respect other cultures' is a rule offered FOR everyone — a universal value, not a relative one.

The view that moral claims state facts and can be true or false — so we can be right or wrong about them.

The view that moral claims don't state facts; they express feelings or attitudes, so can't be true or false.

The boldest non-cognitivism: moral claims express approval ('hurrah!') or disapproval ('boo!'), not facts.

Strength: explains why morality moves us to act. Weakness: flattens real moral argument into booing vs cheering.

'Good' just means some natural, this-world fact — e.g. 'what increases happiness'.

For any natural fact you can still ask 'but is THAT good?' — so 'good' names something real you can't reduce to nature.

Cognitivism ↔ realism ↔ 'discovered'; non-cognitivism/emotivism ↔ anti-realism ↔ Hume's feeling. The open question echoes the fact–value gap.

Arguing between more than one theory on the claim and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing each in turn.