МЕТАЭТИКА

Metaethics

The section of ethics which elaborates problems of logical analysis of moral judgements. The term was introduced in ethics by the logical positivists, for whom metaethics (by analogy with metaphysics) is a science standing above and preceding normative ethics. Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in studying the logic of ethical judgements, but the positivists understand metaethics to be a study of the logical structure of "the language of ethics", of the signification of judgements and terms in ethics, drawing no conclusions as to what is good and what is bad or whether the behaviour of man depends upon social conditions, etc. Such an interpretation of metaethics is a claim on the part of bourgeois ethicians to create a science which is to be above parties and "neutral" in its attitude towards human behaviour.