Module overview
We all make moral judgments and think about moral questions. For instance, you might think that torture is typically wrong but wonder whether it may sometimes be right. Whereas normative ethics tries to answer these questions, metaethics is concerned with the status of moral questions, and the nature of moral judgments. What sort of thing are we asking when we ask whether torture is ever right? Is this the kind of question that has a right or wrong answer? If so, how might we discover the right answer? Does the right answer depend on who is asking the question? And if there is a right answer, why should we care about it? This module will address questions of this sort by examining a range of metaethical theories about the nature of morality and moral judgment.