Episode 41: David Enoch discusses metaethics
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hello, and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I'm Jamie Edwards. And I'm Mark Hopwood. We are joined today by David Enoch, professor of philosophy, and Jacob I. Berman, professor of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And he is with us today to discuss metaethics. Professor Enoch, welcome. Hi. Thanks for having me. Most of us have some sense of what the study of ethics involves. How should I live my life? What are the right and wrong things to do? How should we act in the world? And so on. What exactly is metaethics?
So you've given a good initial list of questions in ethics or moral philosophy. So when we're doing ethics, we're trying to answer these questions. When we're doing metaethics, we're not exactly trying to answer these questions. We're trying to reflect about these questions and about the answers to them. So we can ask questions such as, do the questions of ethics that you've just mentioned, do they have answers? If they do have answers, what do these answers depend on? Do they depend on us, say, or a divine will? What kind of answers do we get? Are they objective in some sense? And if so, in what sense exactly? Do they vary across cultures or persons or eras?
What is metaethics and how does it differ from ordinary ethics?
Furthermore, we can ask questions that are really just particular instances of general philosophical questions only applied to the moral domain. So when you're doing other parts of philosophy, say when you're doing epistemology, you may be asking questions such as what do we know and how do we know it and how are beliefs justified and which beliefs are justified. So when you're doing metaethics, you may be doing moral epistemology. You may be asking... Do we ever have moral knowledge? If so, how? How do we justify moral judgments and beliefs and so on? Similarly, when you're doing metaphysics, you may ask questions such as what exists in the world and what's the ultimate nature of the stuff that's there in the world.
If you're doing metaethics, you might be doing moral metaphysics or the metaphysics of morals, asking such questions as, for instance, are there moral entities, things like duties or rights or values or rules or norms? And if there are such things, are they a part of the very nature of the universe? What exactly is their nature? Similarly, when you're doing philosophy of language, you may be asking such questions as what words have what meanings and in virtue of what. So when you're doing metaethics, you might be doing the philosophy of moral language, asking such questions as what's the meaning of ought or good, and in virtue of what does ought refer to this or that? Does good refer to this or the other thing?
So it's a whole host of questions. One of the reasons I think metaethics is so cool is that it really does combine questions in many other parts in philosophy. So some of us are suspicious of interdisciplinary projects. It's not an interdisciplinary, it's kind of an inter-subdisciplinary project. In order to do metaethics well, you have to do, or at least be competent in, many philosophical sub-disciplines. So it's cool.
That's really helpful. Thank you. It's always good to know why a particular area of philosophy is not just interesting, but cool.
Yes,
that's
right.
Very
important.
So maybe it'll help to get a sense of where you're positioned in the various debates within meta-ethics. So your position has been described as a form of robust realism, also described by others, and I think by yourself, as stark, raving moral realism also. So maybe you could just very briefly give us a sense of what that means. What does it mean to describe yourself as a robust or stark raving realist?
Sure. Actually, just for accuracy's sake, I think that the term stark raving realism is a term that Peter Railton applied to his own realism. And I criticize him for not going far enough.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:56
2
What is metaethics and how does it differ from ordinary ethics?
1:56–5:32
3
How does David Enoch define “robust” or “stark‑raving” moral realism?
5:32–11:38
4
Why does Enoch argue that moral facts are indispensable for deliberation?
11:38–17:26
5
What are normative facts and how are they distinct from physical facts?
17:26–21:17
6
How does the disagreement in moral judgments compare to scientific disagreement?
21:17–27:32
7
What explanation does Enoch give for widespread moral disagreement?
27:32–31:56
8
How does self‑interest shape our moral judgments and fuel disagreement?
31:56–39:21
Speakers
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