The exhilarating study guide (also in paperback: see below) explains and discusses some key approaches in metaethics, and suggests that an account which is naturalist and objectivist might have more to commend it than is popularly allowed.
The book
The book begins with an overview of metaethics and a rejection of the metaethics/normative ethics distinction. Chapter 1 also considers the strengths and limitations of the popular idea that morality is a set of rules for how we treat one another, pointing to the heart of the topic.
Chapter 2 introduces the distinction between cognitivism and noncognitivism, and explains subjectivist, intersubjectivist, and objectivist accounts of the truth conditions of moral statements. Divine Command Theory and Kant's categorical imperatives, as in his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, are explained and considered.
Chapters 3 and 4 consider the hostility, philosophical and popular, towards objectivist realism. This includes some discussion of David Hume's arguments in A Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals, and of A. J. Ayer's emotivism. It is argued that the said hostility is unwarranted.
Chapter 5 sketches a naturalist objectivism and suggests that the obstacles to its acceptance are typically grounded on spurious asymmetries between ethics and other disciplines.
About the author
The author is Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport & Exercise at the University of Sunderland, haviong been previously a tutor in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and lecturer in the philosophy of sport at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. His doctoral thesis was on free will, and he has published on consciousness, ethics, and ethical and aesthetic issues in sport. He is the co-editor (with Charlene Weaving ) of Philosophical Perspectives on Gender in Sport and Physical Activity (Routledge, 2009).
Other Formats
In Paperback (rrp £9.99) but currently available from Troubador.co.uk for only £7.49
Also available to library subscribers in Pdf format from MyiLibrary.com
Also available in Kindle format for hand-held devices from the Amazon Kindle Stores