Arguing about Metaethics collects together some of the most exciting contemporary work in metaethics in one handy volume. In it, many of the most influential philosophers in the field discuss key questions in metaethics:

Do moral properties exist?

If they do, how do they fit into the world as science conceives it?

If they don't exist, then how should we understand moral thought and language?

What is the relation between moral judgment and motivation?

As well as these questions, this volume discusses a wide range of issues including moral objectivity, truth and moral judgments, moral psychology, thick evaluative concepts and moral relativism.

The editors provide lucid introductions to each of the twelve themed sections in which they show how the debate lies and outline the arguments of the papers. Arguing about Metaethics is an ideal resource text for students at upper undergraduate or postgraduate level.

Metaethics is not concerned with whether a particular action is right or wrong, or even with what criteria should be used to determine whether it is. Rather it deals with whether actions, institutions, people, situations, and other dimensions of the real world are right and wrong, good and bad, in the first place. Reprinted from as early as the 1930s, but mostly from the past couple of decades, 32 articles consider such issues as error theory and moral realism, expressivism, and the Humean theory of motivation. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)