metaethics

Or met·a-eth·ics

[met-uh-eth-iks, met-uh-eth-]

noun

(usually used with a singular verb)

1. the philosophy of ethics ethics dealing with the meaning of ethical terms, the nature of moral discourse, and the foundations of moral principles.

Other Word Forms

• metaethical adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of metaethics¹

First recorded in 1945–50; meta- + ethics

Example Sentences

Zoë A. Johnson King is a philosophy faculty fellow at New York University who specializes in the philosophy of action, ethics, and metaethics.

Read more on Slate

Once when I was preparing to teach a course on literary theory, I woke up my wife in the middle of the night and read her a particularly powerful chapter of Mary Daly’s “Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism.”

Read more on Washington Post

Philosophers, preoccupied for decades with metaethics, returned to the discussion of substantive ethical issues – the moral questions that concern the general public and, in particular, religious believers.

Read more on The Guardian