Editing Metaethics (section)

==Moral epistemology<!--'Moral epistemology' redirects here-->==
{{wikiquote|Moral epistemology}}
'''Moral epistemology'''<!--boldface per [[WP:R#PLA]]--> is the study of moral knowledge. It attempts to answer such questions as, "How may moral judgments be supported or defended?" and "Is moral knowledge possible?"

If one presupposes a cognitivist interpretation of moral sentences, morality is justified by the moralist's knowledge of moral facts, and the theories to justify moral judgements are epistemological theories. Most moral epistemologies posit that moral knowledge is somehow possible (including empiricism and moral rationalism), as opposed to [[moral skepticism]]. Amongst them, there are those who hold that moral knowledge is gained inferentially on the basis of some sort of non-moral epistemic process, as opposed to [[ethical intuitionism]].

=== Moral knowledge gained by inference ===

==== Empiricism ====
[[Empiricism]] is the doctrine that knowledge is gained primarily through observation and experience. Metaethical theories that imply an empirical epistemology include:

* [[ethical naturalism]], which holds moral facts to be reducible to non-moral facts and thus knowable in the same ways; and 
* most common forms of [[ethical subjectivism]], which hold that moral facts reduce to facts about individual opinions or cultural conventions and thus are knowable by observation of those conventions.

There are exceptions within subjectivism however, such as [[ideal observer theory]], which implies that moral facts may be known through a rational process, and [[Subjectivism#Ethical subjectivism|individualist ethical subjectivism]], which holds that moral facts are merely personal opinions and so may be known only through introspection. Empirical arguments for ethics run into the ''[[is-ought]]'' problem, which asserts that the way the world ''is'' cannot alone instruct people how they ''ought'' to act.

==== Moral rationalism ====
[[Moral rationalism]], also called ethical rationalism, is the view according to which moral truths (or at least general moral principles) are knowable ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'', by reason alone. [[Plato]] and [[Immanuel Kant]], prominent figures in the [[history of philosophy]], defended moral rationalism. [[David Hume]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] are two figures in the history of philosophy who have rejected moral rationalism.

Recent philosophers who defended moral rationalism include [[R. M. Hare]], [[Christine Korsgaard]], [[Alan Gewirth]], and [[Michael A. Smith (philosopher)|Michael Smith]]. A moral rationalist may adhere to any number of different semantic theories as well; [[moral realism]] is compatible with rationalism, and the subjectivist [[ideal observer theory]] and non-cognitivist [[universal prescriptivism]] both entail it.

=== Ethical intuitionism ===
[[Ethical intuitionism]] is the view according to which some moral truths can be known ''without'' inference. That is, the view is at its core a [[foundationalism]] about moral beliefs. Such an epistemological view implies that there are moral beliefs with propositional contents; so it implies [[Cognitivism (ethics)|cognitivism]]. Ethical intuitionism commonly suggests [[moral realism]], the view that there are [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objective]] facts of morality and, to be more specific, [[ethical non-naturalism]], the view that these evaluative facts cannot be reduced to natural fact. However, neither moral realism nor ethical non-naturalism are essential to the view; most ethical intuitionists simply happen to hold those views as well. Ethical intuitionism comes in both a "rationalist" variety, and a more "empiricist" variety known as [[moral sense theory]].

=== Moral skepticism ===
[[Moral skepticism]] is the [[Class (philosophy)|class]] of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, [[Modal logic|modal]], claim that moral knowledge is impossible. Forms of moral skepticism include, but are not limited to, [[error theory]] and most but not all forms of [[non-cognitivism]].