Navigating Metaethical Theories: Understanding Right and Wrong in Society

Metaethical Theories Analysis Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Instructor’s Name Course Number Date Metaethics asks what morality is and addresses what is right or wrong in society. People have different opinions on societal concepts such as abortion, inequality, GMOs, and issues of wars, making it impossible to justify right or wrong, and we are caught between personal opinions and ethics. Metaethics guide society in establishing what is morally right; they provide practical arguments and judgments that promulgate ethical language (Horner, 2003). This paper will analyze five metaethics theories: Cognitive vs. Non-cognitivism, Realism vs. Anti-realism, Cognitive and Anti-Realist Theory, and Non-cognitive vs. Anti-realist theory in relation to Cognitive and Realist theory (Naturalism). Cognitivism and non-cognitivism have different opinions on morality. Cognitivism believes that morality is a standard of evaluating right or wrong, while non-cognitivist believe in verified knowledge; moral assertions can be established as the truth or ambiguous. Cognitivism has an easier time deducing moral uncertainty compared to non-cognitivism. One of the advantages of the cognitive approach is that it has many practical applications making it useful in psychology and society. An advantage of non-cognitivism is that it is subject to objective expressions. In the legal realm, natural links to cognitivism, while logical positivism links to non-cognitivism (Acharya,2015). The demerit of a cognitive approach is that it analyzes cognitive processes that we cannot observe and cannot identify the supposed causes of behavior. The most eminent disadvantage of non-cognitivism is deducing logical positivism, a dilemma due to the lack of difference in normative and descriptive ethics. They argue that moral facts can be correct or incorrect depending on the moral arg