Questions: Normative vs. Metaethical Questions

Question 1

A moral realist and a moral expressivist both agree that torturing innocent people for entertainment is wrong. What does their agreement show?

• A. Their metaethical views must be compatible, since they reach the same normative conclusion
• B. Their normative views are identical but their metaethical views may differ sharply — the two levels are logically independent
• C. Normative conclusions always settle the underlying metaethical question
• D. Their agreement is superficial — metaethical differences inevitably produce different normative verdicts

Answer: (B)

This is the key insight of the topic: normative and metaethical levels are logically independent. The realist believes their condemnation tracks an objective moral fact; the expressivist believes it expresses a deeply held attitude. Both condemn the same act. Agreement on what to do does not require agreement on what *grounds* that conclusion.

Question 2

A philosopher argues: 'Before we can know whether lying is wrong, we must first settle whether moral facts are objective.' This argument assumes:

• A. That normative inquiry is more fundamental than metaethical inquiry
• B. That answering metaethical questions is a prerequisite for answering normative ones — a dependence the two levels don't actually have
• C. That moral realism is probably true
• D. That normative and metaethical questions are the same kind of inquiry

Answer: (B)

The two levels are related but logically independent. You don't need to resolve whether moral facts are objective before working out that cruelty is wrong. People have always engaged in normative reasoning without settling metaethics first. The misconception is assuming metaethics must come before normative inquiry.

Question 3

A consequentialist and a deontologist arguing about whether lying is ever permissible are engaged in metaethics.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is a normative dispute — a first-order question about what is right or wrong and why. Metaethics steps back to ask what kind of thing moral claims are: Are they true or false? What makes them true? Are there objective moral facts? The consequentialist and deontologist are both doing normative ethics; they disagree about *what to do*, not about what morality fundamentally is.

Question 4

Two philosophers can share the same metaethical view — both being moral realists — while disagreeing sharply about which actions are morally required.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Metaethical agreement does not entail normative agreement. Two realists who both believe moral facts are objective can still disagree about what those facts are — one might conclude that they demand strict consequentialism, another that they demand Kantian deontology. The metaethical level fixes the nature of moral inquiry; it doesn't determine the first-order answers.

Question 5

Why is it possible for a moral realist and a moral expressivist to both sincerely assert 'cruelty is wrong' while holding fundamentally different ethical views?

Model answer: Normative and metaethical questions are logically independent. Both speakers agree on the normative verdict — cruelty is wrong. But the realist believes this statement tracks an objective moral fact existing independently of human attitudes, while the expressivist believes it expresses a strong emotional or social attitude rather than describing a fact. They give the same answer to the first-order question (what's wrong?) while disagreeing about the second-order question (what makes something wrong, and what kind of claim is that?).

The independence of the two levels is the organizing insight of this topic. Understanding it prevents two common errors: thinking metaethics is irrelevant to practice (it isn't — deep metaethical disagreements can eventually surface in normative divergence), and thinking that normative agreement proves metaethical agreement (it doesn't).