Understanding Normative and Meta Ethics: Key Differences Explored

This essay delves into the core concepts of normative and meta ethics, highlighting their distinct focuses within the realm of moral philosophy. Normative ethics, as the essay explains, is concerned with the morality of actions and behaviors, aiming to determine what actions are just and ethical. It guides individuals toward actions that are considered moral and respectable. In contrast, meta ethics examines the foundations of moral judgments, questioning what makes people perceive an action as moral or immoral. The essay emphasizes the fundamental difference: normative ethics focuses on identifying the right actions, while meta ethics explores what constitutes 'right.' Through this comparison, the essay underscores the importance of both normative and meta ethics in understanding and navigating ethical behavior, supported by an annotated bibliography of relevant sources.

Running head: DIFFERENTIATING NORMATIVE AND META ETHICS
Differentiating Normative and Meta Ethics
Name of the Student
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Author Notes:

1DIFFERENTIATING NORMATIVE AND META ETHICS
Introduction
Ethics refer to the moral codes or philosophies that might be practiced or followed by
an individual. In daily lives, people have to follow specific sets of rules that might be
different from field to field. These are known as laws and are the regulations that must be
maintained to abide by the regulatory constraints (Will, 2019). However, laws and ethics are
not the same. Something that might be ethical might not be lawful, however, something that
is law might or might not be ethical. There are various types of ethics that must be ingrained
into the daily activities and proceedings of individuals. The aim of the paper is to compare,
contrast and discuss the difference between normative and meta ethics.
Discussion
Normative ethics are ethics that investigate the morality of actions that are taken by
individuals (Everett, Pizarro & Crockett, 2016). Normative ethics are ethics that determine
the implication of actions taken by human beings. It is with the help of normative ethics that
individuals determine whether the activity or action that they are carrying out in their daily
lives. The main purpose of normative ethics is to determine what makes and activity just and
ethical. Normative ethical theories and standards of normative ethics are moral problems
concerned with applied ethics. Issues such as human rights, moral implications of activities,
social equity and other factors can be adjudged with the help of normative ethics (Miller,
2019). The main scope of normative ethics is to look for morality and non-morality in factors
such as actions and behaviors of individuals, the aspirations that they have, their intentions,
emotions, fears, thought. s and commitments. For example; the normative ethics of a person
will guide them towards actions that will make that person just, moral and respectable in the
eyes of the society and most importantly in their own eyes.

2DIFFERENTIATING NORMATIVE AND META ETHICS
While normative ethics look into the morality of an action, meta ethics are concerned
with the judgement of the factors that makes people perceive an action as moral. Meta ethics
look into the foundation of judgements regarding the morality or immorality of judgements
(Schroeder & Schroder, 2017). The basic difference between normative ethics and meta
ethics is that the former is concerned with what are the right actions that an individual can
take and the latter that is meta ethics is concerned with what can be deemed to right.
Ontological questions such as the nature of morality of a decision are framed by meta ethics.
It establishes the foundation of an ethically appropriate decision and traces back the core
aspects of that type or decision making to understand the true meaning of the ethical behavior
or morality that is thought of, or considered before doing something.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that both normative ethics and meta ethics are important
paradigms of ethics and ethical behavior. As mentioned above, normative ethics investigate
the reasonability or morality or actions, meta ethics analyses what makes the moral or ethical
behavior moral or ethical.

3DIFFERENTIATING NORMATIVE AND META ETHICS
Annotated Bibliography
Everett, J. A., Pizarro, D. A., & Crockett, M. J. (2016). Inference of
trustworthiness from intuitive moral judgments. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 145(6), 772.
The paper expands on the scope of moral judgements and the critical importance of moral
judgements in accordance with boosting human cooperation. Using theories such as
deontological ethics the authors have discussed intuitive judgement related activities. The
paper identifies and investigates whether agents follow their ethical intuitions and abide by
deontological moral judgements are at parity or proximity with the social partners. After
conducting five studies it was found that deontological theories can be aligned with intuitive
moral judgements.
Miller, D. (2019). Our Responsibilities to Refugees.
In the paper, the authors discuss the factors that people need to consider while dealing with
refugees. The authors discuss about the implications of people having to flee from their home
country to avoid adverse situations and the range of activities that people could carry out. The
questions that are put forward in the assignment are whether people have any obligations
towards the refuges. It is interpreted that the main scope of discussion in the paper is
regrading meta ethics. Human rights and protection of refuges are some factors expanded in
the paper.
Schroeder, M., & Schroder, M. (2017). Normative ethics and metaethics. In The
Routledge handbook of metaethics (pp. 674-686). Routledge.
Schroeder and Schroeder discuss about meta ethics and normative ethics in the said paper.
The authors have put forward an array of discussion which compare and contrast different
definitions of normative and meta ethics. Moreover, the authors have carried out research to

4DIFFERENTIATING NORMATIVE AND META ETHICS
justify and communicate regarding the key differences between meta ethics and normative
ethics based on some factors. Factors considered for differentiating the latter are; Traditional
Noncognitivism, Error Theory, contextualism or relativism, reductive neutralism and
ambition in normative theory.
Will, J. F. (2019). Dying with dignity; living with laws (and ethics). Hastings
center report, 49(3), 6-7.
The paper expands on the scope of medication that is prescribed at medical institution and
healthcare centres. The authors questions that the scope of medicine use as an ethical
concern. The paper expands what makes medication to prevent manner and time of death as
an ethical concern. Meta ethics have been constantly used in the paper to question the
decision in medical practice regarding the aspects such as euthanasia, MAID and the
contrasts whether the activities are legally or ethically inappropriate.

5DIFFERENTIATING NORMATIVE AND META ETHICS
REFERENCES
Everett, J. A., Pizarro, D. A., & Crockett, M. J. (2016). Inference of trustworthiness from
intuitive moral judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(6),
772.
Miller, D. (2019). Our Responsibilities to Refugees.
Schroeder, M., & Schroder, M. (2017). Normative ethics and metaethics. In The Routledge
handbook of metaethics (pp. 674-686). Routledge.
Will, J. F. (2019). Dying with dignity; living with laws (and ethics). Hastings center
report, 49(3), 6-7.