ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the sub sequent chapters of this book. The book will start from some puzzles about ethics and from there go on to examine the range of positions in metaethics people wind up advocating as a result of reacting to them. It will rehearse some intuitive ideas that lead to philosophical difficulties. Metaethical enquiry arises very naturally out of normative ethical enquiry. The chart given, classifies standard metaethical positions by the ways in which the answers to important theoretical questions over which metaethical theories divide. It includes a set of claims called minimal realism. Comprehensive metaethical theories aim to provide answers to the sort of questions in a consistent and coherent way. The book provides an overview of the main approaches providing general answers to the question of what ethics is, the reasons at least some people find these approaches plausible, and the difficulties they face.
