ABSTRACT
Philosophy of Ethics, it is maintained, should properly be meta-ethics, i.e. an enquiry into the logic and language of ethical terms. The only objection the author have to this recommendation is that it suggests that an enquiry into the logic and language of ethical terms is purely a linguistic enquiry and not. Philosophical ethics has to do with our thinking about ethical issues and with the satisfactory or unsatisfactory use of ethical terms in a value context which is accepted by the disputants to be in some sense objective (otherwise there can hardly be any argument and the matter would end with the voicing of personal preferences). Philosophical ethics may profitably enquire what these self-justifying standards (and their implications) are that are involved in the use of the terms like ‘right’ and ‘good’ in ordinary normative discourse when that discourse is held consistently within a characteristic point of view.
