Meta ethics

• The study of ethical language 
• Tries to work out what is meamt when saying something is good or bad, right or wrong

G.E.Moore 

Moore argued goodness is simple and indefinable 

it is a mistake to define 'good' in terms of something else- e.g. in Utilitarianism goodness is pleasure 

Good is not a natural property so it cannot be experienced 

Is- ought gap 

there are only two types of meaningful statements= 

synthetic statements- senses and experiences

analytic statements- those that deal with defintions 

ought statements do not fit into these above categories- they have no meaning 

Emotivism 

logical positivists in the Vienna circle in the 'foundations of ethics, language, truth and logic' 

only two types of meaningful statements- analytic (true by defintion) and synthetic (sense data) 

It presents a problem to religious statements- meaningless if they cannot be empirically verified.