Editorial

Metaethics is a thriving field of philosophical investigations, whose questions have belonged to the problems constituting the very essence of philosophy since its dawn. The methods of metaethical inquiries have ancient roots as well, reaching back to Socrates’s efforts into conceptual analyses. Nowadays, relevant issues are constantly raised, interesting and significant theories emerge, and even new research paradigms are set forth in the discipline. Metaethics is an interdisciplinary intellectual under-taking where the theories from the domains, inter alia, of philosophy of language, ontology, and epistemology are developed and utilized; it also refers to the outcomes of the sciences, psychology and biology in particular. The present volume of Etyka pro-vides a very good illustration of the above sketched state of affairs; it contains papers covering a wide spectrum of metaethical topics.

James Beebe describes conceptual, interpretative, and constructive difficulties accompanying empirical research aimed at pinning down the content of folk meta-ethical intuitions. The author focuses on the investigations revolving around the folk beliefs concerning moral objectivity and formulates a number of suggestions that are to improve research methods which are currently used in the studies. Jan Woleński summarizes and elaborates on his naturalistic interpretations of norms and evalua-tions. Adopting a non-linguistic interpretation of the latter, he defends a view to the effect that norms and evaluations are facts located in time and space, where norms are understood as performative actions consisting in decisions that something is pre-scribed (prohibited). Anna Brożek analyzes the concept of intuition, characterizes different types of intuitionism, and discusses and compares four versions of axiologi-cal intuitionism: three set forth by the members of the Lvov-Warsaw School (Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, and Tadeusz Czeżowski) and one represented by a philosopher immersed in the tradition of the School – Marian Przełęcki. Joanna Klimczyk criticizes Thomas M. Scanlon’s theory of normative reason arguing that the validity of Scanlon’s account requires him to accept that the notion of normative rea-son is cognitively primitive. However, Scanlon employs a different − and inadequate for his purpose − sense of primitiveness. In Klimczyk’s opinion, the problems with Scanlon’s approach undermine the stance of semantic normativism. Adrian Kuźniar reconstructs and examines Sharon Street’s version of metaethical constructivism and

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contends that the view in question, contrary to expectations, cannot be regarded as a plausible metaethical account, entails dubious normative consequences, and is vul-nerable to the charge of internal inconsistency. Mirosław Rutkowski analyzes the content and justification of the right to act in accordance with one’s conscience. In the course his investigations, Rutkowski extensively expounds the functions ascribed to conscience (e.g. the function of constituting obligations, an epistemological func-tion, the function of protecting the agent’s integrity) and concludes that the right under consideration should be limited. Wojciech J. Bober reviews Mark van Roojen’s introduction to metaethics published in 2015.

We cherish the hope that the present volume deserves to be placed alongside the remaining metaethical volumes of Etyka, including volume 11 from 1973 whose phil-osophical importance and educational utility are still valued today.

Adrian Kuźniar (University of Warsaw)

10 EDITORIAL

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