The Functional Model of Analysis as Middle Ground Meta-Ethics

Abstract

The main purpose of the paper is to present a new framework of meta-ethics which I call the Functional Model of Analysis. It presupposes that the most important meta-ethical question is not “What is the meaning of normative words, sentences and what is the ontological fabric of the moral world?” but “What should morality and ethics be for?”. It is a form of meta-ethics that focuses on finding theoretical resources that can be helpful in understanding ongoing ethical debates between disciples of Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, Augustine, Hobbes, utilitarians and Kant, and in building normative ethical theories that can help us to answer normative questions. As an example of such output I will present a formal sketch of Hybrid Function Consequentialism – a normative ethical theory based upon the meta-ethical framework proposed here.