Rawls and metaethics: it’s complicated!

In recent years the philosophical debate about the methods of political philosophy has been characterized by an increasing number of different options concerning the relation between normative theory and metaethics. In particular, the idea that normative theories are autonomous from second-order issues has gained great attention. In this article, the debate about quietism is presented and analysed, both in its restricted version, according to which metaetichs simply is part of normative theory, and in its broad one, according to which metaethical considerations are counterproductive for normative theories. Drawing from this debate, Rawls’s methodological position is presented. The aim is to understand whether the rawlsian project about the independence of moral theory and the method of avoidance is satisfactory. In conclusion, a new point of view on the benefits metaethics can offer to normative theory is defended.