An undergraduate writes:
Hello! I'm an undergraduate at [SLAC name omitted] and a long-time reader of your blog. I'm wondering whether you could possibly do a poll on the most important Anglo-American metaethicists after 1945. Your other polls on subjects like this have helped me navigate me various philosophical sub-fields, and I'd be delighted to see who the readership of your blog thinks are the most important figures working in metaethics.
As I explained to this student, in recent polls various malicious jerks without actual lives have gone to a great deal of trouble to screw up the results with strategic or just irrational voting, so polling is currently on hold. However, I did indicate I'd open this for comments from readers; signed comments only (full name, valid e-mail address).
I think it's fairly easy to name the major figures, say, 1945-2000: Charles Stevenson, R.M. Hare, J.L. Mackie, Gilbert Harman, Richard Boyd, Allan Gibbard, Simon Blackburn, Peter Railton, John McDowell; maybe also David Wiggins, Nicholas Sturgeon, David Brink, among others. Since 2000, others would be added (e.g., Derek Parfit, T.M. Scanlon, Sharon Street, David Enoch), but let's focus on 1945-2000 in the comments: you can either add to the list, above, or express a view about the relative importance/influence of the philosophers mentioned above.
UPDATE: Two signifciant omissions brought to my attention: Michael Smith's The Moral Problem (1995) and Christine Korsgaard's Sources of Normativity (1996). Just ot be clear, by metaethics, I mean contributions to questions about the metaphysics, epistemology, and semantics of value and value judgments.
