不存在任何客观的价值。
本书开首的这一断言，显示出作者将以一种独特的主观主义视角来表明，道德，无法被我们发现，而是必须被创造出来。
本书系统地表述了麦凯的伦理学思想，虽然篇幅不大，却影响甚大。它初版于1977年，在此后的短短6年里就再版了4次。它试图勾勒出一个伦理系统，此系统由三个部分组成：第一部分探讨了伦理学的地位，第二部分分析了伦理学的具体内容，第三部分则探讨了伦理学与法律、政治、宗教等其他领域的关系。

本书对20—21世纪当代元伦理学中的主要论证和论题，提供了一个极具可读性的批判性概述。从G. E. 摩尔的著作开始，到最近自然主义与非自然主义、认知主义与非认知主义之间的各种争论，米勒追溯了当代元伦理学研究的发展历程。
该书探讨了元伦理学领域中所有核心理论和观念：从摩尔对伦理自然主义的批评、A. J. 艾耶尔的情绪主义和西蒙·布莱克本的准实在论，到关于道德真理的反实在论最佳意见解释以及“康奈尔派实在论者”的非还原论自然主义。在第2版中，米勒不仅全面修订和更新了原先的进阶阅读指南，还新增了关于理查德·乔伊斯的变革虚构主义与马克·卡尔德隆的诠释虚构主义两节重要内容。
对关注当代元伦理学的学生、教师和职业哲学家来说，该书第2版仍是必备书。

Moral realists maintain that morality has a distinctive subject matter. Specifically, realists maintain that moral discourse is representational, that moral sentences express moral propositions - propositions that attribute moral properties to things. Non-cognitivists, in contrast, maintain that the realist imagery associated with morality is a fiction, a reification of our non-cognitive attitudes. The thought that there is a distinctively moral subject matter is regarded as something to be debunked by philosophical reflection on the way moral discourse mediates and makes public our noncognitive attitudes. The realist fiction might be understood as a philosophical misconception of a discourse that is not fundamentally representational but whose intent is rather practical. There is, however, another way to understand the realist fiction. Perhaps the subject matter of morality is a fiction that stands in no need of debunking, but is rather the means by which our attitudes are conveyed. Perhaps moral sentences express moral propositions, just as the realist maintains, but in accepting a moral sentence competent speakers do not believe the moral proposition expressed but rather adopt the relevant non-cognitive attitudes. Non-cognitivism, in its primary sense, is a claim about moral acceptance: the acceptance of a moral sentence is not moral belief but is some other attitude. Standardly, non-cognitivism has been linked to non-factualism - the claim that the content of a moral sentence does not consist in its expressing a moral proposition. Indeed, the terms 'non-cognitivism' and 'non-factualism' have been used interchangeably. But this misses an important possibility, since moral content may be representational but the acceptance of moral sentences might not be belief in the moral proposition expressed. This possibility constitutes a novel form of non-cognitivism, moral fictionalism. Whereas non-factualists seek to debunk the realist fiction of a moral subject matter, the moral fictionalist claims that that fiction stands in no need of debunking but is the means by which the non-cognitive attitudes involved in moral acceptance are conveyed by moral utterance. Moral fictionalism is non-cognitivism without a non-representational semantics.

《道德语言》一书在现代西方伦理学，特别是现代元伦理学的发展进程中，确乎享有关键性的学术地位。为了使读者能够更好地了解本书，进而深入了解现代西方元伦理学的递嬗演变，译者拟就黑尔教授有关道德语言学方面的理论观点作为一简略导述，以求抛砾石引玉璞。《道德语言》一书，基本上代表了黑尔伦理思想的主要方面。黑尔不单就价值语言和道德语言以及它们的使用“语境”分析了道德语言、道德言谈或谈论秘具有的描述性与评价性双重特征，而且还就历史文化和教育学等方面分析了这特征的相关变化。

非认知主义在近几十年来关于道德的哲学思考中居于中心地位。本书从元伦理学面对的基本问题入手，叙述了非认知主义产生的背景和起源；接着详细介绍了三种主要的非认知主义理论，一是艾耶尔、史蒂文森和黑尔的言语行为理论，二是布莱克本和杰拉德的表达主义理论，三是当代的混合型理论；对三种理论在回应挑战（特别是弗雷格—吉奇问题）时所拥有的优势及其不足之处，做了精彩细致的探讨。全书最后则展望了非认知主义在哲学领域的前景与应用。