I still feel like we're talking past each other. I made a straightforward empirical claim in my post. So all we need to do is find some empirical evidence. If you accept that SEP typically and in this case represents the academic state of the art and conventional usage, then look at the last section of the SEP article I linked to. It agrees with me (I think).
If you don't think the SEP article represents the convention accurately, just say that and we can move on to another source. There's no sense in arguing about whether or not the distinction between normative and meta ethics reported in the SEP article makes sense. I agree that it does not. But we're not arguing about that. We're arguing about what the convention actually is.
If you accept that SEP typically and in this case represents the academic state of the art and conventional usage, then look at the last section of the SEP article I linked to. It agrees with me (I think).
The SEP does not agree with you. No where in that section does it say that the "Why is murder wrong?" is a meta-ethical question. All it says is that while deontology does not assume a meta-ethical position, though certain meta-ethical positions are more hospitable to it. I agree with you and the SEP here.
I'm not saying deontology is a meta-...
I think there’s a confusion in our discussions of deontology and consequentialism. I’m writing this post to try to clear up that confusion. First let me say that this post is not about any territorial facts. The issue here is how we use the philosophical terms of art ‘consequentialism’ and ‘deontology’.
The confusion is often stated thusly: “deontological theories are full of injunctions like ‘do not kill’, but they generally provide no (or no interesting) explanations for these injunctions.” There is of course an equivalently confused, though much less common, complaint about consequentialism.
This is confused because the term ‘deontology’ in philosophical jargon picks out a normative ethical theory, while the question ‘how do we know that it is wrong to kill?’ is not a normative but a meta-ethical question. Similarly, consequentialism contains in itself no explanation for why pleasure or utility are morally good, or why consequences should matter to morality at all. Nor does consequentialism/deontology make any claims about how we know moral facts (if there are any). That is also a meta-ethical question.
Some consequentialists and deontologists are also moral realists. Some are not. Some believe in divine commands, some are hedonists. Consequentialists and deontologists in practice always also subscribe to some meta-ethical theory which purports to explain the value of consequences or the source of injunctions. But consequentialism and deontology as such do not. In order to avoid strawmaning either the consequentialist or the deontologist, it’s important to either discuss the comprehensive views of particular ethicists, or to carefully leave aside meta-ethical issues.
This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article provides a helpful overview of the issues in the consequentialist-deontologist debate, and is careful to distinguish between ethical and meta-ethical concerns.
SEP article on Deontology