Brown on Mackie: Echoes of the Lottery Paradox

Noûs

Traditional arguments for moral error theory are based on identifying a problem with the metaphysics of moral properties. I provide a new argument that is based on the inconsistency of first‐order moral judgments. I illustrate this using impossibility results in population axiology.

In this paper I argue that moral error theories are subject to a tension that lies at the heart of their theory. Error theorists point out that parts of morality are bogus, meaningless, false, etc. They have to focus in on a target moral belief or claim in order to make their arguments stick, which may mean construing the claim narrowly. But they also have to make sure that the target belief or claim has wide enough influence such that the whole of everyday moral thinking is seen as bogus. Whilst not a fatal flaw, this tension does need to be overcome by error theorists. [This was published the collection I co-edited with Richard Joyce, 'A World without Values: Essays on J. L. Mackie's Error Theory' (Springer, 2010), pp. 167-182.]

Filosofiska Notiser, 2023

In this paper, we argue that "The Moral Problem" identified by Michael Smith in his book of that name as "the central organizing problem" of metaethics needs to be refined in order to accommodate moral error theories (in the style of J.L. Mackie), and we suggest a refinement that allows it to do this. We conclude by drawing out some consequences for the formulation of internalism about moral motivation.

2013

maintenance in years 1-3 under grant agreement no. 231016) and the Jacobsen Studentship funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy (year 4). Finally I would like to thank my grandfather Carel Lodewijk Kalf for convincing me (but especially my parents) to go to 'Het Stedelijk Gymnasium' in Schiedam to get a diploma with which I would be able to go to university. Without that advice I would not have been where I am now. Thanks to Laila Al-Jarml for proofreading. Most of all, however, I thank my father Carel Albert Kalf, my mother Veronica Elizabeth Maria Kalf-Müller and my brother Laurens Marnix Kalf for their unfailing support throughout my studies, first at Leiden University, then at University of California-Irvine and finally at the University of Leeds. Without them I would never have been able to achieve what I have.

2004

The paper explores the consequences of adopting a moral error theory targeted at the notion of reasonable convergence. I examine the prospects of two ways of combining acceptance of such a theory with continued acceptance of moral judgements in some form. On the first model, moral judgements are accepted as a pragmatically intelligible fiction. On the second model, moral judgements are made relative to a framework of assumptions with no claim to reasonable convergence on their behalf. I argue that the latter model shows greater promise for an error theorist whose commitment to moral thought is initially serious.

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013)

In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they do not know everything. And it could not be the case that we do not know that there is thought when we believe that there is thought and that we do not know that we do not know everything. I address several objections to the claim that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief. It might seem that arguing against the error theory on the grounds that it entails that no one knows anything is just providing a Moorean argument against the moral error theory. I show that even if my argument against the error theory is indeed a Moorean one, it avoids Streumer's, McPherson's and Olson's objections to previous Moorean arguments against the error theory and is a more powerful argument against the error theory than Moore's argument against external world skepticism is against external world skepticism.

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2016

The moral error theory holds that moral claims and beliefs, because they commit us to the existence of illusory entities, are systematically false or untrue. It is an open question what we should do with moral thought and discourse once we have become convinced by this view. Until recently, this question had received two main answers. The abolitionist proposed that we should get rid of moral thought altogether. The fictionalist, though he agreed we should eliminate moral beliefs, enjoined us to replace them with attitudes that resemble to some extent the attitudes we have towards pieces of fiction. But there is now a third theory on the market: conservationism, the view that we should keep holding moral beliefs, even though we know them to be false. (According to a fourth theory, ‘substitutionism’, we should modify the content of our moral claims in such a way that they become true.) Putting abolitionism (and substitutionism) aside, our aim is to assess the plausibility of conservationism as an alternative to the – relatively dominant – fictionalism that we find in the literature. Given the difficulty of finding a conservationist view that is both (i) plausible and (ii) not merely a terminological variant of fictionalism, we will argue that conservationism fails to constitute a plausible alternative to fictionalism, at least insofar as it purports to be an alternative view as to what we should do with our moral thoughts.

A ‘companions in guilt’ (CG) strategy against moral error theory aims to show that the latter proves too much: if sound, it supports an implausible error-theoretic conclusion in other areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie [2016] has recently produced what he claims is a ‘master argument’ against all such strategies. The essence of his argument is that CG arguments cannot work because they are afflicted by internal incoherence or inconsistency. I argue, first, that Cowie’s master argument does not succeed. Beyond this, I argue that there is no good reason to think that any such argument –one which purports to identify an internal incoherence in CG arguments –can succeed. Second, I argue that the main substantive area of disagreement between error theorists and CG theorists essentially concerns the conceptual profile of epistemic reasons –specifically, whether or not they are strongly categorical– not the ontological question whether such reasons exist (in some form or other). I then develop an argument in favour of the CG theorist’s position by considering the moral error theorist’s arguments in support of the conceptual claim that moral reasons are strongly categorical. These include, notably, criticisms made by Joyce [2011] and Olson [2014] of Finlay’s [2008] ‘end relational’ view of morality according to which moral reasons are relative to some end or standard, hence not strongly categorical. Examining these criticisms, I argue that, based on what moral error theorists have said regarding the conceptual profile of moral reasons, there is a strong case to be made that moral reasons are strongly categorical (hence, according to the moral error theorist, ontologically problematic) if and only if epistemic reasons are.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2014