Moral Error Theory

Moral error theory of the kind defended by J.L. Mackie and Richard Joyce is premised on two claims: (1) that moral judgements essentially presuppose that moral value has absolute authority, and (2) that this presupposition is false, because nothing has absolute authority. This paper accepts (2) but rejects (1). It is argued first that (1) is not the best explanation of the evidence from moral practice, and second that even if it were, the error theory would still be mistaken, because the assumption does not contaminate the meaning or truth-conditions of moral claims. These are determined by the essential application conditions for moral concepts, which are relational rather than absolute. (AJP Best Paper Award, 2009)

The possibility that nothing really matters can cause much anxiety, but what would it mean for that to be true? Since it couldn’t be bad that nothing matters, fearing nihilism makes little sense. However, the consequences of belief in nihilism will be far more dramatic than often thought. Many metaethicists assume that even if nothing matters, we should, and would, go on more or less as before. But if nihilism is true in an unqualified way, it can’t be the case that we should go on as before. And given some plausible assumptions about our psychology, it’s also unlikely that we would go on as before: belief in nihilism will lead to loss of evaluative belief, and that will lead to loss or deflation of our corresponding subjective concerns. Now if nothing matters, then this consequence also wouldn’t matter. But this consequence will be extremely harmful if we believe in nihilism but things do matter, an asymmetry that gives us, in Pascalian fashion, pragmatic reasons not to believe in nihilism, and reasons not to try to find out whether it is really true.

Recent debate in metaethics over evolutionary debunking arguments against morality has shown a tendency to abstract away from relevant empirical detail. Here, I engage the debate about Darwinian debunking of morality with relevant empirical issues. I present four conditions that must be met in order for it to be reasonable to expect an evolved cognitive faculty to be reliable: the environment, information, error, and tracking conditions. I then argue that these conditions are not met in the case of our evolved faculty for moral judgement.

The effects of anthropogenic climate change may be devastating. Nevertheless, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did. What can we do to overcome this collective apathy? In order to be able to develop effective measures, we must first get clear about the causes of climate change inaction. In this paper I ask whether moral nihilism (the denial of moral truths) is a significant cause of climate change inaction. The answer to this question depends mainly on the extent to which being a moral nihilist reduces one’s likelihood of taking action against climate change. At first sight, the extent seems to be considerable. I argue, however, that this assumption is false. Only slightly more non-nihilists than nihilists are led to climate-friendly actions by moral considerations. And in absolute terms, morality plays such a minor role in leading people to act that the difference is barely noticeable.

This article is available online at: https://static.uni-graz.at/fileadmin/_Persoenliche_Webseite/poelzler_thomas/Thomas_Poelzler_-_Climate_Change_Inaction_and_Moral_Nihilism.pdf.

Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014) have argued that there are moral conceptual truths that are substantive and non-vacuous in content, what they called ‘moral fixed points’. If the moral proposition ‘torturing kids for fun is pro tanto wrong’ is such a conceptual truth, it is because the essence of ‘wrong’ necessarily satisfies and applies to the substantive content of ‘torturing kids for fun’. In critique, Killoren (2016) has revisited the old skeptical ‘why be moral?’ question and argued that the moral fixed points give us no reason to care about morality (and the right thing to do) and, therefore, they are normatively irrelevant. He concluded that this is a counterintuitive implication that undermines the proposal.
In this paper, I develop a rejoinder to Killoren’s (2016) argument that explains why, at least from the perspective of the moral fixed points framework, if the moral fixed points exist, they are necessarily normatively relevant for rational agents. I supplement this explanation with an explanation of why it might prima facie appear that moral fixed points are not normatively relevant, although ultima facie they are relevant. The supplementary explanation explains prima facie normative irrelevance as the upshot of failures of rational agency (of various aetiologies). I conclude that the moral fixed points, can, in principle, offer an interesting response to the skeptical ‘why be moral?’ question’.

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.

I argue that Jonas Olson’s argument from irreducible normativity is not a secure basis for an argument for error theory (section 1) and that a better basis is provided by the argument from supervenience, which has more bite against non-naturalist moral realism than Olson is willing to allow (section 2). I suggest there may be a view which can allow for the existence of irreducibly normative facts while remaining unaffected by the kinds of arguments that work against non-naturalist realism. This view is expressivism. Interestingly, James Dreier has recently suggested that expressivism may not escape these arguments. I very briefly outline (but do not pursue) possible response strategies for expressivists (section 3). I close by discussing Olson’s argument against expressivism. Olson suggests, somewhat surprisingly, that expressivism is a bad fit with a plausible evolutionary explanation of our moral thought. I argue that Olson’s argument does not succeed (section 4).

Was Nietzsche a nihilist? Yes, because, like J. L. Mackie, he was an error-theorist about morality, including the elitist morality to which he himself subscribed. But he was variously a diagnostician, an opponent and a survivor of certain other kinds of nihilism. Schacht argues that Nietzsche cannot have been an error theorist, since meta-ethical nihilism is inconsistent with the moral commitment that Nietzsche displayed. Schacht’s exegetical argument parallels the substantive argument (advocated in recent years by Wright and Blackburn) that Mackie’s error theory can’t be true because if it were, we would have to give up morality or give up moralizing. I answer this argument with a little bit of help from Nietzsche. I then pose a problem, the Doppelganger Problem, for the meta-ethical nihilism that I attribute to Mackie and Nietzsche. (If A is a moral proposition then not-A is a moral proposition: hence not all moral propositions can be false.) I solve the problem by reformulating the error theory and also deal with a variant of the problem, the Reinforced Doppelganger, glancing at a famous paper of Ronald Dworkin’s. Thus, whatever its demerits, the error theory, is not self refuting, nor does it require us to give up morality.

Many philosophers have noted that normative error theorists appear to be committed to saying 'Error theory is true, but I have no reason to believe it', which seems paradoxical. In defense of error theory, some have claimed that the word 'reason' in that statement is ambiguous between 'normative reason' and a purely descriptive sense of 'reason' that the error theorist can accept. I argue, however, that there is no descriptive sense of 'reason' that can prevent the paradox from re-emerging. Moreover, these implications of error theory probably provide good grounds for rejecting the view.

Moral error theorists hold that morality is deeply mistaken, thus raising the question of whether and how moral judgments and utterances should continue to be employed. Proposals include simply abolishing morality (Richard Garner), adopting some revisionary fictionalist stance toward morality (Richard Joyce), and conserving moral judgments and utterances unchanged (Jonas Olson). I defend a fourth proposal, namely revisionary moral expressivism, which recommends replacing cognitivist moral judgments and utterances with non-cognitivist ones. Given that non-cognitivist attitudes are not truth apt, revisionary expressivism does not involve moral error. Moreover, revisionary expressivism has the theoretical resources to retain many of the useful features of morality, such as moral motivation, moral disagreement, and moral reasoning. Revisionary expressivism fares better than the three major alternatives in both avoiding moral error and preserving these useful features of morality. I also show how this position differs from the “revolutionary expressivism” of Sebastian Köhler and Michael Ridge.

This is the published version of the paper. The author gratefully acknowledges permission on the part of the publisher (Brill) to post this version.

The moral error theory, it seems, could be true. The mere possibility of its truth might also seem inconsequential. But it is not. For, I argue, there is a sense in which the moral error theory is possible that generates an argument against both non‐cognitivism and moral naturalism. I argue that it is an epistemic possibility that morality is subject to some form of wholesale error of the kind that would make the moral error theory true. Denying this possibility has three unwelcome consequences such that allowing for and explaining it is an adequacy condition on meta‐ethical theories. Non‐cognitivism and moral naturalism, I argue, cannot capture the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error and so are false. My argument additionally provides independent reason to accept Derek Parfit's claim that if moral non‐naturalism is false then nothing matters. I conclude that whether wholesale moral error is epistemically possible may be, in Richard Rorty's words, ‘one of those issues which puts everything up for grabs at once’ and that even if so, and even if non‐cognitivists and moral naturalists remain unmoved by an argument based upon it, this only helps to highlight the significance of my argument.

The moral error theory has become increasingly popular in recent decades. So much so indeed that a new issue emerged, the so-called "now-what problem": if all our moral beliefs are false, then what should we do with them? So far, philosophers who are interested in this problem have focused their attention on the mode of the attitudes we should have with respect to moral propositions. Some have argued that we should keep holding proper moral beliefs; others that we should replace our moral beliefs with fictional attitudes, beliefs in natural facts, or conative attitudes. But all these philosophers have set aside an important question about the content of these attitudes: which moral propositions, and more generally which moral theory, should we accept? The present paper addresses this neglected issue, arguing that moral error theorists should adopt a utilitarian moral fiction. In other words, they should accept the set of moral principles whose general acceptance would maximize overall well-being. According to a prominent version of the moral error theory, all atomic moral propositions are false because they entail the existence of categorical reasons while all the reasons we have are hypothetical. Consider the proposition Torture is wrong by way of illustration. If the error theory is correct, then this proposition entails that we have a reason not to torture people regardless of our desires. But this implication is false, for all the reasons we have depend on our desires-they are reasons to act in a way that would satisfy our desires. Hence, the proposition Torture is wrong is false. And the same can be said about every atomic moral proposition. The error theory raises the so-called "now-what problem" (Lutz 2014): as error theorists, what should we do with the moral practice-with moral thought and discourse? Obviously, this is not a moral question. Since the error theory entails that there is nothing we morally ought to do, it entails a fortiori that there is nothing we morally ought to do with our moral thought and discourse. The question is prudential and therefore presupposes only that there are things we prudentially ought to do, which may be the case provided that prudential reasons are hypothetical.

In his response to my paper ‘The Error in the Error Theory’ criticizing his and J. L. Mackie’s moral error theory, Richard Joyce finds my treatment of his position inaccurate and my interpretation of morality implausible. In this reply I clarify my objection, showing that it retains its force against their error theory, and I clarify my interpretation of morality, showing that Joyce’s objections miss their mark.

In his influential book From Metaphysics to Ethics Frank Jackson offered a sophisticated argument for a reductive account of moral properties. The argument has two steps. The first step aims to tell us something about the general nature of moral properties. The conclusion is that moral properties are descriptive properties. Streumer draws on this argument as part of his argument for error theory. I argues that Jackson's argument fails.

Christopher Cowie has recently argued that companions in guilt arguments against the moral error theory that appeal to epistemic reasons cannot work. I show that such companions in guilt arguments can work if, as we have good reason to believe, moral reasons and epistemic reasons are instances of fundamentally the same relation.

Mackie drew attention to the distinct semantic and metaphysical claims made by metaethical realists, arguing that although our evaluative discourse is cognitive and objective, there are no objective evaluative facts. This distinction, however, also opens up a reverse possibility: that our evaluative discourse is antirealist, yet objective values do exist. I suggest that this seemingly far-fetched possibility merits serious attention; realism seems committed to its intelligibility, and, despite appearances, it isn’t incoherent, ineffable, inherently implausible or impossible to defend. I argue that reflection on this possibility should lead us to revise our understanding of the debate between realists and antirealists. It is not only that the realist’s semantic claim is insufficient for realism to be true, as Mackie argued; it’s not even necessary. Robust metaethical realism is best understood as making a purely metaphysical claim. It is thus not enough for antirealists to show that our discourse is antirealist. They must directly attack the realist’s metaphysical claim.

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.]

Jonas Olson defends a moral error theory in (2014). I first argue that Olson is not justified in believing the error theory as opposed to moral nonnaturalism in his own opinion. I then argue that Olson is not justified in  believing the error theory as opposed to moral contextualism either (although the latter is not a matter of his own opinion). I conclude that Olson has not given us quite enough evidence for moral error theory.

In “The possibility of morality,” Phil Brown considers whether moral error theory is best understood as a necessary or contingent thesis. Among other things, Brown contends that the argument from relativity, offered by John Mackie—error theory’s progenitor—supports a stronger modal reading of error theory. His argument is as follows: Mackie’s is an abductive argument that error theory is the best explanation for divergence in moral practices. Since error theory will likewise be the best explanation for similar divergences in possible worlds similar to our own, we may conclude that error theory is true at all such worlds, just as it is in the actual world. I contend that Brown’s argument must fail, as abductive arguments cannot support the modal conclusions he suggests. I then consider why this is the case, concluding that Brown has stumbled upon new and interesting evidence that agglomerating one’s beliefs can be epistemically problematic—an issue associated most famously with Henry Kyburg’s lottery paradox.

Moral error theories claim that (i) moral utterances express moral beliefs, that (ii) moral beliefs ascribe moral properties, and that (iii) moral properties are not instantiated. Thus, according to these views, there seems to be conclusive evidence against the truth of our ordinary moral beliefs. Furthermore, many error theorists claim that, even if we accepted moral error theory, we could still in principle keep our first-order moral beliefs. This chapter argues that this last claim makes many popular versions of the moral error theory incompatible with the standard philosophical accounts of beliefs. Functionalism, normative theories of beliefs, representationalism, and interpretationalism all entail that being sensitive to thoughts about evidence is a constitutive feature of beliefs. Given that many moral error theorists deny that moral beliefs have this quality, their views are in a direct conflict with the most popular views about the nature of beliefs.

This paper has four parts. In the first part I argue that moral facts are subject to a certain epistemic accessibility requirement. Namely, moral facts must be accessible to some possible agent. In the second part I show that because this accessibility requirement on moral facts holds, there is a route from facts about the moral disagreements of agents in idealized conditions to conclusions about what moral facts there are. In the third part I build on this route to show that (*) if there is significant moral disagreement in idealized conditions, then our understanding of morality is fatally flawed and we should accept relativism over non-naturalism and quasi-realism. So, if, like many, you think that there would be significant moral disagreement in idealized conditions, you should hold that our understanding of morality is fatally flawed and reject non-naturalism and quasi-realism. In the fourth part of this paper I show that (*) undermines the plausibility of non-naturalism, quasi-realism, and the view that our understanding of morality is not fatally flawed even if we do not have sufficient reason to believe that there would be significant moral disagreement in idealized conditions.

"Suppose that this anti-realist claim in moral ontology is correct: there are no absolute moral facts. Suppose also that moral cognitivism is true: moral judgments are beliefs. Under these assumptions, the remaining battle stands between moral relativism and (absolutist) error theory. According to error theory all moral beliefs are false, (partly) since they are beliefs about absolute moral facts, and such facts don’t exist. According to relativism, moral beliefs can be, and often are, true even though absolute moral facts don’t exist, since moral beliefs are not about such facts. Proponents of the two views thus agree about the anti-realist ontological claim, but accept conflicting conceptual views about the content of our moral assertions and beliefs.
What can be said to support either of these theories over the other? This paper examines a common kind of objections used by relativists against error theory, and vice versa: objections from implausible ascriptions of mistakes. Relativists (and others) object to error theory that:

Error theory implausibly implies that people, in having moral beliefs, are massively and systematically mistaken about what exists.

Error theorists (and others) object to relativism that:
Relativism implausibly implies that people are massively and systematically mistaken about the content of their own moral beliefs.

Consequently, it would seem that each of the two theories faces its own distinct challenge of explaining massive and systematic mistakes, and that until a satisfactory explanation is given, this is a (prima facie) reason to reject the theory in question and to accept the other instead (given that one of them is the correct theory).
The aim of this paper is to argue that this picture of the dialectics is mistaken. It is true that error theory faces a challenge of explaining why people believe in absolute moral facts (when there are none): but relativists face the very same challenge. It is also true that relativism faces a challenge of explaining why people have an absolutist understanding of the content of their moral beliefs: but error theorists face exactly the same challenge. Since the two theories face the very same explanatory challenges, these challenges (or objections) cannot provide reason to accept one theory rather than the other. "

This paper surveys contemporary accounts of error theory and fictionalism. It introduces these categories to those new to metaethics by beginning with moral nihilism, the view that nothing really is right or wrong. One main motivation is that the scientific worldview seems to have no place for rightness or wrongness. Within contemporary metaethics there is a family of theories that makes similar claims. These are the theories that are usually classified as forms of error theory or fictionalism though there are different ways of accepting some form of the view that nothing is really write or wrong. A range of different ways of going in the light of such a realization is also proposed. The resulting taxonomy of positions is quite complicated and sometimes surprising. One surprise will be that some positions plausibly classified as error theories or forms of fictionalism do not quite seem to be forms of nihilism.

One version of moral error theory maintains that the central problem with morality is an ontological commitment to irreducible normativity. This paper argues that this version of error theory ultimately depends on an appeal to Ockham’s Razor, and that Ockham’s Razor should not be applied to irreducible normativity. This is because the appeal to Ockham’s Razor always contains an intractable element of epistemic circularity; and if this circularity is not vicious, we can construct a sound argument for the existence of irreducibly normative truths that contains a similar kind of epistemic circularity. This argument is a version of Pascal’s Wager which I call “Parfit’s Wager,” because it is based on a passage from Derek Parfit’s On What Matters (2011). It states that, if we believe that there are some irreducibly normative truths, we are more likely to be believing what we ought to believe (and less likely to be believing what we ought not to believe, or to be failing to believe what we...

This paper considers whether theism is compatible with moral error theory. This issue is neglected, perhaps because it is widely assumed that these views are incompatible. I argue that this is mistaken. In so doing, I articulate the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible. According to it, these views are incompatible because theism entails that God is morally good, and moral error theory entails that God is not. I reject this argument. Since it is the best argument for thinking that theism and moral error theory are incompatible, I conclude that these views are compatible: one can coherently accept both views.

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion. (2022). 14:3 1–20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.2022.3485

In this paper I consider and reject a noncognitivist reading of Hume’s moral sentimentalism (according to which he identifies moral convictions with impressions of particular kind) as well as a dispositional reading (according to which Hume takes moral convictions to be causal beliefs about the power of character traits to produce certain feelings in suitable spectators). I argue that the shortcomings of these views show that Hume is best understood as an error theorist, according to whom although moral convictions are beliefs they are never true. In contrast with contemporary error theories, however, Hume’s view is not grounded on a metaphysical claim to the effect that there are no moral properties. He holds instead that moral ideas are not at all ideas of qualities that could be truthfully predicated of actions or character traits but rather ideas of feelings and, therefore, that moral beliefs systematically incorporate a category error.

Proponents of the Epistemic Companions in Guilt argument argue that we should reject the moral error theory because it entails that there are no epistemic reasons. In this paper, I investigate whether a plausible version of the moral error theory can be constructed that does not entail an error theory about epistemic reasons. I argue that there are no irreducibly normative second-personal reasons even if there are irreducibly normative reasons. And epistemic reasons are not second-personal reasons. In this case, a plausible version of the moral error theory can be constructed that does not entail an error theory about epistemic reasons if facts and claims about morality entail facts and claims about irreducibly normative second-personal reasons. And, as I explain, there is a good case that facts and claims about morality do entail facts and claims about irreducibly normative second-personal reasons.

Bart Streumer believes that the following principle is true of all normative judgements:

(A) When two people make conflicting normative judgements, at
                        most one of them is correct.

Streumer argues that noncognitivists are unable to explain why (A) is true, or our acceptance of it. I argue that his arguments are inconclusive. I also argue that our acceptance of (A) is limited in the case of instrumental and epistemic normative judgements, and that the extent to which we do accept (A) for such judgements can be explained by an assumption of shared standards of correctness. Finally, I argue that reductivists can appeal to the same ideas to defend their view that instrumental and epistemic normative judgements describe non-normative relations.

Suppose you are a moral error theorist, i.e., you believe that no moral judgment is true. What, then, ought you to do with regard to our common practice of making such judgments? Determining the usefulness of our ordinary moral practice is exacerbated by the great number and variety of moral judgments. In-depth case studies may thus be more helpful in clarifying error theory’s practical implications than reflections about morality in general. In this chapter I pursue this strategy with regard to a particularly important matter, namely climate change. First, I establish general conditions for when a moral judgement has any effect on those who accept it. Second, I show that the judgement that individuals in industrialized countries are morally obliged to act against climate change does not fulfil these conditions, and is thus neither beneficial nor harmful. Finally, I sketch several strategies for increasing people’s non-moral motivation to act against climate.

The effects of anthropogenic climate change will be devastating. Nevertheless, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did. What can we do to overcome this collective apathy? In order to be able to develop effective measures, we must first get clear about the causes of climate change inaction. In this paper I ask whether moral nihilism (the denial of moral truths) is a significant cause of climate change inaction. The answer to this question depends mainly on the extent to which being a moral nihilist reduces one’s likelihood of taking action against climate change. At first sight, the extent seems to be considerable. I will argue, however, that this assumption is false. Only slightly more non-nihilists than nihilists are led to climate-friendly actions by moral considerations. And in absolute terms, morality plays such a minor role in leading people to act that the difference is barely noticeable.

Anthropogenic climate change has already caused tremendous harm. However, without large-scale mitigative and adaptive measures, the current situation will prove to be only a weak foretaste of what is to come. Heat waves, storms, floods and droughts will be the death of millions of human and non-human beings. There will be migration movements across the globe, mass starvation and wars over water. Plant and animal species will die out. In the remote future, even the human race may become extinct.
Despite these horrible prospects, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did.
What can we do to overcome this collective inaction? In order to be able to develop effective measures it is first necessary to get clear about its. In this thesis I ask whether moral nihilism - the denial of moral truths - is a significant cause of climate change inaction. As far as I can see, the answer to this question primarily depends on three issues: first, on how many people in general are moral nihilists; second, on how many political and economic decision makers are; and third, on whether/to which extent being a moral nihilist reduces one’s likelihood of taking action against climate change at all.
Considerations about all three issues suggest that moral nihilism is far from significantly contributing to climate change inaction. Only few people are moral nihilists. The proportion does not seem to be higher among decision makers. And being a moral nihilist has only a very small effect on one’s climate related actions. 
Thus, in order to overcome humanity’s climate change apathy we should not fight moral nihilism. Rather, we should educate people about the existence and nature of the problem, we should make capitalism more sustainable, we should make climate change a moral issue and appeal to people’s moral and social emotions.