The underdetermination or ‘gap’ argument (GA), and the inductive risk or ‘error’ argument (EA), are the two main arguments used to defend the influence of non-epistemic values on scientific reasoning. However, they are often presented in a superficial or imprecise way, and their mutual relationship is not clear. This article analyses their respective structures in detail, as well as their relationship with each other. The GA considers the logical structure of non-deductive inference (and of relative observation), and (...) claims that (value-laden) background assumptions are needed to constitute (relative) observations and for those observations to confirm a hypothesis. It does not explicitly consider the consequences of these (value-laden) choices: rather, values are considered given and preexisting, so to speak. It is not normative: it claims that non-epistemic values are necessary to determine background assumptions in the sense that they are inevitable. By contrast, the EA considers the decision-theoretical problem of accepting or not a hypothesis, according to a (value-laden) required degree of confirmation. It is explicitly concerned with the consequences of these choices. It is normative: it claims that scientists should (in the sense of a moral obligation) take into account the non-epistemic consequences of their choices. By substituting the condition for hypothesis acceptance of the EA in the Bayesian account of the GA, one can provide a determinate limit when confirmation can be seen as sufficient to justify acceptance, thereby making the EA appear as a special case of the GA. (shrink)

Moorean arguments are a popular and powerful way to engage highly revisionary philosophical views, such as nihilism about motion, time, truth, consciousness, causation, and various kinds of skepticism (e.g., external world, other minds, inductive, global). They take, as a premise, a highly plausible first-order claim (e.g., cars move, I ate breakfast before lunch, it’s true that some fish have gills) and conclude from it the falsity of the highly revisionary philosophical thesis. Moorean arguments can be used against nihilists in ethics (...) (error theorists), too. Recently, error theorists have recognized Moorean arguments as a powerful challenge and have tried to meet it. They’ve argued that moral Moorean premises seem highly credible to us, but aren’t, by offering various debunking explanations. These explanations all appeal to higher-order evidence—evidence of error in our reasoning. I argue that drawing attention to higher-order evidence is a welcome contribution from error theorists, but that the higher-order evidence actually counts further against error theoretic arguments—including their debunking explanations—and further in favor of Moorean arguments and the commonsense views they support. Along the way I answer a few prominent objections to Moorean arguments: that they are objectionably question-begging, rely on categorizing some facts as “Moorean Facts”, and that reports of one’s credence in a proposition bears no interesting relation to that proposition’s credibility. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Moral error theories are often rejected by appeal to ‘companions in guilt’ arguments. The most popular form of companions in guilt argument takes epistemic reasons for belief as a ‘companion’ and proceeds by analogy. I show that this strategy fails. I claim that the companions in guilt theorist must understand epistemic reasons as evidential support relations if her argument is to be dialectically effective. I then present a dilemma. Either epistemic reasons are evidential support relations or they (...) are not. If they are not, then the companions in guilt argument fails. If they are, then a reduction of epistemic reasons to evidential support relations becomes available and, consequently, epistemic reasons cease to be a viable ‘companion’ for moral reasons. I recommend this structure of argument over existing strategies within the literature and defend my claims against recent objections from companions in guilt theorists. (shrink)

I defend ethical hedonism, the view that pleasure is the sole good thing, by arguing that it offers the only answer to an argument for moral skepticism. The skeptical problem arises from widespread fundamental moral disagreement, which entails the presence of enough moral error to undermine the reliability of most processes generating moral belief. We know that pleasure is good through the reliable process of phenomenal introspection, which reveals what our experiences are like. If knowing of pleasure’s goodness (...) through phenomenal introspection is the only reliable way to form our initial moral beliefs, we should accept ethical hedonism. (shrink)

The moral error theorist claims that moral discourse is irredeemably in error because it is committed to the existence of properties that do not exist. A common response has been to postulate ‘companions in guilt’—forms of discourse that seem safe from error despite sharing the putatively problematic features of moral discourse. The most developed instance of this pairs moral discourse with epistemic discourse. In this paper, I present a new, prudential, companions-in-guilt argument and argue for its (...) superiority over the epistemic alternative. (shrink)

Both patched versions of the Bostrom/Kulczycki simulation argument contain serious objective errors, discovered while attempting to formalize them in predicate logic. The English glosses of both versions involve badly misleading meanings of vague magnitude terms, which their impressiveness benefits from. We fix the errors, prove optimal versions of the arguments, and argue that both are much less impressive than they originally appeared. Finally, we provide a guide for readers to evaluate the simulation argument for themselves, using well-justified settings (...) of the argument parameters that have simple, accurate statements in English, which are easier to understand and critique than the statements in the original paper. (shrink)

Debunking arguments in metaethics are generally viewed as arguments against moral realism. In this paper, I distinguish these kinds of arguments, which I label offensive debunking arguments, from defensive debunking arguments, which are used to defuse specific pieces of evidence. I then argue that moral error theoristscan use defensive debunking arguments to undermine Moorean arguments againstthe view by providing plausible debunking explanations for our moral beliefs. Crucially, these explanations have a much lower burden of proof than in explanations within (...) offensive debunking arguments. Rather than needing to meet a high empirical bar, these explanations merely need to provide a plausible explanation for our moral beliefs on which they are not truth tracking. Not only does this distinctionstrengthen extant responses to Moorean arguments by showing that they have alow burden of proof, but it also helps to show why recent versions of the Moorean objection fail. (shrink)

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.

Unbelievable Errors defends an error theory about all normative judgements: not just moral judgements, but also judgements about reasons for action, judgements about reasons for belief, and instrumental normative judgements. This theory states that normative judgements are beliefs that ascribe normative properties, but that normative properties do not exist. It therefore entails that all normative judgements are false. -/- Bart Streumer also argues, however, that we cannot believe this error theory. This may seem to be a problem for (...) the theory. But he argues that it makes this error theory more likely to be true, since it undermines objections to the theory and it makes it harder to reject the arguments for the theory. -/- He then sketches how certain other philosophical theories can be defended in a similar way. He concludes that to make philosophical progress, we need to make a sharp distinction between a theory's truth and our ability to believe it. (shrink)

A ‘companions in guilt’ 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 Cowie, C. 2016. Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94/1: 115–30.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]] 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 that 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 they are strongly categorical—not the ontological question of whether such reasons exist. 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 if and only if epistemic reasons are. (shrink)

In Cowie’s “Why Moral Paradoxes Support Error Theory,” he argues that recent work in moral theory shows that error theory fares no worse than other metaethical theories when it comes to ordinary moral judgment, and he argues that this suffices to answer the fundamental challenge for error theory. This article shows that Cowie’s argument does not work. More specifically, it is shown that the counterintuitive implications of error theory dominate those of realism, in both a (...) technical, quantitative sense, and in a non-technical, qualitative sense. If Cowie is correct that, in the absence of an answer to the fundamental challenge, error theory should be rejected out of hand, then this constitutes a serious setback to the error theorist’s program. (shrink)

In Morality: From Error to Fiction, Richard Joyce argues that ordinary moral discourse is committed to the existence of ontologically robust moral facts, on the basis that ordinary speakers consider moral belief to be a sincerity condition of moral judgement. I object to this argument, on the basis that it seems likely that ordinary speakers associate moral judgements with minimal moral beliefs rather than robust moral beliefs – and minimal moral beliefs are not ontologically committing.

Peter Gardner; Some Errors in Moral Education, or D. Z. Phillips and the‘Educational Argument’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 1, 30 May 2.

Artificial intelligence systems advising healthcare professionals will be widely introduced into healthcare settings within the next 5–10 years. This paper considers how this will sit with tort/negligence based legal approaches to compensation for medical error. It argues that the introduction of AI systems will provide an additional argument pointing towards no-fault compensation as the better legal solution to compensation for medical error in modern health care systems. The paper falls into four parts. The first part rehearses the (...) main arguments for and against no-fault compensation. The second explains why it is likely that AI systems will be widely introduced. The third part analyses why it is difficult to fit AI systems into fault-based compensation systems while the final part suggests how no-fault compensation could provide a possible solution to such challenges. (shrink)

Many non-physicalists, including Chalmers, hold that the zombie argument succeeds in rejecting the physicalist view of consciousness. Some non-physicalists, including, again, Chalmers, hold that quantum collapse interactionism, i.e., the idea that non-physical consciousness causes collapse of the wave function in phenomena such as quantum measurement, is a viable interactionist solution for the problem of the relationship between the physical world and the non-physical consciousness. In this paper, I argue that if QCI is true, the zombie argument fails. In (...) particular, I show that if QCI is true, a zombie world physically identical to our world is impossible because there is at least one law of nature, a fundamental law of physics in particular, that exist only in the zombie world but not in our world. This shows that philosophers like Chalmers are committing an error in endorsing the zombie argument and QCI at the same time. (shrink)

The problem of error is an old argument for atheism that can be found in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. Although it is not widely discussed in the contemporary literature in the Philosophy of Religion, I resurrect it and give it a modern spin. By relying on empirical studies in moral psychology that demonstrate that moral judgments from human beings are generally susceptible to certain psychological biases, such as framing and order effects, I claim that if God is (...) responsible for making human beings such that we have these biases, this means that God is not a perfect being. The findings in empirical moral psychology create a problem for the existence of God, traditionally conceived. (shrink)

John McDowell has recently changed his line of response to philosophical scepticism about the external world. He now claims to be in a position to use the strategy of transcendental argumentation in order to show the falsity of the sceptic’s misrepresentation of our ordinary epistemic standpoint. Since this transcendental argument begins from a weak and widely shared assumption shared with the sceptic herself the falsity of external world scepticism is now demonstrable even to her. Building on the account of (...) perceptual intentionality defended in the Woodbridge lectures, McDowell argues that the idea of narrow perceptual content is unavailable to anyone, including the sceptic. This argument is assessed by drawing out an analogy with parallel responses to error theories in ethics. (shrink)

Kevin Elliott and others separate two common arguments for the legitimacy of societal values in scientific reasoning as the gap and the error arguments. This article poses two questions: How are these two arguments related, and what can we learn from their interrelation? I contend that we can better understand the error argument as nested within the gap because the error is a limited case of the gap with narrower features. Furthermore, this nestedness provides philosophers with (...) conceptual tools for analyzing more robustly how values pervade science. (shrink)

Inspired by Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), we develop an argument—the “Scriptural Argument Against Dogmatic Protestantism” (SAADP)—that Protestants who accept the doctrine of sola scriptura cannot reasonably hold that Catholic and Eastern churches are in doctrinal error. If sola scriptura is true and Catholic and Eastern Churches have fallen into error, it is improbable that any Protestant can reliably form true beliefs about controversial points of Christian doctrine, including sola scriptura or suggestions that Catholic (...) and Eastern Christians are in error. We evaluate potential responses to SADDP, considering how SAADP should affect ecumenical doctrinal debates. (shrink)

Moral judgments attempt to describe a reality that does not exist, so they are all false. This troubling view is known as the moral error theory. Christopher Cowie defends it against the most compelling counter-argument, the argument from analogy: Cowie shows that moral error theory does not compromise the practice of making epistemic judgments.

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. (shrink)

Error theories about morality often take as their starting point the supposed queerness of morality, and those resisting these arguments often try to argue by analogy that morality is no more queer than other unproblematic subject matters. Here, error theory (as exemplified primarily by the work of Richard Joyce) is resisted first by arguing that it assumes a common, modern, and peculiarly social conception of morality. Then error theorists point out that the social nature of morality requires (...) one to act against one's self-interest while insisting on the categorical, inescapable, or overriding status of moral considerations: they argue that morality requires magic, then (rightly) claim that there is no such thing as magic. An alternate eudaimonist conception of morality is introduced which itself has an older provenance than the social point of view, dating to the ancient Greeks. Eudaimonism answers to the normative requirements of morality, yet does not require magic. Thus, the initial motivation for error theory is removed. (shrink)

A large body of research in cognitive science differentiates human reasoning into two types: fast, intuitive, and emotional “System 1” thinking, and slower, more reflective “System 2” reasoning. According to this research, human reasoning is by default fast and intuitive, but that means that it is prone to error and biases that cloud our judgments and decision making. To improve the quality of reasoning, critical thinking education should develop strategies to slow it down and to become more reflective. The (...) goal of such education should be to enable and motivate students to identify weaknesses, gaps, biases, and limiting perspectives in their own reasoning and to correct them. This contribution discusses how this goal could be achieved with regard to reasoning that involves the construction of arguments; or more precisely: how computer-supported argument visualization tools could be designed that support reflection on the quality of arguments and their improvement. Three types of CSAV approaches are distinguished that focus on reflection and self-correcting reasoning. The first one is to trigger reflection by confronting the user with specific questions that direct attention to critical points. The second approach uses templates that, on the one hand, provide a particular structure to reason about an issue by means of arguments and, on the other, include prompts to enter specific items. And a third approach is realized in specifically designed user guidance that attempts to trigger reflection and self-correction. These types of approaches are currently realized only in very few CSAV tools. In order to inform the future development of what I call reflection tools, this article discusses the potential and limitations of these types and tools with regard to five explanations of the observation that students hardly ever engage in substantial revisions of what they wrote: a lack of strategies how to do it; cognitive overload; certain epistemic beliefs; myside bias; and over-confidence in the quality of one’s own reasoning. The question is: To what degree can each of the CSAV approaches and tools address these five potential obstacles to reflection and self-correction? (shrink)

Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. Part I explores the historical context of the debate; Part II assesses J. L. Mackie's famous arguments; Part III defends error theory against challenges and considers its implications for our moral thinking.

I seek to show that the skeptical argument from error turns crucially on the following assumption: because Bill1 with the same degree of evidence as Bill2 failed merely by virtue of John's1 absence to know that John1 would be at the party, then Bill2 must have got things right by coincidence if he got them right at all, as to the actual attendance of John2. And so he does not have knowledge. But the conclusion that coincidence entered here (...) is a non-sequitur. (shrink)

This paper presents a new take on how argument dependencies in natural language are established and constrained. The paper starts with a rather standard view that (quantificational) argument dependencies are operator-variable dependencies. The interesting twist the paper offers is to eliminate the need for syntax that serves to enforce what the operator-variable dependencies are. Instead the role of ensuring grammatical and generally unambiguous forms is taken up by semantics imposing what are dependency requirements for any interpretation to go (...) through at evaluation time. With this viewpoint there emerges an essential need for localities as the hiding of (embedded) expression material, together with a (limited) form of garbage collection to release grammatical resources used in the current locality for reuse in subsequent localities. (shrink)

According to moral error theory, moral discourse is error-ridden. Establishing error theory requires establishing two claims. These are that moral discourse carries a non-negotiable commitment to there being a moral reality and that there is no such reality. This paper concerns the first and so-called non-negotiable commitment claim. It starts by identifying the two existing argumentative strategies for settling that claim. The standard strategy is to argue for a relation of conceptual entailment between the moral statements that (...) comprise moral discourse and the statement that there is a moral reality. The non-standard strategy is to argue for a presupposition relation instead. Error theorists have so far failed to consider a third strategy, which uses a general entailment relation that doesn’t require intricate relations between concepts. The paper argues that both entailment claims struggle to meet a new explanatory challenge and that since the presupposition option doesn’t we have prima facie reason to prefer it over the entailment options. The paper then argues that suitably amending the entailment claims enables them to meet this challenge. With all three options back on the table the paper closes by arguing that error theorists should consider developing the currently unrecognised, non-conceptual entailment claim. (shrink)

Free speech fallacies are errors of meta-argument. One commits a free speech fallacy when one argues that since there are apparent restrictions on one’s rights of free expression, procedural rules of critical exchange have been broken, and consequently, one’s preferred view is dialectically better off than it may otherwise seem. Free speech fallacies are meta-argumentative, since they occur at the level of assessing the dialectical situation in terms of norms of argument and in terms of meta-evidential principles of (...) interpreting how and why people follow (or fail to follow) argumentative rules. Our plan here is to begin with a brief explanation of meta-argument and meta-argumentative fallacy. We will then turn to the variety of forms of the free speech fallacy, which we will explain as meta-argumentatively erroneous. (shrink)

Fitelson and McCarthy have proposed an accuracy measure for confidence orders which favors probability measures and Dempster-Shafer belief functions as accounts of degrees of belief and excludes ranking functions. Their accuracy measure only penalizes mistakes in confidence comparisons. We propose an alternative accuracy measure that also rewards correct confidence comparisons. Thus we conform to both of William James’ maxims: “Believe truth! Shun error!” We combine the two maxims, penalties and rewards, into one criterion that we call prioritized accuracy optimization. (...) That is, PAO punishes wrong comparisons and rewards right comparisons. And it requires to prioritize being right und avoiding to be wrong in a specific way. Thus PAO is both, a scoring rule and a decision rule. It turns out that precisely confidence orders representable by two-sided ranking functions satisfy PAO. The point is not to argue that PAO is the better accuracy goal. The point is only that ranking theory can also be supported by accuracy considerations. Thus, those considerations by themselves cannot decide about rational formats for degrees of belief, but are part and parcel of an overall normative assessment of those formats. (shrink)

Many moral realists have employed a strategy for arguing for moral realism by claiming that if epistemic normativity is categorical and that if this epistemic normativity exists, then categorical normativity exists. In this paper, we will discuss that argument, examine a way out, and respond to the objections people have recently raised in the literature. In the end, we conclude that the objections to our way out will do little in the way of motivating those who already do not (...) believe in categorical normativity, thereby severing the power the aforementioned parity argument is designed to possess. (shrink)

In this paper, criticisms are made of the main tenets of Professor Mellor's argument against ‘backwards’ causation. He requires a closed causal chain of events if there is to be ‘backwards’ causation, but this condition is a metaphysical assumption which he cannot totally substantiate. Other objections to Mellor's argument concern his probabilistic analysis of causation, and the use to which he puts this analysis. In particular, his use of conditional probability inequality to establish the ‘direction’ of causation is (...) shown to be in error. 1I am indebted to Drs H. Krips, L. O'Neill and to the anonymous referee for their suggestions and critical comments on earlier drafts. (shrink)

The nature of Kant’s criticism of his pre-Critical ‘possibility proof’ for the existence of God, implicit in the account of the Transcendental Ideal in the Critique of Pure Reason, is still under dispute. Two issues are at stake: the error in the proof and diagnosis of the reason for committing it. I offer a new way to connect these issues. In contrast with accounts that locate the motivation for the error in reason’s interest in an unconditioned causal ground (...) of all contingent existence, I argue that it lies in reason’s interest in another kind of unconditioned ground, collective unity. Unlike the conception of the former, that of the latter directly explains the problematic ontological assumption of the possibility proof, the existence of intelligible objects as the ground of possibility. I argue that such Platonic entities are assumed because they are amenable to the kind of unity prescribed by reason. However, since the interest in collective unity has a legitimate regulative use when applied to the systematic unity of nature, the conception of God entailed by the possibility proof is retained as a regulative idea of reason. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the Cantor Diagonal Argument (CDA) that is used in set theory to draw a distinction between the cardinality of the natural numbers and that of the real numbers. The CDA is discussed here using a consensus from the forms found in a range of recently published sources. Four points critical of the CDA are raised that cast doubts on its validity and general applicability. Also, contrary to the conclusion conventionally drawn from the CDA, it is (...) found possible to set up a one-to-one correspondence between the natural numbers and the real numbers. Finally, some comments are made on the concept of “infinity”, pointing out that to consider this as an entity is a category error, since it simply represents an absence, that is, the absence of a termination to a process. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers rate error theories poorly. We identify the arguments these philosophers invoke, and expose their deficiencies. We thereby show that the prospects for error theory have been systematically underestimated. By undermining general arguments against all error theories, we leave it open whether any more particular arguments against particular error theories are more successful. The merits of error theories need to be settled on a case-by-case basis: there is no good general argument against (...) error theories. (shrink)

Åsa Maria Wikforss has proposed a response to Burge's thought-experiments in favour of social externalism, one which allows the individualist to maintain that narrow content is truth-conditional without being idiosyncratic. The narrow aim of this paper is to show that Wikforss' argument against social externalism fails, and hence that the individualist position she endorses is inadequate. The more general aim is to attain clarity on the social externalist thesis. Social externalism need not rest, as is typically thought, on the (...) possibility of incomplete linguistic understanding or conceptual error. I identify the unifying principle that underlies the various externalist thought-experiments. (shrink)

Mackie doubted anything objective could have the motivational properties of a value. In thinking we are morally required to act in a certain way, he said, we attribute objective value to the action. Since nothing has objective value, these moral judgments are all false. As to whether Mackie proved his error theory, opinions vary. But there is broad agreement on one issue. A litany of examples, ranging from amoralism to depression to downright evil, has everyone convinced that Mackie vastly (...) overstated the motivational implications of moral judgment. Mackie did go overboard. But did he have to? I think not. Even on the most modest motivational assumptions, Mackie can make objective value look queer and morality look like a sham. I begin with a sketch. (shrink)

In his paper "The error in the error theory" [this journal, 2008], Stephen Finlay attempts to show that the moral error theorist has not only failed to prove his case, but that the error theory is in fact false. This paper rebuts Finlay's arguments, criticizes his positive theory, and clarifies the error-theoretic position.

Moral skeptics argue that their evolutionary explanation is more parsimonious than moral realists’ evolutionary explanation of why we have the mental capacity to make moral judgments, and that their evolutionary explanation supports moral skepticism, according to which no moral judgment is justified. I object that there are several alternative metaethical views whose evolutionary explanations are as economical as moral skeptics’ evolutionary explanation. In addition, I offer six objections to moral skepticism and error theory, and then argue that none of (...) them applies to several alternative metaethical views. (shrink)

One of the most formidable challenges to the Error Theory is the Normative Objection, according to which the Error Theory ought to be rejected because of its deeply implausible first-order normative implications. Recently, Bart Streumer has offered a novel and powerful defence of the Error Theory against this objection. Streumer argues that the Error Theory’s plausibility deficit when viewed against the background of our normative beliefs does not show the theory’s falsity. Rather, it can be explained (...) by the fact that this theory, though true, cannot be believed. In this paper, I argue that Streumer’s defence does not succeed. I show that, even if we grant Streumer that we cannot believe the Error Theory, we can still formulate what I call the Undermining Normative Objection, an argument that proceeds only from believable premises to a believable conclusion and shows that the arguments supporting the Error Theory cannot all be sound. (shrink)

In The Myth of Morality Richard Joyce presents a simple and very influential argument for the truth of moral error theory. In this paper I point out that the argument does not have the form Joyce attributes to it, the argument is not valid in an extensional propositional logic and on the most natural way of explicating the meanings of the involved terms, it remains invalid. I conclude that more explanation is needed if we are to (...) accept this particular argument for moral error theory. (shrink)

Most error theorists want to accept hypothetical reasons but not moral reasons. They do so by arguing that there is no queerness in hypothetical reasons. They can be reduced to purely descriptive claims, about either standards or ordinary standard-independent facts: when I say “I have a reason to take this flight, ” all I say is that “according to certain standards of reasoning, I have a reason to take this flight” or that “I have a desire such that taking (...) this flight is the only way of doing so.” Error theorists who want to accept hypothetical reasons but not moral reasons think that one of these approaches works for hypothetical reasons but neither work for moral reasons. I shall argue that whatever arguments are given for rejecting these approaches in the case of moral reasons are also arguments for rejecting them in the case of hypothetical reasons. (shrink)

Companions in guilt arguments are widespread in defenses of moral realism and criticisms of error theory. Recently, a number of philosophers have argued that the companions in guilt argument fails because it makes untenable assumptions about the existence of categorical epistemic reasons. In this article, I develop an alternative version of the companions in guilt argument that does not succumb to this criticism, as it begins with the claim that there is a presumptive case in favor of (...) attributing a belief in categorical norms of philosophical argumentation to proponents of the error theory. I then point to an instability in the error-theoretic position and explore the extent to which this instability poses a serious philosophical problem. While this argument has a narrower scope than the traditional companions in guilt arguments, I conclude that it nonetheless poses a significant challenge to any philosophical attempt to deny the categoricity of moral reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, I distinguish between two error theories of morality: one couched in terms of truth ; the other in terms of justification. I then present two arguments: the Poisoned Presupposition Argument for ET1; and the Evolutionary Debunking Argument for ET2. I go on to show how assessing these arguments requires paying attention to empirical moral psychology, in particular, work on folk metaethics. After criticizing extant work, I suggest avenues for future research.