The End of Morality: Taking Moral Abolitionism Seriously

246 Pages·2019·1.76 MB·English

by  Richard Garner (Editor)

THE END OF MORALITY
According to the moral error theorist, all moral judgments are mistaken. The
world just doesn’t contain the properties and relations necessary for these judg-
ments to be true. But what should we actually do if we decided that we are in
this radical and unsettling predicament—that morality is just a widespread and
heartfelt illusion? One suggestion is to eliminate all talk and thought of moral-
ity (abolitionism). Another is to carry on believing it anyway (conservationism).
And yet another is to treat morality as a kind of convenient fiction (fictionalism).
We tend to think of moral thinking as valuable and useful (e.g., for motivating
cooperative behavior), but we can also recognize that it can be harmful (e.g.,
hindering compromise) and even disastrous (e.g., inspiring support for militaristic
propaganda). Would we be better off or worse off if we stopped basing decisions
on moral considerations?
This is a collection of twelve brand new chapters focused on a critical
examination of the options available to the moral error theorist. After a general
introduction outlining the topic, explaining key terminology, and offering sug-
gestions for further reading, the chapters address questions like:
• Is it true that the more that people are motivated by moral concerns, the
more likely it is that society will be elitist, authoritarian, and dishonest?
• Is an appeal to moral values a useful tool for helping resolve conflicts, or does
it actually exacerbate conflicts?
• Would it even be possible to abolish morality from our thinking?
• If we were to accept a moral error theory, would it be feasible to carry on
believing in morality in everyday contexts?
• Might moral discourse be usefully modeled on familiar metaphorical language,
where we can convey useful and important truths by uttering falsehoods?
• Does moral thinking support or undermine a commitment to feminist goals?
• What role do moral judgments play in addressing important decisions affecting
climate change?
The End of Morality: Taking Moral Abolitionism Seriously is the first book to thor-
oughly address these and other questions, systematically investigating the harms
and benefits of moral thought and considering what the world might be like
without morality.
Richard Garner is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Ohio State University,
USA. He is the author of Beyond Morality (1994). He has written articles on meta-
ethics, the philosophy of language, and Chinese philosophy.
Richard Joyce is a Professor of Philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand. He is author of The Myth of Morality (2001), The Evolution of
Morality (2006), and Essays in Moral Skepticism (2016), as well as numerous articles
and book chapters on metaethics and moral psychology. He is also the editor of
The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy (2018).
THE END OF MORALITY
Taking Moral Abolitionism
Seriously
Edited by Richard Garner and
Richard Joyce
First published 2019
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Richard Garner and Richard Joyce to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-8153-5859-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-8153-5860-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-12215-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
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CONTENTS
Contributors vii
Introduction: Moral Skepticism and the “What Next?” Question x
PART I
Background Thinking 1
1 Good and Gold 3
Jordan Howard Sobel
2 To Hell With Morality 21
Ian Hinckfuss
3 Moral Foolishness Explained 39
Hans-Georg Moeller
PART II
The Case for Abolitionism 57
4 After Such Knowledge—What? Living and Speaking
in a World Without Objective Morality 59
Russell Blackford
5 A Plea for Moral Abolitionism 77
Richard Garner
vi Contents
6 Beyond the Surf and Spray: Erring on the Side of
Error Theory 94
Joel Marks
PART III
Alternatives to Abolitionism 111
7 Moral Practice After Error Theory: Negotiationism 113
Björn Eriksson and Jonas Olson
8 Minimizing the Misuse of Morality 131
Jessica Isserow
9 Moral Fictionalism: How to Have Your Cake and
Eat It Too 150
Richard Joyce
PART IV
Moral Skepticism: Case Studies 167
10 Morality and Oppression 169
Nicolas Olsson Yaouzis
11 Should Feminists Be Moral Error Theorists? 186
Caroline West
12 The Effects of Morality on Acting Against Climate Change 202
Thomas Pölzler
Index 220
CONTRIBUTORS
Russell Blackford is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities
and Social Science, University of Newcastle (Australia). He is co-editor (with
Udo Schuklenk) of 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists and (with Damien
Broderick) of Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds. He
is co-author (with Schuklenk) of 50 Great Myths About Atheism, and author of
Freedom of Religion and the Secular State and Humanity Enhanced: Genetic Choice and
the Challenge for Liberal Democracies.
Björn Eriksson, a Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at Stockholm
University, works in normative ethics, metaethics, and the philosophy of social
science. Notable contributions include “Utilitarianism for sinners” (American
Philosophical Quarterly, 1997) and “Understanding narrative explanation” (Croatian
Journal of Philosophy, 2005). He is currently working on a project he calls “Moral
Practice in a Worthless World.”
Richard Garner is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Ohio State University.
He is the author of Beyond Morality (Echo Point Books & Media, 1994, 2014). He
has written articles on metaethics, the philosophy of language, and Chinese phi-
losophy. Two relevant recent articles are “Abolishing morality” (Joyce & Kirchin
(eds.), 2010) and “Morality: The final delusion?” (Philosophy Now, 2011).
Ian Hinckfuss (“Hinck”) was a lecturer at the University of Queensland (Australia)
from 1966, until his death in 1997 (aged 65). He worked in logic, metaphysics,
philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. He is author of The Existence
of Space and Time (Oxford University Press, 1974). He was politically active,
and passionately interested in peace studies and conflict resolution. His views
on morality were radical, and he had some trouble publishing his manuscript on
metaethics under its working title To Hell With Morality, but eventually Richard
viii Contributors
Sylvan agreed to publish it as part of his “Discussion Papers in Environmental
Philosophy” series at the Australian National University, though under the sadly
subdued title The Moral Society: Its Structure and Effects.
Jessica Isserow is a lecturer at the University of Leeds. Her primary research
interests are in metaethics, moral psychology, and normative ethics. Her doc-
toral project focused upon the “what next?” question for moral discourse, which
concerns the best choice of action given the truth of a moral error theory. Her
articles include “On having bad persons as friends” (Philosophical Studies), “Moral
worth and doing the right thing by accident” (Australasian Journal of Philosophy),
“Evolutionary hypotheses and moral skepticism” (Erkenntnis), and (with Colin
Klein) “Hypocrisy and moral authority” (Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy).
Richard Joyce is a Professor of Philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington
(New Zealand). He is author of The Myth of Morality (Cambridge University
Press, 2001), The Evolution of Morality (MIT Press, 2006), and Essays in Moral
Skepticism (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is co-editor of A World Without
Values (Springer, 2010) and Cooperation and Its Evolution (MIT Press, 2013), edi-
tor of The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy (Routledge, 2017), as
well as author of numerous articles and book chapters on metaethics and moral
psychology.
Joel Marks is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of New Haven
and a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University. In addition to writing hun-
dreds of columns and articles, Marks is the editor of two books on emotion: The
Ways of Desire: New Essays in Philosophical Psychology on the Concept of Wanting
and (with Roger T. Ames) Emotions in Asian Thought: A Dialogue in Comparative
Philosophy. He is also the author of a trilogy of books on amorality: Ethics Without
Morals: A Defense of Amorality, It’s Just a Feeling: The Philosophy of Desirism, and
Bad Faith: A Philosophical Memoir.
Hans-Georg Moeller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macau.
His research focuses on Chinese and comparative philosophy and on social and
political thought. He is the author of The Philosophy of the Daodejing, The Moral
Fool: A Case for Amorality, and The Radical Luhmann (all published by Columbia
University Press). He has authored many other academic books and articles.
Jonas Olson is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University. His
main research interests are metaethics and the history of moral philosophy. He has
published “Getting real about moral fictionalism” in Oxford Studies in Metaethics,
Vol. 6 (2011). He is the author of Moral Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence
(Oxford University Press, 2014) and co-editor (with Iwao Hirose) of The Oxford
Handbook of Value Theory (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Nicolas Olsson Yaouzis has just finished a post-doc project (in which he “demys-
tified ideology”) at the Institute for Advanced Studies at University College
London. Currently, when he is not teaching at the Department of Philosophy at
Contributors ix
Stockholm University, he is thinking and writing on political philosophy, phi-
losophy of the social sciences, and the philosophy of video games. His articles
include “‘That is just what they want you to believe’: A modest defence of
Marxist paranoia” (European Journal of Philosophy) and “An evolutionary dynamic
of revolutions” (Public Choice).
Thomas Pölzler is a Post-Doc at the Philosophy Department of the University
of Graz, Austria. His main areas of research are metaethics and moral psychology.
Further research interests include the philosophy of Albert Camus, intergenera-
tional justice, and environmental ethics. He is author of Moral Reality and the
Empirical Sciences (Routledge, 2018).
Jordan Howard Sobel (1929–2010) was a Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Toronto. His research interests covered ethics, decision theory,
logic, and philosophy of religion. He is author of Taking Chances: Essays on Rational
Choice (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Puzzles for the Will (University of
Toronto Press, 1998), Logic and Theism: Arguments for and Against Beliefs in God
(Cambridge University Press, 2004), and Walls and Vaults: A Natural Science of
Morals (Wiley, 2011).
Caroline West is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sydney
(Australia). Her research interests span metaphysics (especially personal identity),
metaethics, political philosophy, philosophy of wellbeing, and feminist philoso-
phy. She has published widely in academic and popular journals. Her publications
in the area of metaethics include “Business as usual? The error theory, internal-
ism, and the function of morality” (Joyce & Kirchin [eds.], 2010) and (with
Daniel Nolan and Greg Restall) “Moral fictionalism versus the rest” (Australasian
Journal of Philosophy).