Table Of ContentMOR AL
ERROR
THEORY
Wouter Floris Kalf
Moral Error Theory
Wouter Floris Kalf
Moral Error Theory
Wouter Floris Kalf
Department of Philosophy
Utrecht University
Utrecht, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-319-77287-5 ISBN 978-3-319-77288-2 (eBook)
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Dedicated to Carel, Vera, Laurens, and Sanne
Preface
I have written this book as a contribution to the debate in contemporary
metaethics about the plausibility or otherwise of moral error theory,
according to which moral judgements are truth-apt but systematically fail
to be true. This book is therefore most suitable for professional philoso-
phers and postgraduate students in philosophy. However, and because I
explain most philosophical concepts that I introduce, it will also appeal
to advanced undergraduates with a solid foundation in metaethics.
This book has two parts. In Part I, I defend moral error theory. Moral
error theorists traditionally argue that the truth-makers of moral judge-
ments must be irreducibly normative or objectively prescriptive moral
facts and that these facts are too queer to exist. But moral error theorists
can also argue that whether some moral judgements are true depends on
whether rational minds converge on what is morally right and wrong,
which does not support a queerness argument and instead requires moral
error theorists to argue that rational minds don’t converge on what is
morally right and wrong. There are many other choices that moral error
theorists must make when they formulate and defend their view, result-
ing in a large number of possible formulations of moral error theory. I
argue that one such formulation renders moral error theory a plausible
theory in contemporary metaethics.
In Part II, I switch tack from defending moral error theory to answer-
ing the so-called now what question: moral error theory, and now what?
vii
viii Preface
In particular, what should we do with moral discourse after moral error
theory? As I will explain, the moral error theorist’s commitment to the
non-existence of moral facts does not commit her to the non-existence of
reasons for belief or prudential reasons. I subsequently appeal to these
reasons to argue that after moral error theory we should leave moral dis-
course largely as it is and only change what the truth-makers of its moral
judgements should look like: not moral facts that don’t exist but (roughly)
prudential facts that do exist. I argue that this ‘substitutionist’ solution to
the now what problem is more plausible than existing solutions to this
problem, such as revolutionary fictionalism and revolutionary expressiv-
ism. My version of moral error theory conjoined with my answer to the
now what question constitutes a new metanormative view which has thus
far not been defended in the literature. It also has implications for how
we should do normative ethics after moral error theory. In the penulti-
mate chapter, I offer a preliminary discussion of what implications this
view might have in political philosophy and normative ethics. Given that
I put my metanormative theory to use in an attempt to contribute to our
thinking about a practical and political question, this book will also
appeal to students and scholars of politics, jurisprudence, and sociology.
How should you read this book? If you are not yet a moral error theo-
rist, or if you are not prepared to accept it for the sake of argument, then
you should start with Part I. But if you are already a moral error theorist,
or if you are prepared to accept it for the sake of argument, then you can
skip most of Part I and go straight to Part II. If you skip Part I, then I
advise reading §3.3–3.5 from Part I before reading Part II because you
will need to know what I say there in order to be able to assess my argu-
ments in Part II.
I wish to thank a number of people who have helped me tremendously
in writing this book. My sincere gratitude to Professor Herman Philipse,
who has generously funded my postdoctoral research from his
Distinguished University Professorship research budget (Utrecht
University, 2015–2019). At Palgrave Macmillan, I thank Brendan George
and April James, who have been very helpful in the editorial process. In
writing this book I have benefited greatly from conversations with Pekka
Väyrynen, Andrew McGonigal, Gerald Lang, John Divers, David Enoch,
Ulrike Heuer, Robbie Williams, Ross Cameron, Elizabeth Barnes,
Prefac e ix
Thomas Brouwer, Michael Bench-Capon, Carl Baker, Richard Caves,
Carl Warom, Chris Cowie, Richard Rowland, Pauline Kleingeld, Bruno
Verbeek, Joeri Witteveen, Tom Hayes, Fred Muller, Bart Streumer, Jonas
Olson, Jeroen Hopster, Michael Klenk, Julia Hermann, and Rosanne
Scharff. I have presented part of the material in these pages at various
conferences and workshops, and I thank the audiences of: BSET 2012,
the postgraduate session (Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the
Mind Association), and conferences at the Universities of Amsterdam,
Utrecht, Groningen, Leeds, Sheffield, Reading, Stirling, Leuven, Bristol,
Tilburg, Venice, St Andrews, Oxford, and Delft, and the Central
European University of Budapest, the Australian Catholic University, the
LUISS Guido Carli University, and Claremont Graduate University in
California, USA. Special thanks to an anonymous reviewer for Palgrave,
who has provided some excellent suggestions to improve this manuscript
before publication.
I thank my parents Carel and Vera and my brother Laurens for their
ongoing encouragement, both during and after my studies. My partner
Sanne has supported me throughout the process of writing this book.
Without her love and encouragement, I could not have written it. Thank
you.
Utrecht, The Netherlands Wouter Floris Kalf
Contents
Part I Moral Error Theory 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Th e Generic Argument for Moral Error Theory 3
1.2 O utline of the View 15
1.3 Th ree Assumptions 21
References 23
2 C onceptual Entailment Error Theory 27
2.1 Introduction 27
2.2 E lements of Conceptual Entailment Error Theory 32
2.3 M ackie’s Conceptual Entailment Error Theory 41
2.4 J oyce’s Conceptual Entailment Error Theory: Initial
Arguments 44
2.5 J oyce’s Conceptual Entailment Error Theory: The Use
Argument 51
2.6 The Externalism Objection 59
2.7 Retreat to Content-Internalism with Indeterminate
Referential Intentions 67
xi
xii Contents
2.8 Pervasiveness Objections 69
2.9 Conclusion 75
References 75
3 Presupposition Error Theory 81
3.1 Introduction 81
3.2 S emantic Presupposition Error Theory 83
3.3 Pragmatic Presupposition 91
3.4 P ragmatic Presupposition Error Theory 94
3.5 R ationality or Non-Naturalism? 101
3.6 E xternalism, Systematic Falsity, and Cognitivism 106
3.7 P ervasiveness Objections 108
3.8 C onclusion 114
References 115
4 Rationality 119
4.1 Introduction 119
4.2 Queerness 121
4.3 Joyce’s Rationality Argument 124
4.4 Th e Reduction of Reasons and Rational Requirements 129
4.5 The Intrinsic Value of Rationality 138
4.6 F rom Categorical Epistemic to Categorical Moral
Reasons 142
4.7 The Companions-in-Guilt Objection 146
4.8 Other Objections 150
4.9 Conclusion 153
References 154
Part II Normative Ethics 157
5 S ome Solutions to the Now What Problem 159
5.1 Introduction 159
5.2 A ssessment Criteria for Prescriptive Metaethical Theories 162
5.3 Revolutionary Fictionalism 173
