Abstract
Error theorists hold that, although our first-order moral thought and discourse commits us to the existence of moral truths, there are no such truths. Holding this position in metaethics puts the error theorist in an uncomfortable position regarding first-order morality. When it comes to our pre-theoretic moral commitments, what should the error theorist think? What should she say? What should she do? I call this the ‘Now What’ Problem for error theory. This paper suggests a framework for evaluating different approaches to the ‘Now What’ Problem, and goes on to evaluate the three most common responses to this problem. All three are found to have noteworthy problems. Finally, I present my own solution, and argue that it presents the most appealing solution to the ‘Now What’ Problem.
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Notes
In the absolute, moral sense that he believes Rachel intends.
See Enoch (2011, Chap. 3) for an articulation of this form of resistance.
See, e.g., Cuneo (2007).
For a defense of such a view, see Joyce (2001) or Mackie (1977). For both Joyce and Mackie, the problem for morality that forces us to an error theory is not a problem for reasons as such, but for reasons with a certain kind of property. For Mackie, these are “objective” reasons. For Joyce, these are reasons that hold for an agent independently of that agent’s desires; “a reason for Φing regardless of whether Φing serves his desires or furthers his interests” (p. 42). (Since Mackie isn’t very explicit about what he means by “objective,” Mackie’s and Joyce’s worries may well amount to the same thing.) Consequently, the version of error theory that these authors endorse is limited in the way described.
This point is sometimes not appreciated. Nolan et al. (2005), in their defense of Joycean Fictionalism, argue that it is a better view than expressivism. But this is a strange apples-and-oranges comparison, since Joycean Fictionalism, as a solution to the ‘Now What’ Problem, is a recommendation for error theorists, while expressivism is a descriptive view about the actual nature of normative thought and language. The fact that this kind of mistake even could be made to begin with shows how under-developed the current literature on the ‘Now What’ Problem is.
It is a matter of controversy whether epistemic norms are to be interpreted instrumentally or categorically. My sympathies are with the interpretation of epistemic norms as instrumental. But even if the best interpretation of our epistemic norms is as categorical norms, we can articulate a related set of truth-directed instrumental norms that a Conservationist will end up violating.
Note that here I say might be. But even if the following arguments fail, the other problems for Conservationism look damning enough that not much is lost by way of my overall argument.
This can be seen in the tendency of many authors to use the term “error theory” interchangeably with “moral nihilism.” To equate these two terms is a mistake if we understand the first as a metaethical view, and the second as a first-order normative view. Conservationists don’t seem to count as nihilists, and the label doesn’t really seem apt for Fictionalists or Substitutionists. It is, however, precisely the right label to apply to the Abolitionist. But not all error theorists are Abolitionists.
It is permissible to believe that there is no such thing as phlogiston and to say things like ‘there is no such thing as phlogiston.’ The kinds of beliefs and discourse that the Abolitionist says we should eliminate are what we might call positive phlogiston belief/discourse.
This point is due to a helpful anonymous referee.
My discussion here will involve only Joyce’s “revolutionary” Fictionalism, and not Kalderon’s (2005) “hermeneutical Fictionalism,” since it is only the former which is a response to the ‘Now What’ Problem.
Joyce defines Fictionalism in several different ways throughout The Myth of Morality, making it rather difficult to pin down what Joyce takes to be the central commitment(s) of Fictionalism. What is presented here is one central line of Fictionalist thought. Nolan et al. (2005) defend a similar version of Fictionalism.
A note on terminology: “Fictionalism” is sometimes used to describe any view that recommends using a certain language and acting in certain ways while simultaneously disbelieving all positive propositions concerning the subject matter of that discourse. On this use of the term “Fictionalism,” all of the views labeled as “Other Views to be Explored” in Fig. 2 will be instances of Fictionalism. Yet Fictionalism, as I’ve just defined it, has much more built into it—the view described here does not just recommend using moral language and action, but recommends doing so in virtue of holding a certain fictional attitude towards a moral proposition. I use Fictionalism in this narrower way because this is the way that Joyce uses the term “Fictionalism,” and it has become the standard way to use that term in the existing literature on the ‘Now What’ Problem. I mention this issue only to set it aside—the issue here, to the extent that there is one, is strictly terminological and not substantive.
This is not just because Sherlock Holmes stories are supposed to have occurred in the past. Someone reading a book called The Contemporary Sherlock Holmes, where all of the actions are supposed to be occurring right now, would be no less irrational in trying to find Holmes to warn him of Moriarty’s plot.
I do, at least, and I don’t see why other error theorists wouldn’t.
There could be a version of error theory where our moral terms are directly referential. But the common statement of the nature of the reference failure of our moral terms, according to most error theorists, follows the pattern given in the main text here, so I will not pursue this other option.
See Brandt (1998, pp. 10–16).
See Railton (1986).
There are some interesting scenarios that arise from the possibility that a Substitutionist might apply this procedure incorrectly and misidentify either which commitments are non-negotiable or which are genuinely problematic. Some of these might introduce substantial problems for the Substitutionist—if, for instance, the Substitutionist misidentifies the defective commitments in such a way that the salvaged concept ends up being more problematic than the original concept, the Substitutionist has worsened her situation, not improved it. This is a reason to take care in applying this procedure. But a more interesting possibility arises when the error theorist misidentifies the commitments that are negotiable and those that are non-negotiable, as then she might end up reorienting her moral thought and discourse towards things that actually do constitute moral reasons, even though she will (wrongly) take them not to be moral reasons. This might seem to collapse the error theory into some non-error-theoretic view. But this actually amounts to an advantage for Substitutionism over Fictionalism and Abolitionism (although not Conservationism). Since we are assuming in this scenario that the error theory is false and there are moral reasons, it would clearly be better if our error theorist ended up orienting her first-order normative life around those moral reasons. And Substitutionism provides a framework within which she might end up doing just that. This makes Substitutionism a kind of safe error theory. If the error theory is false, then every error theorist will have false second-order moral beliefs. But a Substitutionist stands as good a chance as any reforming-definition theorist of getting things right as far as first-order morality is concerned.
As I mentioned earlier, I think that a Humean-style Substitutionism is the best reading of Mackie’s solution to the ‘Now What’ Problem.
In a rather straightforward way, the Substitutionist shares this problem with the Fictionalist. The Fictionalist uses her moral utterances with a kind of story-telling force—she no more asserts that murder is wrong than she asserts that, once upon a time, there was a dragon. Yet unless this story-telling intention is made clear, a Fictionalist’s interlocutor will systematically misinterpret the Fictionalist’s communicative intentions. Joyce tries to evade this problem by saying that his account is meant to apply only to the linguistic practices of a community of Fictionalists. This response is good as far as it goes (and it’s worth noting that the Substitutionist can appeal to the same fix), but we do not live in such a community, and it is not likely that we will any time soon. This is why I’ve focused in this paper on the more immediate, pressing concern of how error theorists should actually use moral language.
This might seem to be in tension with my observation in the introduction that Rachel intends to use moral language to ascribe a property of awfulness, but the tension is not very deep. Rachel intends to use moral language with its normal assertive force, whatever that may be, and to do so in order to voice her disapproval of the serial killer’s actions, etc. So Rachel is intending to make her point regarding her attitudes towards murder by utilizing the standard semantic content of the utterance “That is awful.” This distinction between the semantic content of an utterance and a speaker’s communicative intentions in making that utterance will be explored in more detail shortly.
Some non-error theorists, like Stevenson, think that this is all that disagreement on moral matters ever amounts to in any context.
The Humean Theory of Reasons is highly controversial, of course, but the details of the controversy need not concern us here, since it is not my intention here to argue for Humean Substitutionism, but rather to illustrate the kind of view that a Substitutionist might defend. For those interested in a defense of the Humean Theory, see Schroeder (2007).
The account of normativity offered here as stemming essentially from the things that matter most to us is inspired in a number of ways by Foot’s (1972) “Morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives.”
This is not pure speculation; as evidence, I can point to the shocked protests of a substantial number of people to whom I have confessed my error-theoretic sympathies.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks go to audiences at the Fifth Annual Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress and the USC Philosophy Graduate Student Society for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Special thanks go to Steve Finlay and Mark Schroeder, for many conversations and incredibly helpful suggestions. Without them, this paper would not be worth reading.
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Lutz, M. The ‘Now What’ Problem for error theory. Philos Stud 171, 351–371 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0275-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0275-7