What to do when the world doesn’t play along: Life after moral error theory JESSICA ISSEROW A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University August 2017 © Jessica Isserow 2017 Statement This thesis is solely the work of its author. No part of it has previously been submit- ted for any degree, or is currently being submitted for any other degree. To the best of my knowledge, any help received in preparing this thesis, and all sources used, have been duly acknowledged. JESSICA ISSEROW 15th August, 2017 Acknowledgements I had the pleasure and good fortune of writing my PhD at the philosophy depart- ment at the Australian National University, a graduate student’s paradise. I was also fortunate to have had an all-star supervisory panel, whose diversity helped me to see issues from different philosophical perspectives. I first want to thank the chair of my panel, Benjamin Fraser, for being incredibly supportive over the years, and for providing insightful comments, raising important challenges and making valuable suggestions. I am also immensely grateful to Daniel Nolan, who was incredibly gen- erous with his time, and whose feedback was always constructive and edifying. I would like to thank Kim Sterelny for his help, encouragement, and for making my time at the ANU so philosophically rewarding. I am grateful to Nic Southwood for providing straight and honest feedback, acknowledging when my work was up to scratch and having a laugh with me whenever it wasn’t. I am also thankful to those at the ANU who made my time there so enjoyable and philosophically stimulating. My work on this thesis has benefitted greatly from dis- cussions with Clare Due, Melissa Ebbers, Edward Elliott David Kalkman, Colin Klein, Christopher Lean, Leon Leontyev, Eric Llamas, Alexander Sandgren, and Lachlan Umbers. Special thanks is owed to Edward Elliott, who was the preview au- dience for all of the presentations I have given on this work. I also wish to thank au- diences at the ANU, at annual meetings of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, and many conferences at Kioloa. I spent most of the final year of my PhD at the University of Leeds, and I will be forever grateful to the philosophers there for their help and kindness. (And, of course, for the formidable karaoke sessions as well.) I am especially grateful to Daniel Elstein, Ulrike Heuer, Gerald Lang, Pekka Värynyen, and Jack Woods for meeting with me to discuss my research, as well as Richard Rowland, who met with me while visiting there. I should also register my appreciation for the funding that I received. This re- search was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. On a more personal note, I would like to thank (all four of) my parents, whose love and support has been unwavering throughout the years. They have always en- couraged me to pursue my dreams, and for that I am eternally grateful. Finally, I would like to thank Edward Elliott for his love, for believing in me, and for being the best friend that I’ve ever had. Abstract This work addresses the ‘what next?’ question for moral discourse, which concerns the best choice of action given the truth of the moral error theory. The moral error theory comprises two claims: (i) that moral discourse is used assertorically, and (ii) that moral assertions systematically fail to state truths. The upshot of the moral error theory is that nothing is really right or wrong—indeed, that the very idea of things being right or wrong is fundamentally mistaken. And yet, I argue, there are strong ar- guments in favour of moral error theory. With such far-reaching implications, we’d do well to have some guidance regarding what we ought to do upon coming to be- lieve that the moral error theory is true. In the first part of this work, I evaluate the answers to the ‘what next?’ question that have been proposed in the current literature. These include a systematic revision of our moral concepts (revisionism), preserving moral language in the spirit of a use- ful fiction (fictionalism), ridding ourselves of moral discourse entirely (abolitionism), and making do with our current erroneous moral discourse (conservationism). I ar- gue that none of the first three proposals offer us an entirely satisfactory answer to the ‘what next?’ question. Conservationism is the most promising solution still on the table. However, conservationism is yet to be fully developed. In the second part of this work, I develop and motivate my own version of conservationism, and show that it is the most attractive response to the ‘what next?’ question; one that is capable of se- curing the many desirable practical goods that our moral practices provide. This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction: error theories and the ‘what next?’ question 1 §I. Error Theories 4 §II. Error Theories in philosophy 10 §IIa. The conceptual stage 10 §IIb. The ontological stage 13 §IIc. Controversy 13 §III. Answering the WNQ 16 §IV. Game Plan 19 1. (Almost) Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Moral Error Theory 22 §1.1 Moral error theory in meta-ethics 23 §1.1.1 Cognitivism & Non-cognitivism, Success & Error 23 §1.1.2 The truth-conditions of moral judgments 25 §1.1.3 Moral error theory in meta-ethics: a summary 26 §1.2 Moral error theory: a general overview 27 §1.2.1 A selective history 28 §1.2.2 The many roads to error 29 §1.3 Moral facts: they’re not here, they’re queer 31 §1.3.1 Mackie’s many arguments for moral error theory 32 §1.3.2 Mackie’s metaphysical argument from queerness 34 §1.3.3 Olson’s development 39 §1.3.4 The queerness of the queerness charge 43 §1.4 The trouble with categorical reasons 45 §1.4.1 Reasons and rationality 45 §1.4.2 Joyce’s conceptual claim 49 §1.4.3 Joyce’s ontological claim 52 §1.5 Moral Error Theory: summing up 56 2. What is the ‘what next?’ question for moral discourse? 57 §2.1 Can the WNQ for moral discourse be a normative question? 58 §2.1.1 The over-generalisation problem for epistemic reasons 59 §2.1.2 The over-generalisation problem for all normative reasons 63 §2.1.3 The WNQ: summing up 66 §2.2 To whom is the WNQ for moral discourse addressed? 68 §2.3 Motivating the project 71 §2.3.1 The devastating result of the moral error theory 72 §2.3.2 Doom and gloom? 74 §2.3.3 Morality (huh): what is it good for? 77 §2.3.4 The tension: why we need to answer the WNQ 82 §2.4 Answers to the WNQ for moral discourse 84 §2.4.1 Abolitionism 84 §2.4.2 Revisionism 85 §2.4.3 Fictionalism 86 §2.4.4 Conservationism 86 §2.4.5 Why not propagandism? 87 §2.4.6 Evaluating answers to the WNQ 88 §2.5 Philosophical Dividends 89 §2.6 Take away 91 3. Moral Abolitionism 93 §3.1 What is moral Abolitionism? 94 §3.1.1 Motivation 94 §3.1.2 Scope 96 §3.1.3 A new hope? 97 §3.1.4 A caveat 97 §3.2 The argument from conflict 98 §3.2.1 Morality and interpersonal conflict 99 §3.2.2 The argument from conflict: an assessment 101 §3.3 The argument from history 105 §3.3.1 The role of morality 107 §3.3.2 Other culprits 109 §3.3.3 Minimising the misuse of morality 115 §3.4 A feasibility worry 121 §3.5 Where does moral abolitionism go wrong? 124 4. Revisionism 126 §4.1 How I’m going to go about things 127 §4.2 Concepts: what they are and how they change 128 §4.2.1 Concepts 129 §4.2.2 Conceptual change 133 §4.2.3 Some qualifications 137 §4.2.4 Reformists and Revisionists 139 §4.3 The case for revisionism 140 §4.3.1 The reformist strategy 140 §4.3.2 Grist for the revisionist’s mill 145 §4.4 Against schmorality 147 §4.4.1 Against the letter of schmorality 147 §4.4.2 Moral concepts and scientific concepts: some disanalogies 150 §4.4.3 Against the spirit of schmorality 157 §4.5 Revisionism: general lessons 160 5. Moral Fictionalism 162 §5.1 Fictionalism: a general overview 163 §5.1.1 What is fictionalism? 163 §5.1.2 Prefix fictionalism and preface fictionalism 166 §5.1.3 Hermeneutic fictionalism and revolutionary fictionalism 167 §5.2 Moral Fictionalism 169 §5.2.1 Joyce’s moral fictionalism 169 §5.2.2 Nolan, Restall, and West’s moral fictionalism 171 §5.3 The case against moral fictionalism 172 §5.3.1 An acceptance-transfer problem 173 §5.3.2 A validity problem 175 §5.3.3 A problem with preserving moral disagreement 177 §5.3.4 The case against moral fictionalism: summing up 180 §5.4 The real case against moral fictionalism 180 §5.4.1 Horn 1: the slip into belief 181 §5.4.2 Horn 2: the shortcomings of moral make-belief 190 §5.4.3 The shortcomings of fictional moral belief 196 §5.5 Moral Fictionalism: verdict and lessons 201 6. Conservationism: offense 204 §6.1 What is conservationism? 205 §6.1.1 Olson’s conservationism 207 §6.1.2 Some gaps in Olson’s proposal 209 §6.2 A new conservationism 210 §6.2.1 Believing that p and that ¬p 212 §6.2.2 Beliefs and contexts 217 §6.2.3 A justification for preserving our false moral beliefs 224 7.