Free from Error
Abstract

The type of Moral Error theory I shall defend in the following essay is the kind proposed by J. L. Mackie and later by Richard Joyce. Mackie first advances “error theory” by stating that when most people speak of their moral judgements they are implicitly claiming “ to be pointing to something objectively prescriptive,” but “these claims are false” (1977, p.35). In the first section of this essay i shall introduce and clarify the constituent of error theory I aim to defend. In the next section I consider and rebut stephen finlays recent attack on moral error theory. Finlay takes aim at Mackies conceptual claim that many moral judgements entail categorical reasons, but I find his shots misguided. Consequently I shall consider finlays most powerful rejoinders with the view of again refuting them and arriving at the conclusion that Mackies conceptual and ontological claims hold and moral error theory stands.

Mackie endorses a second order moral theory regarding the essence of moral valuing and the character of moral values. Mackie believes that many of the moral judgements we make contain a catergorical imperative element and his thesis that “ there are no objective values” (1977, pg 58) is an explicit rebuttal denying that “ any such categorically imperative element is objectively valid” (1977, pg 69).[1] The objective values that Mackie wishes to refute would be action-guiding unconditionally, not contingently upon any particular agents desired ends[2].

With the view of making explicit precisely what I am defending here is what I take to be the error theorists argument in its rawest form:

When many of us speak of moral values we are implicitly invoking a kind of objective prescriptively, guided by categorical reasons, based on objective values.

There are no objective values of this kind.

Therefore our moral discourse is systematically in error.

Their are two key claims here; The first being that when we speak of of moral values we presuppose a form of moral objectivity, this is Mackies conceptual claim, The claim I intend to prove valid. The second claim is ontological, the declaration that objective values do not exist. Although it is not the aim of this essay I do understand that in order to write i comprehensive essay defending error theory i would have to prove this key claim.

Mackie and Joyce both observe[3] that there are occurrences in which we are all accustomed to objective prescriptively as instantiated in the real world. For example it is known that a football player ought not to handle the ball inside his own area (excluding the goalkeeper) and also it is known that there are reasons for chess players to move the pawn diagonally. This however is not the type of objective presciptivety that Mackie has issue with, rather he affirms that there are certain situations where agents ought or have reasons to behave in a particular manner according to rules and standards. (1977,pp.25-27). Mackie did not object to catergorical reasons per se but instead insists that that talk of such reasons is only made valid by the presence of an institution, examples of an instituion given by mackie include that of chess and i have added a similar example using the institution of football. Such institutions contain codes of conduct which influence conduct and guide behavoir of followers. It is catergorical imperatives that proclaim to trancend all instituions and evidence their validity on “requirements which simply are there, in the nature of things” (1977,pp. 59) that are judged as erronous. Talk of reason is is scutinized in a similar fashion it may not be false to claim that “ anyone has a reason for helping a child in distress,” however for mackie the truth of this is only guarenteed by apealing to a particulat instituional way of speaking, and since makie makes it clear that we never logically have to offer allegiance to any particular instituion, its truth is dependant on our subscription. It is when reason claim professes to trancend all instituiosnt that it crosses the line. Following this it is mackies thought that error theory is born because moral discourse is permeated with the pursuit of “institional-transcendant objectivity” (2010, pp.xix).

Consider a case present in Mackies writing that supports his ‘claim to objectivity” and highlights why it is the case that our moral discourse is entrenched with ambitions of “ Institutional-transcendent objectivity”. Consider a person in a moral dilemma wanting to arrive at a judgment about a particular act, Mackie uses the example of a scientist wondering wether it would be wrong for him to engage in “research related to bacterial warfare”(1977, pp.72). Mackie goes on to say how he wants to “arrive at some judgement about this concrete case” (1977, pp72) irrespective of his desires or whether the work will satisfy him. “he wants to know wether this course of action would be wrong in itself” (1977, pp.72). Mackie states that the prevalence to objectify our moral values is confirmmed by a pattern of thinking we find in philosophy of old and new, and something that is mirrored by our everyday comprehension. This is something i strongly agree with. If i were to catch a criminal abusing a child i want to condemn him to wrongness objectivily, it goes against common thought that i he is wrong in any lesser sense.

In his paper ‘ The error in error theory’ Stephen Finlay states that the moral error theory is ‘premised on two claims’. (2008, pp.347):

Presuppostition: moral judgements involve a particular kind of presupposition which is essential to their status as moral;
Error: this presupposition is irreconcilable with the way things are

Conceding error to the error theorist, Finlay instead attacks presupposition that stating that “the assumption of moral authority of moral value may not be characteristic of moral discourse at all” (2008, pp.347). This is what Joyce calls in a defense of error theory a ‘concessive strategy’: acknowledging that the constituent of morality that the error theorist pronounces as systematically faulty is in fact faulty, but maintaining that moral discourse does not exemplify this flawed component so does not absorb the criticism. He is far from alone in his strategy as similar lines of attack can be found to be used by Drier, Kirchin, and West- all in Joyce and Kirchin (2010). But for the purpose of this essay i aim to only to defend error theory (in particular Mackies ‘ claim to objectivity’) and the analogous argument present in Joyce (2001) from Finlays attack.
Finlay targets one type of error theory, the type that includes the presuppostition of absolute authority, a thesis that he attributes to Mackie (1977) and Joyce (2001). Upon acknowledging his theoretical weakness due to the fact that if this presupposition changes slightly then his charges against error theory wont hold Finlay writes that ‘ absolute authority is the most familiar and promising candidate for the error theory’ and regarding feasible alternatives states ‘ I suspect that skepticism about absolute authority lies behind most if not all of them’. In a reply to this criticism joyce writes ‘ not only is finlay mistaken i thinking that ‘absolute authority lies behind most positive arguments for moral error theory, he is mistaken in thinking it lies behind mackies oringal version or my own variant’. I also contend that the indictment Finlay levels at error theory is misguided and because of this his theory fails.

whilst reading Finlays argument i immediatly noticed that he is talking in terms f absolute ‘absolute authority’ this seems strange to me as mackie speaks much of ‘objective values’ and ‘objective prescriptions’, but rarely mentions absolute values or prescriptions. this appears strange to me but to highlight finlays misinterpretation more vividly it is important to understand that the absolutism vs relativism dichotomy is not analegous to the objectivity vs non-objectivity this argument is present in joyce’s reply and he clarifys the problem with a clear example; “ The enormity of a tsunami may be a relative matter (big relative to ordinary waves, small compared to a supernova), but there is nothing less entirely objective about the scale’ (joyce 2011, pp.521). so when mackie purports that our morality presupposes ‘objective values’ that catergorical reasons that transcend instituions, i believe it is clearly a mistake to interpret this as morality presupposeing absolute values and absolute prescriptions. It is explicit in mackies arguement that he does admit the existence of categorical imperatives but only within the context of a given instituion, desire-transcendant reasons are also treated in this way; what enable the progress from ‘ there is a woman being abused by her husband in in front of me’ to ‘ I have a reason to step in and stop the abuse’ are an array of instituional facts and not brute facts. The killer blow for Finlays attack is delivered by a reformulation of the mackien error theoratic argument which is as follows:

(1*) moral discourse presupposes non-institional desire transcendant reasons and non-instituional, action-guiding catergorical imperatives.

Whilst maintaining

(2*) that all genuine desire-transcendant reasons are instituional and all genuine action-guiding categorical imperatives are also institional.

This reformulation is an idea propsed by joyce that i have slightly altered howver the meaning has stayed identical and It is now clear that the premise (1*) has no discernable commitment to moral relativism and for this reason all evidence devised to disprove the allegation that our moral discourse presupposes absolutism, ( the type in opposition to relativism) misses its target. Now with this new found clarity the defense of (1*) is now a question wether i can display that moral discourse does presupposes that categoiral reasons are non-instituional. (which i believe is what mackie is in fact stating when he speaks of objective). I shall now display with reference to examples why I recognize moral language to presuppose these non-institional categorical imperatives take an example incorperating the ring of Gyges[4]. As i take our moral discoure as catergorical in the example of platos ring of gyges we can legitimatley stipulate that what gyge’s is doing is wrong! but more importantly we can state ‘ Gyges you ought not to do that’. However if it is the case out imperative is only backed by an instituiton that we have created, then it is very plausible that he turn back to us and say ‘ granted i accept that within the instituion of morality my actions are deplorable but i do not subscribe to this institution so shall carry on thank you. If it is the case that our categorical imperatives are merely validated by our instition then he is justified! It should be understood that i am not claiming that our moral admonition should motivate him into action, as it could be the case that he is evil and not capable of reason, what is most worrying to me is that if our reasons are instituional we do not have a reasonable arguement to put forward for him to obey the code of an instituioon that he does not endorse.

To conclude with a final arguement i believe it there to be a institional-transcending aspect of our moral thought entrenched throughout of modern day thinking, Joyce uses the example of the trial of Herman Goring where if the judge were to say ‘ what you did was odiuos’ then we would perfecly accept that but if the judge were to say what you did was odious form our point of view, we would feel this is not strong enough. One can imagine the trial of josef fritz, a man whos crimes are more abmoniable then the most twisted and outlandish mind could cunjore. What would the reaction be if the judge stipulated “ the crimes you have commited are terrrible from our point of view” “ what you did is appalling from our moral standards”. There would be outrage becasue we are not instructing josef to endorse our morality we are compelling him to subscribe to the real morality. we are much more comferatable stating “ the crimes you committed are abhorrant regardless of personal standards”. It just doesnt make sense to say while we recognise adding ‘from our point of view’ or ‘from our moral standards causes uproar but adding ‘regardless of personal standards’ goes unnoticed it is in fact the former suffix that is actually tacitly operating, however this is what finlay is advocating. Sucinctly I hold it unreasonable to think that when we morally judge, we leave off the relativisng suffix merely to realize a rhtorical effect, it seems to me much more inline with actual living that we do not add on a relativisng suffix to our moral because we do not wish there to be one. To consumate: i feel have successfully defended the conceptual claim that our moral discourse is assertoric, objectively prescriptive and entails catergorical imperatives that allege transcend institions. A defense of the error theorist ontological claim and error theory as a whole would be engaing objective however not an objective attempted by this essay.

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[1] Explain catergorical imperative
[2] Mackie also has a stronger comittment that alludes to catergorical reasons having a certain motivational, this something that i am not commited to and instead merely defend what i take to be the core claim for the error theorists regarding the catergorical element of moral reasons.
[3] Joyce distinquishes between ‘Strong’ and ‘ Weak” categorical imperatives and his later version of error theory refutes the validity of the former but allows the existence of the latter
[4] Explain the ring of gyges