Umeå University's logo

umu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
How to argue for the error theory
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of historical, philosophical and religious studies.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7842-0900
Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
2025 (English)In: International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, ISSN 2210-5697, E-ISSN 2210-5700, Vol. 15, p. 307-322Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Richard Joyce’s new book, Morality: From Error to Fiction, is a sophisticated and enjoyable work. While the book’s ambitions and structure are similar to those of Joyce’s 2001 book, The Myth of Morality, there are also several important differences. This time Joyce’s case for moral error theory appeals to a collection of arguments of different kinds, and he criticizes his earlier self as well as J. L. Mackie’s seminal 1977 book, Ethics, for relying too heavily on one or two master arguments. We argue, however, that some of Joyce’s arguments, especially his critique of moral naturalism, bear closer resemblance to Mackie’s than Joyce lets on. We also argue that Joyce’s critique of moral non-naturalism is less persuasive than Mackie’s. Finally, we briefly criticize some of Joyce’s ideas concerning the implications of metaethical indeterminacy.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Brill Academic Publishers, 2025. Vol. 15, p. 307-322
Keywords [en]
Joyce, Mackie, moral error theory, conceptual claim, ontological naturalism, indeterminacy
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-245423DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10116ISI: 001677919200004Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105022509507OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-245423DiVA, id: diva2:2006090
Available from: 2025-10-13 Created: 2025-10-13 Last updated: 2026-02-11Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(679 kB)13 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT02.pdfFile size 679 kBChecksum SHA-512
385508317c28b74bd660be577bcdbacd456a18949f34963c5f5562755e39f50bdad67417db001a924ff44725adfadefce12852bdbef4433e2876edf589a257de
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Moberger, Victor

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Moberger, Victor
By organisation
Department of historical, philosophical and religious studies
In the same journal
International Journal for the Study of Skepticism
Philosophy

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 51 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 452 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf