Animal research is a challenging issue for the animal advocate because of what, besides animal well-being, is considered to be at stake, namely, human health. This article seeks to vindicate the antivivisectionist position. The standard defense of animal research as promoting the overwhelming good of human health is refuted on both factual and logical, or normative-theoretical, grounds. The author then attempts to clinch the case by arguing that animal research violates a deontic principle. However, this principle falls to counterexample. The (...) author concludes, nevertheless, that the principle retains force as a presumption that the current state of affairs fails to overthrow. This does suggest, though, that the antivivisection movement would be well advised to keep ahead of the curve. The author proposes it do so by emulating the vegan movement against animal agriculture with the active promotion of alternatives to animal research. (shrink)

Moral error theory of the kind defended by J. L. Mackie and Richard Joyce is premised on two claims: (1) that moral judgements essentially presuppose that moral value has absolute authority, and (2) that this presupposition is false, because nothing has absolute authority. This paper accepts (2) but rejects (1). It is argued first that (1) is not the best explanation of the evidence from moral practice, and second that even if it were, the error theory would still be mistaken, (...) because the assumption does not contaminate the meaning or truth-conditions of moral claims. These are determined by the essential application conditions for moral concepts, which are relational rather than absolute. An analogy is drawn between moral judgements and motion judgements. (shrink)

Moral abolitionists claim that morality ought to be abolished. According to one of their most prominent arguments, this is because making moral judgments renders people significantly less tolerant toward anyone who holds divergent views. In this paper we investigate the hypothesis that morality’s tolerance-decreasing effect only occurs if people are realists about moral issues, i.e., they interpret these issues as objectively grounded. We found support for this hypothesis (Studies 1 and 2). Yet, it also turned out that the intolerance associated (...) with realism is mediated by moral conviction and perceived consensus. People tend to feel more strongly about those moral issues they ground objectively and, in doing so, are more prone to display the vice of moral smugness toward those who disagree with them. The remedy for this that has been recommended is humility which we found (Study 3) is indeed related to reduced intolerance, in part by predicting a reduction in realism, but also in part through a direct connection to intolerance. These results put pressure on abolitionists’ “argument from intolerance.”. (shrink)

Metaethical Mooreanism is the view that without being able to explain how we know certain moral claims we can nevertheless be sure that we do know them. In this paper I focus on the Moorean argument against moral error theory. I conclude that it fails. To show this failure, I first distinguish Moorean claims from Moorean arguments, and then so-called presumptive support from dialogical support. With these distinctions in place, I argue that the key Moorean claim requires dialogical support in (...) order to be used within the Moorean argument against moral error theory, but metaethical Mooreans have only provided presumptive support for the Moorean claim. Not only is this presumptive support inadequate for fending off the moral error theory, it is doubtful that Mooreans can actually provide dialogical support for the key Moorean claim. (shrink)

Here is a prima facie plausible view: since the metaethical error theory says that all positive moral claims are false, it makes no sense for error theorists to engage in normative ethics. After all, normative ethics tries to identify what is right or wrong (and why), but the error theory implies that nothing is ever right or wrong. One way for error theorists to push back is to argue for “concept preservationism,” that is, the view that even though our ordinary (...) moral discourse is deeply flawed, we should nevertheless continue to engage in moral thought and talk. However, in this article, I pursue a different strategy. I argue that even if we completely abandon moral discourse, thus endorsing “concept abolitionism,” the discipline of normative ethics survives. While traditional normative ethics uses as its “starting points” moral claims and beliefs, instead, concept abolitionists can make use of alternative utterances and attitudes that share salient characteristics with moral claims and beliefs, allowing for a kind of theorizing that is practically oriented, impartial, involves the traditional subject matters and methods of normative ethics, and allows engagement with the arguments of traditional moral philosophers. (shrink)

It has been claimed that a key difference between ancient and contemporary skepticism is that, unlike the ancient skeptics, contemporary skeptics consider ordinary beliefs to be insulated from skeptical doubt. In the case of metaethics, this issue is related to the following question: what attitude towards ordinary moral thought and discourse should one adopt if one is a moral skeptic? Whereas moral abolitionists claim that one should do away with ordinary moral thought and discourse altogether, moral fictionalists maintain that, given (...) that morality produces practical benefits, one should continue to make moral utterances and have moral thoughts, while at the same time refraining from asserting such utterances and believing such thoughts. Focusing particularly on Mackie’s skeptical stance, the present essay considers whether the view that first-order moral beliefs are unaffected by moral skepticism is defensible, whether moral fictionalism is compatible with moral insulation, and whether contemporary moral skeptics are in general committed to there being insulation between first- and second-order levels. (shrink)

I argue against the claim that we should adopt a moral error theory. The intelligibility of our moral practice need offer no questionable metaphysical hostages to fortune. The two most credible policy recommendations that might follow from moral error theory, abolitionism and prescriptive fictionalism, are not very credible.

One of the central tasks of meta-ethical inquiry is to accommodate the common-sense assumptions deeply embedded in our moral discourse. A comparison of the potential of secular and theistic ethics shows that, in the end, theists have a greater facility in achieving this accommodation task; it is easier to appreciate the action-guiding authority and binding nature of morality in a theistic rather than in a secular context. Theistic ethics has a further advantage in being able to accommodate not only this (...) essential conceptual feature of morality, but also the existence of moral requirements and their source of normativity. (shrink)

Bart Streumer thinks that we cannot believe the global normative error theory. Streumer's argument presupposes a Cartesian theory of belief fixation. The Cartesian theory entails that we can understand a proposition without believing it. But the Cartesian theory of belief fixation is false, and the Spinozan theory is true. The Spinozan theory of belief fixation entails that we cannot understand a proposition without believing it. The present paper argues that Streumer's claim is false, and we can believe the global normative (...) error theory because the Spinozan theory is correct. The paper then applies the Spinozan theory of belief fixation to the “Now what?” problem for global normative error theory and responds to objections. (shrink)