CHAPTER 22 NOTES: Moral Nihilism
Error theory: core claims and motivation
The central worry: morality might be a sham, a tradition rooted in ignorance, superstition, and fear. The error theory rests on this doubt.
Four essential claims (as defined in the lecture):
There are no moral features in this world. Nothing is morally good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous or vicious.
A careful inventory of the world would show scientific qualities (e.g., being symmetrical, being a liquid, carbon-based, spherical), but no moral features. No moral judgments are true.
There is nothing for moral judgments to be true about; hence no moral facts and no moral knowledge.
Our sincere moral judgments aim to describe moral features, but we always lapse into error because nothing has moral qualities.
Consequence: if there are no moral facts, all moral claims are mistaken. This is not a small critique of policy but a wholesale rejection of morality as a system of truths.
The error theorist’s stance: not merely criticizing current views (e.g., welfare policy or capital punishment) but claiming that all moral views are equally bankrupt.
Metaphor: morality is to morality as atheism is to religion — both deny the core epistemic claims of the rival system.
The central misstep of morality (the “objectivity and categorical reasons” claim)
The standard target for error theories is the core assumption: morality is objective and provides categorical reasons that bind us regardless of our desires.
Error theorists must argue for two things:
(1) Whether moral thinking really presupposes moral objectivity and categorical reasons; this would challenge subjectivists, relativists, and expressivists who will dissent.
(2) If objectivity/categorical reasons are not fundamental, then at least one of these assumptions must be false.
The plan: examine the main attractions of the error theory after noting these burdens.
The main attractions of the error theory
Attraction 1: Simple ontology. If morality is not objective, the world aligns with science: no extra moral layer—just the natural world as science describes it.
Simplicity is a virtue in theory choice; many metaethical arguments prize parsimony.
Attraction 2: No need to justify objectivity or categorical reasons. If morality isn’t objective, you don’t have to defend a controversial claim about moral facts or reasons that apply independently of us.
Attraction 3: Explanations of why people think morality is real. Error theorists can borrow from ethical relativists’ explanations: morality could be a human invention developed to coordinate behavior, strengthen motives against temptation, and shape power relations. People then mistake this invention for objective truth.
This avoids debates about whether there really are moral facts; instead, it explains why people feel moral discourse is truth-apt.
Two common objections to error theory and the replies
Objection 1: The “disastrous results” argument. If widespread acceptance of a view would lead to disaster, then that view is false.
Reply: This is a fallacious test for metaphysical or foundational claims. Metaphysical theories (e.g., atheism or the error theory) are not empirically testable in the same way as empirical hypotheses about the world.
Analogy: suppose widespread belief in atheism caused disaster; that does not show that God does not exist. So we cannot disprove error theory by appealing to likely bad consequences.
Distinction: some worry confuses premise 1a (morality would be disastrous if universal) with premise 1b (if widespread acceptance of a theory yields disaster, the theory is false). The error theory is not a moral theory; it’s a metaphysical claim, so premise 1b does not apply.
Objection 2: Ad hominem worries. If you reject morality, you might seem untrustworthy, or you might be accused of selfish motives.
Response: rejecting moral objectivity does not entail being untrustworthy or amoral. Error theorists can still care about others and oppose immoral actions, even if they deny objective moral truths.
The charge of moral failures of the error theorist does not undermine the truth of the theory itself.
Additional caveat: even if some ethicists find these objections appealing, the truth of error theory does not depend on popular acceptance or practical consequences.
What is the status of error theory? (Metaphysical vs moral theory)
Error theory is a metaphysical theory: it claims about the nature of the world (what exists) rather than prescribing what we ought to do.
It is not itself a moral theory that prescribes duties or virtues. Therefore, some moral-psychological objections (e.g., “you must act as if morality is real”) do not threaten its truth value.
The ultimate question remains: if error theory is true, do moral arguments still have force? The text acknowledges there will be further discussion in the next chapters about whether moral objectivity exists and whether there are categorical reasons.
Expressivism: a rival family of views
Core claims (the first three asserted by all error theorists):
There are no moral features in this world.
No moral judgments are true.
There is no moral knowledge.
Expressivists disagree with the fourth claim—that sincere moral judgments try to describe moral features truthfully.
Expressivists deny that moral judgments aim to report moral features of things.
Instead, moral utterances express attitudes: venting emotions, issuing commands, or revealing commitments.
Paraphrases of moral sentences (to illustrate non-descriptivist function):
“Torture is immoral” can be paraphrased as:
“Torture.”
“Ardently oppose torture.”
“Don’t torture.”
“Let me plan a life that excludes torturing others.”
These paraphrases show that expressivists treat moral statements as neither true nor false in the relevant sense; they perform expressive actions rather than report features.
Distinction: how moral language functions
Factual claims attempt to represent how the world is; expressivist claims serve different purposes, such as venting emotions, giving commands, or signaling commitments.
This explains why moral disagreement often appears to be a clash of attitudes rather than a clash of factual descriptions.
Three main attractions of expressivism (shared with error theory in one sense, but with a different payoff):
1) No need to commit to moral objectivity or categorical reasons. This sidesteps debates about moral realism vs anti-realism.
2) Simplicity: the world contains only what science describes; no added moral layer to complicate ontology.
3) Morality remains motivational. Expressivists argue that moral judgments reliably motivate us because they express our desires, commitments, and emotions.
The motivational argument (David Hume-inspired):
If moral judgments were beliefs, they would not by themselves reliably motivate action.
But moral judgments do motivate, which suggests they are expressions of our desires/commitments rather than beliefs.
Therefore, moral judgments are not beliefs; they are expressions of our emotions or dispositions.
Consequence: expressivism preserves motivation and practical force of moral talk without committing to objective moral facts.
The expressive vs. error-theoretic problem: what makes expressivism attractive
Expressivism handles three big problems that objectivists and relativists face:
Contradictions: if no moral claim is true, moral contradictions disappear (a clash of attitudes rather than a matter of truth).
Moral disagreement: disagreements reflect different emotions or commitments rather than competing factual descriptions.
Simplicity: no separate moral ontology is required; the base scientific view suffices.
The motivational power of morality is explained by the expressive role: moral judgments express our desires/commitments and thus motivate action.
The contrast with belief:
Beliefs aim to describe the world; moral judgments aim to express commitments and motivate action, not to report moral features.
If moral judgments are not beliefs, their logical structure must be interpreted differently in arguments.
The challenge: can expressivism account for logical moral argument?
An example argument: “All actions that dehumanize people are immoral. Torture dehumanizes people. Therefore, torture is immoral.”
This looks logically valid in classic form, but expressivism cannot treat premises as truth-apt premises that confer justification in the same way.
The worry is that moral arguments seem to be truth-preserving, yet expressivism denies truth-conditions for moral claims.
Amoralists: a serious test for expressivism
An amoralist sincerely makes moral claims but remains unmoved by them.
Expressivists must explain how such claims can be sincere if they do not track moral truth.
The response is that amoralism is unusual, but possible; the expressivist must explain why evidence of motivation and action still tracks with feelings and commitments rather than moral truths.
The nature of moral judgments in expressivism
Ethical objectivists, relativists, and error theorists often treat moral judgments as beliefs aimed at describing moral features; expressivists deny this.
They argue that there are no moral features to describe; moral judgments are acts of expression.
They offer translations or paraphrases to show how utterances function in practice without asserting moral properties.
Final note on the expressivist program
Expressivists aim to preserve moral motivation and address normative discourse without commitment to objective moral facts.
They also attempt to avoid the problems of cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism by offering a non-cognitive, non-truth-apt account of moral language.
Practical implications and cross-cutting themes
Objectivity and dogmatism
The argument from dogmatism suggests that if there were objective moral standards, dogmatism would be acceptable; since dogmatism is undesirable, this is sometimes used to argue against objectivism.
The defense: objectivism does not imply dogmatism; it merely posits that there are objective truths, while humility and openness to revision remain appropriate attitudes.
Tolerance and cultural variation
The argument from tolerance claims that if all moral views were equally plausible, tolerance would be valuable; but if moral objectivity holds, some views are better than others, seemingly threatening tolerance.
The reply (in the lecture): premise 1 is false; objectivity does not preclude tolerance. If objectivism is true, some moral views may be superior, yet we can still value tolerance and be open to correction.
There is room for legitimate cross-cultural variation in what is morally required or forbidden, as shown by examples:
The provision of cattle in engagements with prospective in-laws in some cultures vs. Sudanese contexts where different practices are required.
Nudist colonies where showing up naked is not morally prohibited.
Feeding children from garbage dumps is immoral in some places but not in others.
These examples raise a spectrum of concerns about how to reconcile objectivity with cultural variation.
Summary of the debate structure in the course materials
The current section ends with noting that cultural variation raises a live worry for objectivism, and the discussion is continued in later chapters (e.g., chapter 11, 14, 19).
References to chapters for deeper treatment: morality and rationality (chapter 11), why be moral (chapter 8), why be moral? (chapter 14), consistency and fairness (chapter 11).
Mathematical and logical illustrations referenced
Syllogistic form (classic). Example of a logically valid argument:
Premise 1: All actions that dehumanize people are immoral.
Premise 2: Torture dehumanizes people.
Conclusion: Torture is immoral.
Classic universal quantification example:
All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Formally:
Plain-language paraphrase of a typical expressivist translation:
“Torture is immoral” ≈ “Torture. Don’t torture. Let me plan a life that avoids torture.”
Note: All mathematical expressions here are illustrative aids to capture logical structure; they do not commit to a formal axiomatization of metaethics.
Connections to broader themes and real-world relevance
Metaethical questions addressed: are there objective moral facts? Do moral judgments express beliefs or emotions? What explains moral disagreement and moral motivation?
The discussion links to foundational issues in ethics (moral realism vs anti-realism), epistemology of moral knowledge, and philosophy of language (how moral sentences function).
Practical implications touch on tolerance, cross-cultural ethics, and how we justify moral norms in pluralistic societies.
References and roadmap for further study
For more on categorical reasons and objectivity: chapter 21 (continued discussion on objectivity and reasons).
Related topics: chapter 11 (morality and rationality; consistency and fairness), chapter 8 (why be moral), chapter 14 (why be moral?), and cross-cutting discussions in chapter 19 (implications of ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism).
20.2: Expressivism (the section in the course materials that introduces expressivism and its attractions).
Quick recap
Error theory presents morality as devoid of objective features and truth-apt, treating moral discourse as a systematic error.
Expressivism offers an alternative: moral judgments are not truth-apt descriptions but expressions of attitudes and motivational forces.
Both views aim to preserve some kind of practical force for moral discourse while resisting the traditional realist picture of objective moral facts.
The debates grapple with how to handle moral disagreement, moral motivation, and cross-cultural variation without collapsing into relativism or cynicism.