Moral Error Theory and the Argument from Epistemic Reasons

Rach Cosker-Rowland

doi:https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v7i1.69

Volume 7, Number 1
January 2013

ARTICLE

Moral Error Theory and the Argument from Epistemic Reasons

Volume 7, Number 1, January 2013, Pages 1–25

https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v7i1.69

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Abstract

In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they do not know everything. And it could not be the case that we do not know that there is thought when we believe that there is thought and that we do not know that we do not know everything. I address several objections to the claim that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief. It might seem that arguing against the error theory on the grounds that it entails that no one knows anything is just providing a Moorean argument against the moral error theory. I show that even if my argument against the error theory is indeed a Moorean one, it avoids Streumer’s, McPherson’s and Olson’s objections to previous Moorean arguments against the error theory and is a more powerful argument against the error theory than Moore’s argument against external world skepticism is against external world skepticism.

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