In Defence of Moral Error Theory

Moral error theorists typically accept two claims - one conceptual and one ontological - about moral facts. The conceptual claim is that moral facts are or entail facts about categorical reasons (and correspondingly that moral claims are or entail claims about categorical reason); the ontological claim is that there are no categorical reasons-and consequently no moral facts-in reality. I accept this version of moral error theory and I try to unpack what it amounts to in section 2. In the course of doing so I consider two preliminary objections that moral error theory is (probably) false because its implications are intuitively unacceptable (what I call the Moorean objection) and that the general motivation for moral error theory is self-undermining in that it rests on a hidden appeal to norms. | Direct Link to PDF

Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong

THE CENTRAL IDEA of this book is simple: we evolved a moral instinct, a capacity that naturally grows within each child, designed to generate rapid judgments about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar of action. Part of this machinery was designed by the blind hand of Darwinian selection millions of years before our species evolved; other parts were added or upgraded over the evolutionary history of our species, and are unique both to humans and to our moral psychology. These ideas draw on insightsfrom another instinct: language. | Direct Link to PDF (e-book)

Oxford Studies in Metaethics

The full book is available online for free:Oxford Studies in Metaethics is designed to collect, on an annual basis, some of the best new work being done in the field of metaethics. I’m very pleased to be able to present this third volume, one that has managed so successfully to fulfill the aims envisioned for the series. | Direct Link to Book

Moral Judgment

i. Moral rules are held to have an objective, prescriptive force; they are notdependent on the authority of any individual or institution.ii. Moral rules are taken to hold generally, not just locally; they not only proscribebehavior here and now, but also in other countries and at other times in history.iii. Violations of moral rules involve a victim who has been harmed, whose rightshave been violated, or who has been subject to an injustice.iv. Violations of moral rules are typically more serious than violations ofconventional rules. | Direct Link to PDF