Abstract
Ronald Dworkin charges that the error theory is a position in first-order moral theory that should be judged by the standards that are appropriately used in evaluating first-order theories. Perl and Schroeder contend that a “presuppositional error theory” can avoid Dworkin’s charge. On the presuppositional view, moral sentences, such as (1), “It is wrong to torture babies,” have a false presupposition. Perhaps, for example, they presuppose that there are objectively prescriptive moral standards. This proposal can be understood in different ways, depending on one’s view about presupposition. In Perl and Schroeder’s view, the “at issue” proposition expressed by an assertion of (1) can be cleanly distinguished from the presupposed proposition, and the overall content of an assertion of (1) is the set of these two propositions. On an “entanglement view”, the presupposed proposition is entangled with the proposition expressed by an assertion of (1) in such a way that it is not possible to distinguish cleanly between the “at issue” content and the presupposed content. Perl and Schroeder are correct that, on their view, the presuppositional error theory can avoid Dworkin’s charge. On the entanglement view, however, it cannot avoid Dworkin’s charge. Unfortunately, however, I argue, Perl and Schroeder’s view is implausible for independent reasons. Further, I contend, Perl and Schroeder do not have a solid argument against the entanglement view. They also lack a solid argument in favor of the key, controversial thesis that moral sentences presuppose that there are objectively prescriptive moral standards.
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Notes
An inherited case would be a sentence with a presupposition that embeds a sentence that has that very presupposition, such that the presupposition carried by the embedding sentence is inherited from the embedded sentence. An example is a sentence that is the negation of a sentence that has a presupposition in the way that (2) is the negation of (1). (2) inherits its presupposition from (1). A non-inherited case would be one in which a sentence that has a presupposition does not embed a sentence from which it inherits its presupposition. In this sense, (1) is a non-inherited case. The orthodox view is that sentences such as (1), where the presupposition is not inherited, express propositions that entail the presupposed proposition.
In what follows, I will often simplify by referring to a sentence when, strictly speaking, I mean to refer to the proposition expressed by the sentence.
He suggested this in a helpful conversation about the example.
I am grateful to Kent Bach for reminding me of this possibility.
The example is from Wallace (2013: 142).
As I said before, there is room for an error theorist to take a different view as to the content of the false presupposition, but this is not in itself a problem for Perl and Schroeder, given their goals, and I set the issue aside.
I was helped here by Perl and Schroeder who clarified their meaning in emailed notes.
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Acknowledgements
A version of this paper was presented to the 2017 Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy. I thank everyone who contributed to the discussion on this occasion for their helpful comments. I am especially grateful to Caleb Perl and Mark Schroeder for very helpful discussions of their views, and to Kent Bach, Adam Sennet, Robert Shanklin and Bart Streumer for helpful conversations and comments.
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Copp, D. Perl and Schroeder’s presuppositional error theory. Philos Stud 176, 1473–1493 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01249-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01249-5