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Conceptual Entailment Error Theory

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Moral Error Theory

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Abstract

The first premise in the generic argument for moral error theory is that moral judgements carry a non-negotiable commitment to a particular claim ‘N’. Traditionally, moral error theorists have interpreted this as the claim that moral judgements conceptually entail the claim that there exist objectively prescriptive properties, irreducibly normative moral reasons, or categorical moral reasons of rationality. This chapter argues that this traditional defence of the generic argument’s first premise fails. Both Mackie’s and Joyce’s arguments for this premise fail, and, more generally, every version of this view faces the externalism and pervasiveness objections, which I argue cannot be solved by conceptual entailment moral error theorists.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Wouter Floris Kalf

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Kalf, W.F. (2018). Conceptual Entailment Error Theory. In: Moral Error Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77288-2_2

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