Quasi-realism and fundamental moral error

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2):205 – 219 (2007)
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Abstract

A common first reaction to expressivist and quasi-realist theories is the thought that, if these theories are right, there's some objectionable sense in which we can't be wrong about morality. This worry turns out to be surprisingly difficult to make stick - an account of moral error as instability under improving changes provides the quasi-realist with the resources to explain many of our concerns about moral error. The story breaks down, though, in the case of fundamental moral error. This is where the initial worry finally sticks - quasi-realism tells me that I can't be fundamentally wrong about morality, though others can.

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Andy Egan
Rutgers University - New Brunswick

Citations of this work

Darwin and moral realism: Survival of the iffiest.Knut Olav Skarsaune - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 152 (2):229-243.
Attitudinal Ambivalence: Moral Uncertainty for Non-Cognitivists.Nicholas Makins - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (3):580-594.
Expressivism and Realist Explanations.Camil Golub - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (6):1385-1409.
Moral Steadfastness and Meta-ethics.James Fritz & Tristram McPherson - 2019 - American Philosophical Quarterly 56 (1):43-56.

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References found in this work

The moral problem.Michael Smith - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Wise choices, apt feelings: a theory of normative judgment.Allan Gibbard - 1990 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Language, truth and logic.Alfred Jules Ayer - 1936 - London,: V. Gollancz.

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