Folk metaethics and error

Abstract

ABSTRACT Philosophers have in recent years displayed an increasing interest in investigating folk metaethical beliefs using rigorous empirical methods. Taken together, these studies put significant pressure on many philosophical theories that depend on the truth of folk moral objectivism, the view that the folk see morality as objectively grounded. Frequently included among the target of criticism is Mackie’s error theory, or more specifically the conceptual claim thereof. Finding this criticism misplaced, Benjamin Fraser tries to exonerate error theory from such accusation by distinguishing different senses of objectivity. In this paper, I show why Fraser’s strategy is not successful so that the pressure empirically brought upon classical error theory is genuine. However, I also argue that even on the new picture suggested by experimental studies, the folk still entertain erroneous beliefs, which, when coupled with plausible metasemantic assumptions and further empirical support, should warrant an error theory after all, though not in its classical form.