Hybridizing Moral Expressivism and Moral Error Theory

Abstract

Some philosophers have recently developed hybrid meta-ethical theories by merging elements of both expressivism and cognitivism. Such hybrid theorists combine the expressivist thesis that moral utterances are neither true nor false, because they are used to express attitudes, with the cognitivist thesis that moral utterances are true or false, because they are used to express beliefs. Hybrid theories advanced so far in the literature typically include success-theoretic rather than errortheoretic versions of cognitivism. Current hybrid theorists hold both that moral utterances are used to express attitudes and beliefs, and that some of these expressed beliefs are true. However, philosophers should also consider a hybrid theory that includes elements of moral expressivism and moral error theory. Although such a hybrid expressivist-error theory has not previously been presented or defended in the literature, it is theoretically preferable to pure error theory and pure expressivism. Accepting such a hybrid theory has two advantages over pure expressivism, because hybrid theorists can more plausibly explain certain aspects of moral discourse and can avoid the Frege-Geach problem. Accepting such a hybrid expressivist-error theory has three advantages over pure error theory, because hybrid theorists can more plausibly explain certain aspects of moral discourse, while