Dr Christopher Cowie christopher.d.cowie@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor
Why Moral Paradoxes Support Error Theory
Cowie, Christopher
Authors
Abstract
Moral error theory has many troubling and counterintuitive consequences. It entails, for example, that actions we ordinarily think of as obviously wrong are not wrong at all. This simple observation is at the heart of much opposition to error theory. I provide a new defense against it. The defense is based on the impossibility of finding satisfying solutions to a wide range of puzzles and paradoxes in moral philosophy. It is a consequence of this that if any moral claims are true, then a lot of highly troubling and counterintuitive moral claims must be in their number. This means that troubling and counterintuitive moral claims are everybody’s problem—not just error theorists’, but also their opponents’. Indeed, there is a sense in which this shared problem is worse for the opponents of error theory than for error theorists themselves.
Citation
Cowie, C. (2023). Why Moral Paradoxes Support Error Theory. Journal of Philosophy, 120(9), 457-483. https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2023120927
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jul 20, 2022 |
Publication Date | 2023-09 |
Deposit Date | Jul 21, 2022 |
Publicly Available Date | Oct 1, 2024 |
Journal | The Journal of Philosophy |
Print ISSN | 0022-362X |
Electronic ISSN | 1939-8549 |
Publisher | Journal of Philosophy |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 120 |
Issue | 9 |
Pages | 457-483 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2023120927 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1197105 |
Publisher URL | https://www.pdcnet.org/jphil |
Files
This file is under embargo until Oct 1, 2024 due to copyright restrictions.
You might also like
Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics
(2019)
Book
Confidence of Life Detection: The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives
(2023)
Journal Article
What are Paradoxes?
(2022)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search