Error Theory

Introduction
Error Theory is a cognitivist proposal that has some non-cognitivist leanings. As a form of Moral Nihilism, it's effectively that weird guy on the bus/tube/train with a strange smell and dark sense of foreboding, whose hands you can't quite see and you've spent most of the resultingly uncomfortable journey trying to avoid eye-contact with.

It is set apart from naturalism and non-naturalism as an Anti-Realist theory, which does not believe there are any such thing as moral facts, or for that matter any reference to moral terms. According to Mackie, even in ordinary language, we all have a tendency, when making moral judgements, to imply objectivity; that what we are saying is just correct. Mackie thinks that this is silly, but unlike the non-cognitivists, Ayer and Hare (together they make the wonder duo: the Windswept Combover), he doesn't believe that the mistake is either linguistic or conceptual, rather it is a systematic error, based on our belief in things that don't literally exist (i.e moral properties of the world), this belief is promoted by moral realism in whatever form it crops up in.

Arguments For
The Argument from Relativity - Here Mackie suggests that our moral values stem from our society and vary in places all over the world and over different time periods, as such, our moral values largely come from the society where we grew up. Here, variation in moral codes is explainable not by differing perceptions of some objective moral value, rather the ways of life they reflect.

The Argument from Queerness (he was from the 50's) - Mackie here argues against the idea of objective moral values, by highlighting the strange, or queer outcomes that such a belief would entail. (needs expansion)

Q&A from the Perspective of an Error Theorist:
Do moral values lie in consequences? - No. Neither do they come from catagorical imperatives.

Can moral terms be understood in non-naturalistic terms? - No. Nor can they be understood in naturalistic terms.

Can moral values be learned through intuition? - No, as there is nothing out there to be intuited.

Then do moral terms refer to something independent of humans? - They try to, but fail.

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