Moorean Arguments against the Error Theory: a Defense

Abstract

Abstract Moorean arguments are a powerful way to engage highly revisionary views in philosophy, such as nihilism about motion, time, and truth. They take, as a premise, a highly plausible first-order claim (e.g., cars move) and conclude from it the falsity of the highly revisionary thesis. Moorean arguments can be used against nihilism in ethics (error theory), too. Recently, error theorists have argued that moral Moorean premises seem highly credible to us, but aren’t, by offering debunking explanations that appeal to higher-order evidence—evidence of error in our reasoning. This chapter argues that the higher-order evidence actually counts further against error-theoretic arguments and further in favor of Moorean arguments and the commonsense views they support. Along the way the chapter answers prominent objections to Moorean arguments: that they’re question-begging, rely on categorizing some claims as “Moorean Facts”, and that reports of one’s credence in a proposition bears no interesting relation to its credibility.