Response to Bart Streumer, Unbelievable Errors: An Error Theory about All Normative Judgements.

What is it about?

Bart Streumer makes an interesting case for an error theory in ethics – and for an error theory for normativity more generally, but I focus on the more restricted target. I offer a reply on behalf of naturalists (reductionists, reductive realists) in ethics. My case for resistance involves identifying a three-fold ambiguity in his use of the term ‘guarantee’. I conclude with some observations about the implications of theories of reference for moral/ethical terms for the debate. Although I am disagreeing with Streumer's final conclusion, I agree with much of what he says along the way.

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Why is it important?

Ethical and normative judgements appear to ascribe properties to actions, lines of argument, states of affairs, and so on. Streumer and I agree that the appearance should be respected. We really are ascribing properties when we use ethical and normative language. But what properties are they, and are they ever in fact possessed? I think that they are certain properties specifiable in naturalistic terms, and that they are on occasion possessed – some actions, for example, really are morally wrong and are morally wrong in virtue of having a certain property specifiable in naturalistic terms. Streumer thinks that the properties would need to be properties specifiable in naturalistic terms, but that, for reasons he gives and I dissent from, they cannot be. That's why he is an error theorist about ethics and normativity.

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