Moral Fictionalism and the Problem of Imaginative Barriers

Stuart Brock (Victoria University of Wellington)

Meta-ethicists often accept the following two theses.

Utility Thesis. There is significant value in engaging with moral thinking, discourse and practise; however (despite this) …

Moral Error Theory. Moral thought and talk is systematically false.

Once we recognise our error, we might respond in a number of different ways.  Abolitionists advise us to stop thinking and talking as though such claims were true; the value of doing so is just not worth it.  Strong conservationists, on the other hand, suggest that the utility of engaging in moral thinking and discourse should motivate us to indulge in self-deception and (if possible) continue to believe moral claims, compartmentalising our beliefs where necessary.  

Revolutionary moral fictionalists adopt a middle ground.  Unlike the strong conservationist, fictionalists advise us to abandon our previously held moral beliefs and to stop asserting basic moral claims.  Contrary to the abolutionist, though, fictionalists advise us to maintain moral thought and talk by make-believing what we say in this domain and by pretending to assert what we make-believe.  The justification for doing so is that the value of moral thought and talk is too significant to allow us to abolish it altogether.

In this paper, I outline an underappreciated problem for moral fictionalism: moral fictionalists presuppose that we have direct control over what we make-believe; but this presupposition does not seem to stand up in the moral domain.  The empirical and philosophical literature on the so-called puzzle of imaginative resistance suggests that direct control over our moral imaginings is not possible.  I discuss the problem in detail, considering various positions one might take on the issue, and suggest that there is no obvious solution to the problem for the moral fictionalist.  In the final sections, I contrast moral fictionalism with religious fictionalism.  Fictionalism in the religious domain, I suggest, fares better than fictionalism in the moral domain.  Moreover, it has many of the same benefits.