What If Morality is a Sham? A Conference On the Consequences of Moral Nihilism

Moral nihilists (or error theorists) claim that moral judgements – claims like ‘you ought not steal’, ‘Billy deserved to die’ and ‘torturing kittens for fun is immoral’ – are systematically untrue. These kinds of statement aim at representing the world, but systematically fail to do so, because things like ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘evil’ and ‘duty’ do not exist. As Casey puts it in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath “there ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue, there’s just stuff people do” (1939: 14).

The non-existence of moral facts, however, does not change the fact that we face myriad social problems – nihilists must, like everybody else, decide whether or not to eat meat, which political policies to vote for and whether they'll rob the local cornershop when they think they can get away with it. Formerly, moral language helped us to decide what to do in these matters, and informed the kind of actions we demanded of others – it gave us certain (perceived) reasons to act and refrain from acting. But if error theory is true, these reasons do not exist, and we must ask what we have non-moral reason to do (and what kinds of reasons these are).

Nihilists must also decide what to do with moral language and attitudes – to retain them in some fashion, or condemn them to the linguistic scrap heap. It may seem obvious that nihilists should abandon moral discourse – after all, atheists don’t pray for forgiveness, and most of us would not practice homeopathy – but for many nihilists, this is far from obvious. Many nihilists have urged us to conserve moral discourse, arguing that it is an invaluable tool (even if false) – one that not only helps us solve coordination problems by “counteracting limited sympathies” (Ethics, Mackie 1977: 107), but also functions as a commitment-device to bolster our long-term commitments against weakness of will (The Myth of Morality, Joyce 2001). These nihilists divide themselves into conservationists and revisionists, with conservationists recommending that we continue to use moral discourse just as we did prior to error theory (moral beliefs and all), and revisionists recommending that we continue to use moral discourse, but in a reformed capacity.

Other nihilists, however, argue that moral discourse is distinctly harmful – they claim that, among other things, it entrenches and intensifies interpersonal disputes (The Moral Society, Hinkfuss 1987; Beyond Morality, Garner 1994). These nihilists (moral abolitionists), therefore, recommend that we abolish moral discourse along with its ontology. The debate between abolitionists, conservationists and revisionists is often referred to as the ‘Now What?’ Problem for error theorists.

While the ‘Now What?’ Problem is addressed specifically to error theorists, the observations it provides regarding moral discourse are of interest to anyone who hopes to understand the nature of moral discourse and what it can achieve for us. In recent years, the range of responses to the ‘Now What?’ Problem of have ballooned, and the debate has come to incorporate insights from philosophy of language, epistemology, conceptual engineering, fiction, social psychology and sociology, amongst other areas.

We are seeking abstracts of up to 300 words, suitable for 30-minute presentations, on any area relating to the ‘Now What?’ Problem, to be presented at the University of Edinburgh, 25th April 2025. Topics may include (but are by no means limited to):

- Is it possible to abolish moral discourse?

- What does it mean (for nihilists) to claim that we ‘should’ abolish or maintain moral discourse? That is, what is the ‘should’ in the ‘Now What?’ Problem?

- What does it mean to be a moral fictionalist?

- Can moral nihilists really be motivated by a discourse they know to be false?

- Can the ‘Now What?’ Problem be answered as a question for nihilists in general?

- What can empirical data tell us about whether moral discourse promotes intolerance?

Please submit abstracts via the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19s9MVdcVGjlOst6KICr9OUDO3Ns2_vOxHSe5XuzkHfw/edit

The deadline for abstracts is 4th March 2025.

Please feel free to contact the organiser with any questions you may have:

Ethan Moore ([email protected])