Lewis Williams

Normative nihilism is the more radical sibling of moral nihilism: while moral nihilists are nihilists only about the moral domain, normative nihilists are nihilists about all normativity. For example, normative nihilists have argued that there are no moral, prudential, epistemic, or instrumental reasons. This is a prima facie highly implausible view. But normative nihilism has received serious defence. Proponents argue that normative nihilism is implied by plausible premises, and that the prima facie implausibility of normative nihilism is susceptible to debunking. This article will work towards a philosophically illuminating characterization of normative nihilism, assess arguments in support of the view, and survey its implications.

Recent years have seen a growing number of philosophers come to defend normative nihilism. Even if their arguments do not induce in many a belief in normative nihilism, there may be grounds on which to be less than certain about the falsity of normative nihilism. How, then, can we accommodate the possibility of normative nihilism when deliberating about what to do? In this article, I defend two theses. First, I distinguish between normative questions and deliberative questions and argue that the question “what am I to do under uncertainty about the truth of normative nihilism?” is best understood as an example of the latter. Second, I propose a novel framework for deliberation under uncertainty about the truth of normative nihilism: maximize expected decision-relevance. A striking upshot of this article is that there is an important sense in which we need make no mistake by flouting normative considerations under uncertainty about the truth of normative nihilism.

Christopher Cowie argues that moral error theory is uniquely placed to avoid embracing any of the troubling and counter-intuitive horns of moral paradoxes. Contra Cowie, I argue that moral non-cognitivists can also avoid embracing any such troubling and counter-intuitive horns. Rather than supporting moral error theory, I argue that moral paradoxes more precisely support moral nihilism—a first-order view that is consistent with moral error theory and with moral non-cognitivism. Moreover, I argue that reconstructing the argument from moral paradoxes as an argument for moral nihilism enhances its philosophical significance in two ways. First, the argument from moral paradoxes is the first unified argument in support of moral nihilism. Second, given that the logical space of moral nihilism is greater than the logical space of moral error theory, the threat that the argument from moral paradoxes poses to moral philosophy is more serious than Cowie acknowledges.

The what next question for moral error theorists asks: if moral discourse is systematically error-ridden, then how, if at all, should moral error theorists continue to employ moral discourse? Recent years have seen growing numbers of moral error theorists come to endorse a wider normative error theory according to which all normative judgements are untrue. But despite this shift, the what next question for normative error theorists has received far less attention. This paper presents a novel solution to this question: revolutionary normative subjectivism. Along the way, two primary contributions are advanced. First, a non-normative methodology for answering the normative error theoretic what next question is developed. Second, revolutionary normative subjectivism is presented and defended in accordance with the proposed methodology.

Edward Elliott and Jessica Isserow argue that it is not usually in the best interests of ordinary human beings to learn the truth of moral nihilism. According to Elliott and Isserow, ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism that are unlikely to be fully compensated for by any benefits. Here I provide reasons to doubt that ordinary human beings would suffer costs from learning the truth of moral nihilism and present a dilemma for Elliott and Isserow’s view.