-
The denial of moral knowledgeIn Aaron Zimmerman, Karen Jones & Mark Timmons (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Moral Epistemology, Routledge. 2018.
-
5Competing SovereigntiesRoutledge. 2012.Competing Sovereignties provides a critique of the concept of sovereignty in modernity in light of claims to determine the content of law at the international, national and local levels. In an argument that is illustrated through an analysis of debates over the control of intellectual property law in India, Richard Joyce considers how economic globalization and the claims of indigenous communities do not just challenge national sovereignty - as if national sovereignty is the only kind of soverei…Read more
-
6Moral Fictionalism and Religious Fictionalism (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2024.Atheism is a familiar kind of skepticism about religion. Moral error theory is an analogous kind of skepticism about morality, though less well known outside academic circles. Both kinds of skeptic face a "what next?" question: If we have decided that the subject matter (religion/morality) is mistaken, then what should we do with this way of talking and thinking? The natural assumption is that we should abolish the mistaken topic, just as we previously eliminated talk of, say, bodily humors and …Read more
-
The denial of moral knowledgeIn Aaron Zimmerman, Karen Jones & Mark Timmons (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Moral Epistemology, Routledge. 2018.
-
46The End of Morality: Taking Moral Abolitionism Seriously (edited book)Routledge. 2018.According to the moral error theorist, all moral judgments are mistaken. The world just doesn't contain the properties and relations necessary for these judgments to be true. But what should we actually do if we decided that we are in this radical and unsettling predicament--that morality is just a widespread and heartfelt illusion? One suggestion is to eliminate all talk and thought of morality. Another is to carry on believing it anyway. And yet another is to treat morality as a kind of conven…Read more
-
137A World without ValuesSpringer. 2009.Taking as its point of departure the work of moral philosopher John Mackie (1917-1981), A World Without Values is a collection of essays on moral skepticism by leading contemporary philosophers, some of whom are sympathetic to Mackie s ...
-
8Irrealism and the genealogy of moralsIn Bart Streumer (ed.), Irrealism in Ethics, Wiley-blackwell. 2014.Facts about the evolutionary origins of morality may have some kind of undermining effect on morality, yet the arguments that advocate this view are varied not only in their strategies but in their conclusions. The most promising such argument is modest: it attempts to shift the burden of proof in the service of an epistemological conclusion. This paper principally focuses on two other debunking arguments. First, I outline the prospects of trying to establish an error theory on genealogical grou…Read more
-
50The moral value of Moss – Nicholas Agar, life's intrinsic valueBiology and Philosophy 17 (3): 435-444. 2002.
-
139Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral EnhancementBy Ingmar Persson And Julian SavulescuAnalysis 73 (3): 587-589. 2013.
-
93Psychological Fictionalism, and the Threat of Fictionalist SuicideThe Monist 96 (4): 517-538. 2013.
-
210Expressivism and motivation internalismAnalysis 62 (4): 336-344. 2002.The task of this paper is to argue that expressivism [the thesis that moral judgements function to express desires, emotions, or pro/con attitudes] neither implies, nor is implied by, [motivational internalism].
-
132Darwinian ethics and errorBiology and Philosophy 15 (5): 713-732. 2000.Suppose that the human tendency to think of certain actions andomissions as morally required – a notion that surely lies at the heart of moral discourse – is a trait that has been naturallyselected for. Many have thought that from this premise we canjustify or vindicate moral concepts. I argue that this is mistaken, and defend Michael Ruse's view that the moreplausible implication is an error theory – the idea thatmorality is an illusion foisted upon us by evolution. Thenaturalistic fallacy is a…Read more
-
54IntroductionEthical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (5): 421-425. 2007.Introduction to "A World without Values...."
-
35Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory - By Elijah MillgramPhilosophical Books 48 (1): 90-92. 2007.
-
126Cooperation and its Evolution (edited book)MIT Press. 2013.This collection reports on the latest research on an increasingly pivotal issue for evolutionary biology: cooperation. The chapters are written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and utilize research tools that range from empirical survey to conceptual modeling, reflecting the rich diversity of work in the field. They explore a wide taxonomic range, concentrating on bacteria, social insects, and, especially, humans. Part I (“Agents and Environments”) investigates the connections of soci…Read more
-
1“Beer Gut Gene Discovered” announced the Sydney Morning Herald in 2003 (January 9)—yet another media declaration that scientists have uncovered the “gene for” such-and-such. Claims such as these are, in the popular consciousness, often conflated with proposals from sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists regarding the innateness of certain human traits: infanticide, rape, or intelligence correlated with gender or race. When these traits are nasty or politically disconcerting (as are the t…Read more
-
37Suppose there are two people having a moral disagreement about, say, abortion. They argue in a familiar way about whether fetuses have rights, whether a woman’s right to autonomy over her body overrides the fetus’s welfare, and so on. But then suppose one of the people says “Oh, it’s all just a matter of opinion; there’s no objective fact about whether fetuses have rights. When we say that something is morally forbidden, all we’re really doing is expressing our disapproval of it.” The other pers…Read more
-
166Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement, by Ingmar Persson and Julian SavulescuAnalysis 73 (3): 587-589. 2013.
-
97The Skeptick’s Tale (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1). 2008.Any metaethicist tempted to dismiss a defense of moral intuitionism as too flaky to merit serious attention should think twice. Ethical Intuitionism is a forceful, clear, original, and intelligent piece of philosophy, and Michael Huemer can be proud of his efforts. He proceeds by identifying an exhaustive list of five possible metaethical positions, then knocks down four until only his favored intuitionism remains. One of the advantages of any such “last man standing” strategy is that even the m…Read more
-
14The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2016.In recent years, the relation between contemporary academic philosophy and evolutionary theory has become ever more active, multifaceted, and productive. The connection is an active two-way street. In one direction, philosophers of biology make significant contributions to theoretical discussions about the nature of evolution. In the other direction, a broader group of philosophers appeal to Darwinian selection in an attempt to illuminate traditional philosophical puzzles. In grappling with thes…Read more
-
194
-
444The Myth of MoralityCambridge University Press. 2001.In The Myth of Morality, Richard Joyce argues that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed. At the heart of ordinary moral judgements is a notion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, upon investigation, cannot be reasonably defended. Joyce argues that natural selection is to blame, in that it has provided us with a tendency to invest the world with values that it does not contain, and demands that it does not make. Should we therefore do away with morality, as we did away with ot…Read more
-
97The Fugitive ThoughtJournal of Value Inquiry 34 (4): 463-478. 2000.Moral imperatives are claimed to be inescapable. The moral felon who convinces us that he desired to commit his crimes, that he had no desires that the actions thwarted, does not incline us to withdraw our judgment that he did what he ought not to have done. We do not permit him to evade his moral culpability by citing unusual desires or interests. This thesis of moral inescapability seems familiar and yet is notoriously difficult to make sense of. Philippa Foot calls it “the fugitive thought,” …Read more
-
18The Many Moral NativismsIn Kim Sterelny, Richard Joyce, Brett Calcott & Ben Fraser (eds.), Cooperation and its Evolution, Mit Press. pp. 549--572. 2013.
-
380The Evolution of MoralityBradford. 2005.Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from…Read more
-
447The Error In 'The Error In The Error Theory'Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (3): 519-534. 2011.In his paper ?The Error in the Error Theory?[this journal, 2008], Stephen Finlay attempts to show that the moral error theorist has not only failed to prove his case, but that the error theory is in fact false. This paper rebuts Finlay's arguments, criticizes his positive theory, and clarifies the error-theoretic position