Richard Joyce

For centuries, certain moral philosophers have maintained that morality is an illusion, comparable to talking of ghosts or unicorns. These moral skeptics claim that the world simply doesn’t contain the sort of properties (such as moral badness, moral obligation, etc.) necessary to render moral statements true. Even seemingly obvious moral claims, such as "killing innocents is morally wrong" fail to be true. What would lead someone to adopt such a radical viewpoint? Are the arguments in its favor defensible or plausible? What impact would embracing such a view have on one’s practical life? 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 views, some of whom are opposed. Rather than treating moral skepticism as something to dismiss as quickly as possible, this anthology is a comprehensive exploration of the topic, and as such will be a valuable resource for students of moral philosophy at all levels, as well as professionals in the field of meta-ethics. A World Without Values presents state-of-the-art arguments that advance the ongoing philosophical debate on several fronts, and will enjoy an important place on any meta-ethicist’s bookshelf for some years to come.

Suppose that the human tendency to think of certain actions and omissions as morally required – a notion that surely lies at the heart of moral discourse – is a trait that has been naturally selected for. Many have thought that from this premise we can justify or vindicate moral concepts. I argue that this is mistaken, and defend Michael Ruse's view that the more plausible implication is an error theory – the idea that morality is an illusion foisted upon us by evolution. The naturalistic fallacy is a red herring in this debate, since there is really nothing that counts as a 'fallacy' at all. If morality is an illusion, it appears to follow that we should, upon discovering this, abolish moral discourse on pain of irrationality. I argue that this conclusion is too hasty, and that we may be able usefully to employ a moral discourse, warts and all, without believing in it.

This paper investigates the origins of human moral judgment, focusing on whether it is a biological adaptation and the implications for ethical inquiry. It contrasts moral nativism, which treats moral judgment as an evolved adaptation, with spandrel theory, which views it as a byproduct of other cognitive and affective mechanisms. I emphasize the difficulty of empirically distinguishing adaptations from byproducts, noting that speculation about ancestral selective pressures is unavoidable. Comparing human moral capacities with nonhuman primates, I argue that while affective mechanisms such as empathy and reciprocity form the “building blocks” of morality, fully-fledged moral judgment requires cognitive capacities, including beliefs about obligation, desert, and transgression. The paper proposes that the human brain may be predisposed to normative cognition, though moral content is learned and culturally variable. Finally, I consider the metaethical implications of this view, highlighting that moral beliefs (unlike most other evolved traits) can be evaluated for truth and justification.

This introduction presents a general characterization of fictionalism as a type of theory that proposes to remove problematic ontological commitment from a discourse via modeling it in some respect on familiar fictional engagement (e.g., reading novels, acting, etc.). The focus is on two well-known types of fictionalism: moral fictionalism and religious fictionalism. A fictionalist of the hermeneutic variety claims that the target discourse (in this case, morality or religion) is already sufficiently similar to familiar fictional talk that the offending ontological commitments are in fact only apparent. A revolutionary fictionalist, by contrast, claims that the extant discourse really is in error, but offers fictionalism as an alteration that could be made to thought and speech so as to remove these errors. This introduction discusses the hermeneutic and revolutionary fictionalist projects in turn, outlining challenges for each and identifying some common misunderstandings. The thirteen chapters of this collection are then summarized sequentially.

The moral error theorist maintains that our ordinary use of moral discourse involves ontological commitments that the world fails to satisfy. What, then, should we do with our broken moral discourse? The revolutionary fictionalist recommends maintaining it but removing the problematic ontological commitment, in a manner modeled on our familiar engagements with fictions. The hermeneutic fictionalist, by contrast, claims that this is already how we use moral discourse. One problem for the revolutionary fictionalist is that there is a multitude of possible moral fictions, so why prefer one to another? One problem for the hermeneutic fictionalist is that it really doesn’t feel as if moral discourse resembles an engagement with fiction. Reflection on the nature of the familiar “mini-fictions” of metaphorical language—whereby we say something false as a way of conveying something true—helps solve both these problems in the moral fictionalist’s favor.

Genealogical investigation suggests that there is an evolutionary explanation of the human capacity to form moral beliefs which is entirely consistent with the systematic falsehoods of those beliefs. But what is the epistemological significance of this discovery? This chapter argues for a modest answer to this question: that it places a burden of proof on those who wish to maintain that some moral beliefs are justified to provide a positive believable account of how moral facts could explain the mechanisms and forces that give rise to such beliefs. Further, such an account cannot simply presuppose that moral facts help explain moral beliefs, as epistemological conservatism seems to do. In the process, it is argued that evolutionary debunking arguments need not assume realism and that the epistemological doubts they raise are not best expressed in terms of the modal notions of sensitivity and safety.

This is the introduction (of approximately 2,500 words) to Richard Joyce’s collected papers titled “Essays in Moral Skepticism” (OUP, 2016). The blurb of that book is as follows: Moral skepticism is the denial that there is any such thing as moral knowledge. Since the publication of "The Myth of Morality" in 2001, Richard Joyce has explored the terrain of moral skepticism and has been willing to advocate versions of this radical view. Joyce's attitude toward morality is analogous to an atheist's attitude toward religion: he claims that in making moral judgments speakers attempt to state truths but that the world isn't furnished with the properties and relations necessary to render such judgments true. Moral thinking probably emerged as a human adaptation, but one whose usefulness derived from its capacity to bolster social cohesion rather than its ability to track truths about the world. "Essays in Moral Skepticism" gathers together a dozen of Joyce's most significant papers from the last decade, following the developments in his ideas, presenting responses to critics, and charting his exploration of the complex landscape of modern moral skepticism.

This article examines the consequences of Darwinian moral nativism for moral truth, theory, and justification. Moral nativism holds that humans possess an evolved moral faculty that promoted social cohesion, but it does not ensure that moral judgments track objective truths. I distinguish three forms of evolutionary debunking. Truth debunking challenges the existence of objective moral facts, as in Ruse’s claim that the perception of objectivity is an adaptive illusion. Theory debunking, exemplified by Street, targets moral realist theories while leaving constructivist accounts intact. Justification debunking, advocated by Joyce, questions the epistemic warrant of moral beliefs, arguing that faculties not designed to track moral truth undermine justification. This article emphasizes that evolutionary findings do not definitively refute morality but rather shift the burden of proof to moralists, who must defend the reliability and justification of moral judgments.

This article explores moral nativism and its implications for moral philosophy. Moral nativism ranges from the claim that humans possess an innate capacity for moral judgment to the view that specific moral concepts or biases are biologically prewired. Evolutionary accounts suggest that moral thinking evolved to promote cooperation, signal trustworthiness, or simplify complex deliberation. Evidence includes early developmental emergence, cross-cultural universality, and poverty-of-the-stimulus effects, though alternative explanations, such as by-products of other cognitive faculties, remain plausible. Philosophically, evolutionary insights yield two contrasting trajectories. Vindication approaches emphasize the adaptive or functional value of morality, but struggle to provide genuine action-guiding normativity. Debunking approaches, such as those advocated by Ruse and Street, exploit moral nativism to challenge the truth, objectivity, or justification of moral judgments.

Joyce investigates human moral thinking as both an empirical and metaethical puzzle. Empirically, humans uniquely evaluate actions, people, and events morally—a capacity absent in other intelligent social species. He distinguishes moral thinking as either an adaptation shaped by natural selection or as a byproduct of other evolved cognitive traits, emphasizing that current evidence cannot decisively favor either account. Both approaches converge on the view that moral cognition promotes social cohesion and cooperation, highlighting its functional significance irrespective of truth. Moving to metaethics, Joyce explores the implications for moral skepticism. He argues that evolutionary explanations of moral thinking can be endorsed by moral error theorists, suggesting that our moral beliefs may lack epistemic justification. Examining reliabilism, coherentism, intuitionism, and conservatism, he shows how genealogical considerations challenge the epistemic status of moral beliefs across these frameworks.

This paper explores the landscape of moral skepticism by delineating three principal forms. First, noncognitivism denies that moral judgments express beliefs at all, rejecting their status as propositions. Second, error theory accepts that moral judgments are truth-apt but contends they are uniformly false. Third, justification skepticism allows moral beliefs may be true but holds that agents are never epistemically justified in believing them. These positions are systematically clarified and contrasted.

This paper critically evaluates whether pervasive moral disagreements support a skeptical view of morality. I first examine Mackie’s classic argument that widespread variation in moral beliefs implies the absence of objective moral facts—but counter that such disagreement could stem from social conditioning rather than evidence of moral falsehood or nonexistence. I then discuss the possibility that widespread variation in moral beliefs shows that we lack epistemic justification for our moral judgments.

The "companions in guilt argument" (CGA), challenges moral error theory by drawing parallels between moral and epistemic normativity. It argues that if one is going to be an error theorist about moral normativity, then one will also have to be an error theorist about epistemic normativity, which would be absurd. I contend that this analogy is flawed and the argument fails. First I argue that at best the CGA undermines arguments in favor of error theory, but doesn’t show that the view is false; then I argue that the CGA doesn’t even succeed in undermining arguments for error theory. There are many disanalogies between moral and epistemic normativity—such as the connection of morality to voluntarism and desert—all of which undermine the force of the CGA.