J.L. Mackie's Moral Error Theory

[brimstoneSalad]

Why is moral error theory not consistent with the way the world is, notwithstanding that it may be possible to form an objective moral system?

That's kind of the point... I made the analogy to atheism elsewhere.

You can be a explicit/strong atheist (believe assertively that a god does not exist, instead of an implicit/weak atheist who just lacks belief) to some definitions of god, but it doesn't necessarily make sense to to be so about others -- for instance, ancient-aliens style gods. It may be implausible and unlikely that aliens named Zeus, Thor, etc. came to Earth to interact with human beings, but as far as we know it's not impossible so the technically correct position would be agnosticism to those claims (a very skeptical agnosticism).

An error theorist is making a strong claim that absolutely 100% of moral claims are in error and have no truth value.

Put another way, our brains function in particular ways due to their evolutionary heritage - they are not objective interpreters of the world. Most likely, they form views of the world that best suit our functional needs.

That's just slippery slope style subjectivism. Then you have to say everything is subjective and all fact claims are in error because nothing is true. It's nonsense and not a productive way to think.

While moral claims might tend to be inconsistent with respect to time and place (moral relativism), it doesn't seem to me to be impossible to devise a moral system that remains true across all cultures (ie is objectively true insofar as the dispositions of humans go?) yet doesn't represent any true state of the (objective) world.

Facts of human physiology and biochemical cognition are true states of the objective world. I don't know what you're getting at.
Objective/subjective distinction itself is complicated and often misunderstood. Read this: wiki/index.php/Objective-subjective_distinction

After all, colours do not objectively exist, and yet we can presume that colours are a universally and objectively consistent representational mode of behaviour across the world.

Colors do objectively exist, they're defined as certain wavelength ranges of light, not just perception. If somebody sees two different colors as the same (as in some forms of color blindness) it would be incorrect to say they are the same, because they have objective factual qualities.
See this thread for an absurdly long argument on the issue (starting about at this post): viewtopic.php?p=44749#p44749

[Kaz1983]

I always break it into "harder" moral nihilists and "softer" moral nihilists. I see myself as a "softer" moral error theorists.

So in more emotionally attached (in the moment) type situations - I talk in what's right and wrong.

That kind of just sounds like being inconsistent, or letting your feelings lead you to say things you believe to be untrue or nonsense for purposes of rhetoric.

You can't be vegan and (like harder nihilist's) reject all moral language and discourse. You just can't.

Why not?

Plenty of people are vegan and don't like the idea of eating animals but don't believe in morality per se.
There's a lot of "I'm personally uncomfortable with it due to my empathy for animals so I don't do it"
Of course, they also have to say the same thing to explain why they don't murder people, or appeal to the consequences of going to jail.
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See I believe it's like the hard determinists who will say that everything is determined but will still say "I'll choose the coke over the coffee"

No, because even if you choose something that doesn't contradict determinism. You can choose coke over coffee because you don't like coffee because of any number of reasons having to do with your genetic taste ability and your upbringing. "I chose this because..." is not inconsistent.

and the same can apply to error theory - fictionalisim holds that moral language and discourse should still be used day-to-day but when in un-emotional and un-attached situations - we should believe that moral discourse and moral language are both uniformly false.

That's just a rationalization for intellectual dishonesty. Most people do not take those words to mean those things, so you're conveying something you don't believe. "Choice" carries no denotation or connotation of being completely free of deterministic factors of mind, or even free of material consequence. A will is not necessarily free, and that has been understood since antiquity.

I completely agree, "hard" moral nihilism is somewhere between nuts and dishonest.

Hard nihilism is nuts, but it's probably more honest than ad hoc rationalizations like fictionalism.

For me it's just that there are no objective values and anyways imo if you believe morality is subjective..

There's no objective math if you believe numbers are subjective. What's your point? *WHY* would you believe numbers are subjective in the first place?

In order for error theory to be true, there would have to be NO POSSIBLE way to form an objective moral system. Do you have a logical proof of that assertion? If not, why do you accept error theory on blind faith despite the cost to your intellectual honesty and/or ability to express yourself in moral terms like normal human beings? If so, please share it.

By analogy, atheists have an easy time of proving certain god concepts logically impossible or empirically improbable. All knowing all powerful omnipresent etc. indicates any number of logical contradictions, and there are clear empirical falsehoods to other assertions.
The response to a possible god should be agnosticism; the best way to argue for positive atheism is to clarify theism as a positive belief and make clear that atheism encompasses agnosticism too.

The same doesn't apply to conceptual frameworks. On what basis can you reject morality?

you have already started doubting things and slowly have become a moral sceptic about knowledge.

About all knowledge?
That tends to be how it is with subjectivists. They reject morality, then they reject all science and logic after that. Subjectivism is a slippery slope.
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