What Should Fictionalists Say About…?

Richard Joyce proposes an innovative form of moral fictionalism according to which the moral error theorist can willingly suspend her moral disbelief by distracting herself from the systematic error that, in reflective moments, she believes to afflict moral thought and discourse. In this paper, I as...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:Symposium on Richard Joyce’s Morality
Main Author: Ingram, Stephen (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: International journal for the study of skepticism
Year: 2025, Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Pages: 323-334
Further subjects:B Deception
B moral error theory
B Coping strategies
B fictionalism
B the paradox of happiness
B Richard Joyce
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Summary:Richard Joyce proposes an innovative form of moral fictionalism according to which the moral error theorist can willingly suspend her moral disbelief by distracting herself from the systematic error that, in reflective moments, she believes to afflict moral thought and discourse. In this paper, I ask three questions about the life of ‘distraction fictionalists’. Specifically, I ask what distraction fictionalists should say about (a) the use of self-distraction as a psychological coping strategy, (b) some limitations of the comparison that Joyce makes between his fictionalist response to moral error theory and our response to the paradox of happiness, and (c) certain commonly occurring situations in which transparency and the avoidance of deception are highly valued.
ISSN:2210-5700
Contains:Enthalten in: International journal for the study of skepticism
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10110