The Metaethics of Theism: Why Theists Should Be Expressivists

Abstract

Most traditional theists accept the following two controversial metaethical views: Cognitivism: Moral judgements are belief-like states that represent moral properties. Realism: There are moral properties. This thesis argues that theists can and should reject these controversial metaethical views in favour of their metaethical counterparts: Non-Cognitivism: Moral judgements are not belief-like states that represent moral properties. They are desire-like states that motivate us to act or otherwise respond. Anti-Realism: There are no moral properties. The reasons that theists have for rejecting cognitivism and realism and accepting non-cognitivism and anti-realism are distinctly theistic, or so I argue. This thesis can be divided into two parts. The first part argues that theists should reject realism and accept anti-realism. Chapter 2 argues that theists are committed to the claim that if there are moral properties, then these properties are immediately explained by God. Chapters 3 and 4 then divide moral properties into two classes, the deontic (being obligatory, being permissible, being wrong) and the axiological (being good, being bad, being neutral), and argue that these classes of moral properties are not immediately explained by God. The conclusion of the first part of this thesis is thus that theists are committed to anti-realism, at least with respect to deontic and axiological moral properties. The second part of this thesis then considers the kind of anti-realism that theists should accept. They can either accept cognitivist anti-realism (what I call ‘moral error theory’) or non-cognitivist anti-realism (what I call ‘expressivism’). Chapter 5 argues that theists should reject moral error theory, while chapter 6 argues that theists should accept expressivism. The conclusion of the second part of this thesis, and the thesis as a whole, is thus that theists should accept expressivism or non-cognitivist anti-realism.

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ORCID for Alexander Gregory: orcid.org/0000-0003-2747-003X

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