THE “NEGATION PROBLEM” FOR METAETHICAL ERROR THEORY

Abstract

This paper investigates an objection often raised against metaethical error theory. The challenge runs as follows. Metaethical error theory says that all substantive ethical sentences are false. But if a sentence p is false, then given a standard semantics for “not,” ¬p must be true, and vice versa. On the face of it, one can’t hold that p and ¬p are both false. After presenting a more refined version of the challenge (in the form of a set of initially plausible and yet jointly inconsistent principles), the paper examines a common way out of the puzzle, finds it unsatisfactory, and offers some alternative escape routes that, it is submitted, fare better than the standard one.