Fictionalism

If you were convinced that error theory was correct—that current ethical discourse is too infected with error to be successfully making true claims about reality—you would be faced with a practical issue: what to do from now on where ethics is concerned. Our everyday lives are filled with situations in which we are asked to render judgments about the rightness of some way of acting, about the moral status of some policy, or about the morally appropriate response to various difficult decisions. Sometimes it is our situation that poses such questions. We see someone being humiliated and have to decide whether we should speak up. At other times, it is other people, our friends, employers, coworkers, or strangers in a cab who pose the questions. In the first sort of case, we may be able to act without rendering a verdict about how we should act. In the latter, there is at least some social pressure to say something. We could proclaim our current skepticism about all moral notions and make clear we think the question ill-formed, or that the only answer is that nothing is right or just or morally required. Or we could go on as though morality was all in order and give an answer as though we have no doubts. That is, we could pretend to accept morality and continue to make moral evaluations, all while not really believing what we say and seem to affirm. Perhaps we could pretend even to ourselves, acting and deliberating as if moral judgments were sometimes true, despite our reservations. It might be easier than the alternatives.