On Richard Joyce's Moral Fictionalism

Mackie,the proponent of the error theory,believes that moral judgment can express beliefs,and beliefs are true or false.On the basis of denying the existence of objective value,he gives two ways of proof:relativity proof and eccentricity proof,and draws a conclusion that we can not prove the existence of objective value,so moral judgment is a consistent and systematic error.So morality may just be what we invented to support Why reason has moral attributes,rather than what we found to be the existence of such attributes to determine our choice of action.Because Mackie's error theory is a non-realism based on cognitive theory,it acknowledges that moral judgment expresses beliefs and that moral judgment is true,and because there is no objective value,all moral judgments are systematic errors.For all kinds of problems in the field of morality,cognitivism,non-cognitivism,moral realism and moral non-realism respectively try to give their own answers in order to get a "true" answer.It is precisely because of their controversy that they have provided the theoretical background and space for the emergence of moral fictionalism.There are two strategies of moral fictionalism:revolutionary fictionalism and hermeneutic fictionalism.Richard Joyce systematically advocated and defended moral fictionalism in his 2001 monograph The Myth of Morality.Joyce first rejected non-cognitivism.He believed that moral judgment was about facts and had right and wrong assertions.Secondly,Joyce holds that morality contains "inescapability",that is,for any rational actor,no matter how conflicting his desires and interests are with his moral requirements,the actor must act in accordance with the moral requirements.So what "magical" facts in the world have such "magic"?In Joyce's opinion,there is no such "magical" fact in this world,because even in the ideal state of rational cognition,the desires,interests,life experiences and so on of different actors will not be the same,and there has been moral divergence from ancient times to present.Therefore,the universal and unconditional can enable all rational actors to act according to moral requirements.Reasons do not exist.In this way,all our moral judgments are consistent and systematic errors,because the strange fact that they depend on"inescapability" does not exist in the world at all.Therefore,the biggest problem facing Joyce's moral fictionalism is the lack of moral authority.If we understand it in the past,moral requirements have "inescapable" authority,and this authority is based on objective facts.But after accepting the moral error theory,we will find that this kind of "inescapable" strange fact does not exist in this natural world,so the moral authority also disappears.The moral fictionalism,however,suggests that we pretend that the original moral discourse is true and act on it.But in this case,how much authority is left to stick to moral rhetoric like the words in fictional works?How much binding does this moral talk have on people's behavior?It's possible that when people face immediate,short-term temptations of interest,they can immediately convince themselves that "it's okay,it's just like acting,just like the people we see in the novel."Thus immediately jump out to seek tangible benefits.In this regard,Joyce believes that the general decision to regard morality as a novel is not a continuous calculation over and over.The whole significance of moral fictionalism is that it is a strategy to avoid the inevitable mistakes of human beings in instrumental thinking.Therefore,in many other environments and situations,this strategy can bring a variety of benefits to our lives.