The Myth of Morality
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loginInThe Myth of Morality, Richard Joyce argues that moral discourseis hopelessly flawed. At the heart of ordinary moral judgments is anotion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, uponinvestigation, cannot be reasonably defended. Joyce argues that nat-ural selection is to blame, in that it has provided us with a tendencyto invest the world with values that it does not contain, and demandsthat it does not make. Should we therefore doawaywith morality, aswe did awaywith other faulty notions such as phlogiston or witches?Possibly not. We may be able to carry on with morality as a “usefulfiction” – allowing it to have a regulative influence on our lives anddecisions, perhaps even playing a central role – while not commit-ting ourselves to believing or asserting falsehoods, and thus not beingsubject to accusations of “error.
