Is Moral Nihilism a Morality?

[SenseMaker007]

The normative statement here is that error theorists and noncognitivists should not or ought not, or can't x -presumably, because if they did, they would not be error theorists or noncognitivists correctly.

The statement doesn't say that they should or ought not to do X. It doesn't say that they would be in error normatively. It just says that the position is logically incorrect and logically incoherent. There's no normative statement there at all.

Unless normatives must must be expressed by or derived from coherent positions then the coherence of the position has no relationship to whether or not normatives can be expressed by it or derived from it.

Normatives can still exist regardless of what metaethical position somebody holds, whether cognitivist or noncognitivist, coherent or incoherent. I am not claiming that normatives can't exist at the same time as somebody holding an incoherent position. I'm saying that an incoherent position can't coherently express something normative and therefore can't express something normative because an incoherent expression isn't expressing/communicating anything.

That which we should and/or shouldn't do is the definition of a normative function.

That doesn't answer the question.

We may have normative function without being able to express it. And we can't express it without coherently expressing it. So my question was how an incoherent position can express anything normative. I didn't say that we can't have it without having a coheren position... I said that an incoherent position doesn't express anything normative. Incoherent positions and incoherent statements don't express or communicate things.

It provides you with the background.  I'm not the first or only person to notice that nihilism can provide normative functions.

What do you mean when you say that nihilism can provide a normative function?

I'm not saying that morality can't objectively be real regardless of whether you hold a coherent position on the matter or not. I'm not saying that nihilism can't be moral or immoral. I'm not saying that nihilism can't be normatively correct or incorrect. I'm saying that from the metaethical point of view of moral nihilism nothing is being normatively expressed.

If an error theorist is compelled by their position to deny the truth of the moral statement "x deserves y for z" - they have stated that x does not deserve y for z. 

You don't understand at all. Saying "X deserves Y for Z" is already a normative position, rather than a metaethical one. So obviously a normative position is already normative, that doesn't explain anything.

The metaethical position of "moral statements have no meaning" and the metaethical position of "moral statements are false" doesn't imply that anybody ought to do, ought to avoid doing, deserves or doesn't deserve, anything. That's the point. Those statements don't express anything normative. If I say "Morality is meaningless" my position may itself be meaningless, but then that certainly doesn't mean that I am expressing something normative because if it did mean that then I wouldn't be saying that morality was meaningless, because I'd be giving normative meaning to it. Incoherent positions can't say anything ... it takes coherent meaning to say something meaningful. There's no such thing as incoherent meaning.