Finally an atheist proper, with views and questions

[Lucian]

So for me the strong form of error theory is what I currently hold to whereby a) moral talk makes claims about mind-indendent normative properties, b) no such properties exist, therefore c) all moral claims are in error. I don't think that necessitates abolitionism whereby we aim to jettison all moral talk at the minimum, and all moral thinking at the most. I think that moral thinking has been hugely helpful in the development of societies, so would favour a more conservationism approach.. I am currently working through the book "The End of Morality: Taking Moral Abolitionism Seriously". It lays out a number of different views to the "what now" question that are fun to tackle with

Re. your arson and gift giving question. Denying that moral properties as described above exist doesn't mean that I don't have strong views one way or the other. I believe arson isn't morally bad, but that doesn't entail that it means I think it is morally good or acceptable either (not suggesting you were saying that, but felt it needed saying). I have the same emotional reaction to people being injured, or property of people being damaged as the next man, and for me that suffices for me to criticise, prevent, punish etc. It would damage people and society if we let that happen, and I happen to not want such damage to society or people to occur.

IDK.  On the one hand, a moral realist might tell you that the properties that make arson...arson..are the same properties that make it bad, and it would be hard to sell the notion that the burning building was mind-dependent.  Then, on another hand - most metaethical theories don't require or claim that normative properties are mind-independent at all, so even if we were willing to say that normative properties were all mind dependent that fails to address quite a bit of the moral field.  Subjective, relative, and even noncognitivst moral theories can't be in error on account of there being no mind-independent normative properties.

Your emotional reactions are emotivist, your societal justifications are relativist, your wants are subjectivist.    

I understand where you are coming from. The arguments above are very much for non-natural moral realism, however I think there are also good arguments against natural and natural reductionistic views as well, and the works I am reading do address those.
The error theory is kind of a semantic claim that depends on whether the premise that people are making assertions rather than emotional reactions / expressions of intent etc. I think that that can't be proved regarding everyone, Lance Bush has good stuff on this looking at empircal studies on folk metaethical views https://www.lanceindependent.com/p/the-f...lacy-parts and sees the data as not determinative of one position or another. non-cognitivist views can be in error, if the claim is that moral claims are not in fact making assertions about the world. I like what Joyce has to say re. Mackie and Hume's views on projectivism. Our moral assertions start as affective reactions against something, that are projected onto the thing that caused them and subsequently objectified as a moral property of that thing, and then more abstractly as a moral property.
re. relativism and subjectivism, I see relativism and subjectivism as still making claims about moral properties, and therefore realist in a sense, just not globally applied. So as claims, these can indeed still be in error. Now my justifications for actions and preferences are not moral claims, they are just claims about how I want the world to be and therefore can be somewhat expressionistic, they key is that I don't see these as moral claims

Sounds like you're nerding out, good stuff.  Considering the above, it looks to me like you're crafting a narrow and open argument against moral realism, but could only mount a semantic argument with respect to noncognitivism, subjectivism, and relativism?  As in, moral realists are actually in error - the others  are poor communicators if or when they express such moral properties as though they were realist ones?

I do need to do a lot more thinking about non-cognitivism. I think that there is a mix of non-cognitivist and cognitivist views depending on the person being spoken to, or the situation involved. Error theory is therefore my preferred default at the moment, but recognising that I would need to accept expressivist views as accurate in others. So, trying to not sit too heavily in just one camp

For anyone interested in free stuff on this, Richard Joyce has a website with loads of his papers https://www.richard-joyce.com/online-papers, and also