In the first categorization scheme, I’m also not exactly sure what nihilism is referring to. Do you know? Is it just referring to Error Theory (and maybe incoherentism)?
Yes, Huemer writes: “Nihilism (a.k.a. ‘the error theory’) holds that evaluative statements are generally false.”
Usually non-cognitivism would fall within nihilism, no?
I’m not sure how the term “nihilism” is typically used in philosophical writing, but if we take nihilism=error theory then it looks like non-cognitivism wouldn’t fall within nihilism (just like non-cognitivism doesn’t fall within error theory in your flowchart).
I actually don’t think either of these diagrams place Nihilism correctly.
For the first diagram, Huemer writes “if we say ‘good’ purports to refer to a property, some things have that property, and the property does not depend on observers, then we have moral realism.” So for Huemer, nihilism fails the middle condition, so is classified as anti-realist. For the second diagram, see the quote below about dualism vs monism.
I’m not super well acquainted with the monism/dualism distinction, but in the common conception don’t they both generally assume that morality is real, at least in some semi-robust sense?
Huemer writes:
Here, dualism is the idea that there are two fundamentally different kinds of facts (or properties) in the world: evaluative facts (properties) and non-evaluative facts (properties). Only the intuitionists embrace this.
Everyone else is a monist: they say there is only one fundamental kind of fact in the world, and it is the non-evaluative kind; there aren’t any value facts over and above the other facts. This implies that either there are no value facts at all (eliminativism), or value facts are entirely explicable in terms of non-evaluative facts (reductionism).
Yes, Huemer writes: “Nihilism (a.k.a. ‘the error theory’) holds that evaluative statements are generally false.”
I’m not sure how the term “nihilism” is typically used in philosophical writing, but if we take nihilism=error theory then it looks like non-cognitivism wouldn’t fall within nihilism (just like non-cognitivism doesn’t fall within error theory in your flowchart).
For the first diagram, Huemer writes “if we say ‘good’ purports to refer to a property, some things have that property, and the property does not depend on observers, then we have moral realism.” So for Huemer, nihilism fails the middle condition, so is classified as anti-realist. For the second diagram, see the quote below about dualism vs monism.
Huemer writes: