The Problem with the ‘Now What’ Problem

Abstract It has long been assumed that the moral error theory faces a ‘Now What’ problem. The error theory says that all moral judgments are false, and the ‘Now What’ problem asks what we should do with our moral thought, talk, and practices in light of this conclusion. Whilst those in the debate often assume that solving the ‘Now What’ problem is an important burden for error theorists to overcome, the aim in this paper is to undermine this assumption. I do so in two steps. I first argue that the ‘Now What’ problem is best understood as a practical problem about what individual error theorists should do, rejecting an alternate framing of the problem which is found in the literature. I then argue that this problem is of little general interest, and respond to the claim that the plausibility of the error theory itself is in some way connected to the ‘Now What’ debate. Whilst the error theory does face many challenges, if my arguments are correct then the ‘Now What’ problem is not one of them.