Values and Vampires: Why Moral Axiology Withstands the Argument From Queerness

Abstract The argument from queerness is one of the most important arguments for moral error theory. Moral error theory holds that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed or, more precisely, that all moral judgements are false. The argument from queerness, in the version I am concerned with, claims that moral discourse is centrally committed to the thesis that moral facts entail categorical reasons, understood as irreducibly normative favouring relations, and that if this thesis were true, moral facts would be queer. In this paper, I argue that axiology does not fall prey to the argument from queerness. Axiology is the part of moral discourse that examines which things are good, which things are bad, and what makes good things good and bad things bad. I argue that axiology survives the argument from queerness for three reasons. First, many axiological judgements are not committed to the thesis in question. Second, some judgements about moral value are committed to the thesis but do not belong to axiology. Third, some axiological judgements are committed to the thesis but can simply be removed from axiological discourse.