1 Some Concerns about Richard Joyce’s Morality François Jaquet This is a pre-proof version. Please cite the published version: Jaquet, F (2025). Some concerns about Richard Joyce’s Morality, The Internatio- nal Journal for the Study of Skepticism. Abstract In Morality: From Error to Fiction, Richard Joyce builds a case against the existence of moral facts that consists of three independent arguments. In my assessment, these arguments are unpersuasive. The argument from naturalism presupposes that the world contains only physical facts. I present several reasons to reject such a restriction. The argument from unreliability rests on the claim that moral intuitions are untrustworthy and thus cannot justify moral beliefs. Joyce’s reasons to that effect do not hold up to critical scrutiny. The argument from responsibility states that moral facts do not exist because they necessitate moral responsibility, which is nowhere to be found. I question both premises, arguing that some moral facts do not necessitate moral responsibility and that some form of moral responsibility exists. Overall, while Joyce’s arguments are not entirely bad, I think they are not good enough to make a powerful case for error theory. Keywords Moral error theory; moral non-naturalism; metaphysical naturalism; ethical intuitionism; moral responsibility. 1. Introduction Richard Joyce’s first book, The Myth of Morality (2001), converted me to moral error theory. I am grateful for this because I was a non-cognitivist when I started reading it. Turning into an error theorist was already an improvement. In the meantime, however, I have come to embrace non- naturalism. So, I started reading Joyce’s third book, Morality: From Error to Fiction, with some apprehension. Would it make me fall back into my old ways? Despite its many virtues, it didn’t. Morality contains two parts. Part I defends moral error theory—the view that all moral propositions are false. Part II assumes this theory to defend moral fictionalism—the view that we should adopt a fictional stance vis-à- vis moral propositions. Being one of the few proponents of fictionalism (assuming moral error theory), I find myself in broad agreement there. I will therefore focus my comments on Joyce’s defense of error theory. And, in so doing, I will help myself to this shared assumption: moral judgments are assertions that aim to describe non-natural moral facts. The issue under discussion, then, will be whether there are such facts. Some moral judgments will be true if and only if that is the case.