AG Heinzelmann, 04.07.2025 Assessing the Prudential Companions in Guilt Argument

The prudential companions in guilt argument contends that, if arguments for the moral error theory are sufficient to establish that there are no moral truths, then analogues of those arguments are sufficient to establish that there are no truths concerning what makes people's lives go better or worse for them (i.e., prudential error theory). In this paper I examine whether the prudential companions in guilt argument succeeds with respect to the most popular argument for the moral error theory in contemporary analytic philosophy: the argument from reasons. According to the argument from reasons, if there are moral truths there are reasons of type S, but no reasons of type S exist. I argue that whether a prudential analogue of the argument from reasons succeeds depends on which type of reasons is claimed to be the problematic commitment of moral truths. I conclude by considering the costs of embracing a prudential error theory.

Jesse Hambly is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Philosophy at Heidelberg University, specializing in metaethics and moral philosophy. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from the Australian National University in 2020. His research critically examines the metaphysical and epistemological foundations of normativity. Jesse Hambly's work has been published in leading journals such as The Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, and the Journal of the American Philosophical Association.