Guo Xiang’s metaethics

Abstract

This paper contributes to the emerging field of comparative metaethics by placing the thought of the Neo-Daoist, Guo Xiang 郭象, within the taxonomy of contemporary metaethics in order to offer two novel views: nonassertive moral abolitionism and reactionary moral fictionalism. These views help answer the ‘now what?’ question that arises for moral error theorists after they come to believe that all moral judgments are false. The views also assist in the understanding of Guo’s attempt to combine Daoism and Confucianism through his synthesis of ziran 自然 and mingjiao 名教, spontaneity and morality. The paper defends the claims that Guo was a proto-error theorist and used a distinct criterion to answer the ‘now what?’ question. With this criterion, Guo recommends morality’s quiet abolition along with the reservation of occasionally implementing a passive and reactive pretense performance of moral speech-acts when socially required.