express beliefs are then systematically in error. For under Mackie's view, if there are to be moral properties, they must be objective and therefore not amenable to differences in subjective desires and preferences. Moreover any claims that these moral properties, if they did exist would need to be intrinsically motivating by being in some primitive relation to our consciousness. They must be able of guiding us morally just by the fact of being in some clear awareness of their truth. But this is not the case, and such ideas in his views are plainly queer. Other versions of the theory claim that moral assertions are not true because they are neither true nor false. This form of moral nihilism claims that moral beliefs and assertions presuppose the existence of moral facts that do not exist. Consider, for example, the claim that the present king of France is bald. Some argue that this claim is neither true nor false because it presupposes that there is currently a king of France, but there is not. The claim suffers from "presupposition failure". Richard Joyce argues for this form of moral nihilism under the name "fictionalism". The scope question Error theory is built on three principles: There are no moral features in this world; nothing is right or wrong. Therefore, no moral judgments are true. However, our sincere moral judgments try, but always fail, to describe the moral features of things. Thus, we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken. Hence the error. These three principles lead to the conclusion that there is no moral knowledge. Knowledge requires truth. If there is no moral truth, there can be no moral knowledge. Thus moral values are purely chimerical. Arguments for nihilism Argument from queerness The most prominent argument for nihilism is the argument from queerness. J. L. Mackie argues that there are no objective ethical values, by arguing that they would be queer (strange):If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. For all those who also find such entities queer (prima facie implausible), there is reason to doubt the existence of objective values. In his book Morality without