Moral nihilists are all asserting that (in one way or another)-- no moral judgment can be true. A non-cognitivist claims that moral judgments aren't beliefs. If that's the case--well-- then the matter is settled. Nihilism is true.
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It's possible that emotion can enter into some people's moral judgments. (And, in practice, this happens a lot). But a moral realist doesn't regard emotion-based moral judgments as valid. If we're going to do genuine ethics, we need to be completely logical from start to finish. If someone is using emotion to come to conclusions about ethics, that's not good philosophy.
That summarizes the nihilists.
Here would be my speculation. If we roll the clock back to the point of our pre-verbal ancestors, it seems reasonable to envision the expression of human behavior in that “state of nature” to be very similar to other apes, or even mammals in general. Interactions among group members would be governed by instinct and emotion. Such a state of near pure instinct/emotion would seem to correspond with what you have described above representing the position of the non-cognitivist nihilists. Your flow chart on whether moral judgements are beliefs shows several flavors of Non-cognitivism and it is not entirely clear to me whether one or all of those flavors attribute moral judgements to emotion/instinct. Be that as it may, do human beings still exist in that pre-verbal state of nature in terms of moral judgements? I would say no.
What has changed? I would next speculate that once we developed the abstraction of language, instinct/emotion could be translated into abstract thought, into a formal cognitive form. It would be the formal cognitive form that would be used by the individual in thought and communication about individual and group behavior (proto-ethics?). So however long ago this occurred, those early efforts of cognitively formalizing ethical feelings would correlate to the existing social conditions at the time. As language began to develop in complexity, each subsequent generation did not start this process of translating emotions/instincts into a formal cognitive form in a sterile environment, with a clean slate. Previous generations had already taken their crack at cognitively formalizing moral feelings, and these would get passed along and incorporated into the developing moral sense of the next generation in my view. Once those instincts/emotions were codified into abstract thought, those emotions/instincts morphed into belief that could then be shared and passed down, persisting beyond any one individual. As society evolved, so too did the shared ethical system of beliefs in order to meet the demands of the changing social conditions.
Where does all that leave us today? We are no longer “in a state of nature”. We have moved beyond that and operate within a cognitive social framework that contains beliefs we categorize as moral/ethical. Are we free of instinct/emotion? I would say no. It would be my further speculation that it still exerts its influence at the individual level in terms of how the applicable ethical system is internalized and interpreted by individuals. In this way, moral/ethical systems are both non-cognitive and cognitive. So to sum up, these systems were born out of non-cognition, morphed into cognitive form, and are still under non-cognitive influence.
So, as I continue to speculate, if moral and ethical systems now represent beliefs, the next question seems to be, “Can they be true?”. Here I would say that it depends. Are we talking objectively true or analytically true? If the question applies to a man-made ethical or moral system in its entirety, as a Domain if you will, then my speculative answer would be that it is complicated and I discuss a potential objective source for morals below. From a simplistic overarching nihilistic position, cosmos has no purpose etc, the answer on those grounds would be no. If, on the other hand, we are to evaluate a particular moral claim *within* a particular ethical Domain, then I would say yes, in that case, a belief can be judged as true or false, right or wrong, etc. by the standards set by that Domain. In this case, the moral claim would be evaluated against the analytic moral facts of the applicable moral system.
Given all my speculation above, let me see how it might apply to your “flowchart of fun”.
First question, “Do moral judgements express belief?” - Despite the origins of moral judgements in pure emotion/instinct, I think we must conclude that they express beliefs today. Again, as in the nature vs nurture debate, I think the reality is more complex than to view moral judgements as pure non-cognitive emotion vs pure cognitive belief. The reality is that emotion/instinct will always play a role in the expression of any moral belief system within a group or society.
If we say yes to the first question, that gets us to “Are those beliefs sometimes true?” Here it matters whether we are differentiating between objective truth or analytic truth at this point. If we are talking objective truth, I see some argument for the objective role of instinct in moral beliefs, but instinct can be suppressed or overridden to varying degrees. From the cosmological nihilist position the answer is probably no and that would get us to Error Theory on the chart. If we can consider both analytic and objective truths, we would say yes on the basis of analytic truth, which leads to the next question. Based on the remainder of the chart, I’m assuming “truth” here refers to either objective or analytic truth.
“Are those beliefs about facts that are constituted by something other than human opinion?” Here, I see another conundrum. My view above has moral facts constituted by both emotion/instinct and human opinion. It is not one or the other but both. Now, if we interpret the sentence to mean constituted by something other than “pure opinion” or “solely opinion”, that would provide an opportunity to continue. Otherwise we end here at “Judgment-Dependents theories”.
I think, in our modern society, cognitive opinion holds a stronger sway over bare emotion/instinct overall. I think it is a viable notion to consider moral analytic facts as true so long as there is sufficient buy-in within the group. This would make moral systems a political product, which I think fits in with what we observe today.
“Are those facts natural facts?” Here I would say yes if we have moved past the previous question. Emotions/instincts constitute natural facts and therefore brings us to the next question,
“Are there surface-level analytic connections between moral predicates and naturalistic predicates?” This seems to relate to my concept of formal cognitive forms. In other words, one can map (to a degree) analytic moral predicates to naturalistic emotional/instinctual predicates. Now, we have to appreciate the complexity of modern societies and how far we have evolved from the point of emergent language. The mapping isn’t clear cut, and one-to-one, but I think this relates back to my assertion that emotion/instinct still plays a role. An analytic moral claim would not be adopted as a belief if it clashed with an individual's emotional/instinctual makeup. So now, given my caveats, that would give me a yes here and results with me ending at Analytic Moral Functionalism.
If my speculations are accurate and emotion/instinct are foundational for any moral system and play a continuing role in the acceptance of moral beliefs and interpretation of moral claims, where does that leave us in terms of moral nihilism and the subjective/objective nature of moral claims? I think we both agree that emotional states and instincts are objective phenomena. I think we might also agree that, although they are objective phenomena, their expression varies by individual for complex reasons, and on the individual level, such expression would seem purely subjective. I do think, however, that as with other biological systems, such as in the senses, there seem to be predictable ranges of expression when controlling for variables. Does this mean we might consider the instinctual expression of a group as a whole becoming more of an objective phenomenon and less subjective? Perhaps. Natural instinct then, would provide an objective source for shared generalized moral attitudes separate from opinion or cognitive belief alone. Can moral attitudes be considered to be true or false in relation to generalized instinctual programming? Is this sufficient to defeat moral nihilism? I think since we have evolved socially well beyond our natural instinctual programing, we simply have to accept the complex hybrid system we have evolved into. We should not necessarily feel compelled or restricted to conform to instinct, but at the same time, for any moral system to function, it cannot so conflict with instinctual sensibility such that it would never be followed. Given humanity’s current level of awareness, this puts humanity well within the driver's seat in terms of moving beyond instinct and developing well-reasoned analytic ethical systems that meet the high complexity of modern societies. Moral facts might no longer be considered facts, as such, rather, they might be considered to be moral agreements. This, then, would be the role of the ethicist professional, in my opinion, to devise ethical systems compatible with our instinctual nature yet designed for the complex modern society, meeting to the greatest extent practicable, the needs of societal members and the overall health and wellbeing of society as a whole.
Where might all this fall on your moral realism, relativism, nihilism philosophical scale? Or is it something outside of that scale?
