Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T13:01:30.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two nondescriptivist views of normative and evaluative statements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Matthew Chrisman*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

Abstract

The dominant route to nondescriptivist views of normative and evaluative language is through the expressivist idea that normative terms have distinctive expressive roles in conveying our attitudes. This paper explores an alternative route based on two ideas. First, a core normative term ‘ought’ is a modal operator; and second, modal operators play a distinctive nonrepresentational role in generating meanings for the statements in which they figure. I argue that this provides for an attractive alternative to expressivist forms of nondescriptivism about normative language. In the final section of the paper, I explore ways it might be extended to evaluative language.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ayer, A. J. 1936. Language, Truth and Logic. London: V. Gollancz.Google Scholar
Blome-Tillman, Michael. 2009. “Non-Cognitivism and the Grammar of Morality.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103(1): 279309. 10.1111/pash.2009.109.issue-1pt3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2011. “Ethical Expressivism.” In Continuum Companion to Ethics, edited by Miller, Christian, 2954. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2012. “‘Ought’ and Control.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90(3): 433451. 10.1080/00048402.2011.611151CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2012. “On the Meaning of ‘Ought’.” In Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 7, edited by Shafer-Landau, Russ, 304332. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2015. Deontic Modals. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2016a. “Metanormative Theory and the Meaning of Deontic Modals.” In Deontic Modality, edited by Charlow, Nate and Chrisman, Matthew, 395430. New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198717928.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2016b. The Meaning of ‘Ought’: Beyond Descriptivism and Expressivism in Metaethics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2017. “Conceptual Role Accounts of Meaning in Metaethics.” In The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, edited by McPherson, Tristram and Plunkett, David, 260274. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreier, James. 1996. “Expressivist Embeddings and Minimalist Truth.” Philosophical Studies 83(1): 2951. 10.1007/BF00372434CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, Gottlieb. (1879) 1967. “Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens (Halle a. S.: Louis Nebert).” [Concept Script, a formal language of pure thought modelled upon that of arithmetic.] In From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, translated by Bauer-Mengelberg, S., edited by van Heijenoort, J., 18791931. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Geach, P. T. 1956. “Good and Evil.” Analysis 17: 3342. 10.1093/analys/17.2.33CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, R. M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene, and Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. Semantics in Generative Grammar. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Humberstone, I. L. 1971. “Two Sorts of ‘Ought’s.” Analysis 32(1): 811. 10.1093/analys/32.1.8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1787) 1998. Critique of Pure Reason (translated and edited by Guyer, Paul & Wood, Allen W. ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511804649Google Scholar
Kennedy, Christopher. 2007. “Vagueness and Grammar: The Semantics of Relative and Absolute Gradable Adjectives.” Linguistics and Philosophy 30: 145. 10.1007/s10988-006-9008-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Köhler, Sebastian. forthcoming. Expressivism, Meaning, and All That. Canadian Journal of Philosophy.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1981. “The Notional Category of Modality.” In Words, Worlds, and Contexts, edited by Eikmeyer, Hans and Reiser, Hannes, 3874. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E. 1903. Principia Ethica. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Plunkett, David, and Sundell, Tim. 2013. “Disagreement and the Semantics of Normative and Evaluative Terms.” Philosophers’ Imprint 13(23): 137.Google Scholar
Portner, Paul. 2009. Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ridge, Michael. 2014. Impassioned Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199682669.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, Mark. 2008. “How Expressivists Can and Should Solve Their Problem with Negation.” Noûs 42(4): 573599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, M. 2011. “Ought, Agents, and Actions.” Philosophical Review 120(1): 141. 10.1215/00318108-2010-017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silk, Alex. 2015. “How to Be an Ethical Expressivist.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91(1): 4781. 10.1111/phpr.2015.91.issue-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, Neil. 2009. “Recent Work in Expressivism.” Analysis 69(1): 136147. 10.1093/analys/ann020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 2008. Normativity. Chicago, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Unwin, Nicholas. 1999. “Quasi-Realism, Negation And the Frege-Geach Problem.” The Philosophical Quarterly 49: 337352. 10.1111/phiq.1999.49.issue-196CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Fintel, Kai, and Heim, Irene. 2007. Intensional Semantics. Unpublished Lecture Notes, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar