Over the years, metaethicists have witnessed the rise of a cottage industry devoted to claiming that expressivist analyses cannot capture some allegedly important feature of moral language. In this paper, I show how Simon Blackburn's pragmatist method enables him to respond decisively to many of these objections. In doing so, I hope to call into question some prevailing assumptions about the linguistic phenomena that a metaethical theory should be expected to capture.

To be a proposition is to possess propositional properties and to stand in inferential relations. This is the organic intuition, [OI], concerning propositional recognition. [OI] is not a circular characterization as long as those properties and relations that signal the presence of propositions are independently identified. My take on propositions does not depart from the standard approach widely accepted among philosophers of language. Propositions are truth-bearers, the arguments of truth-functions (‘not’, ‘or’, ‘and’, ‘if’), the arguments of propositional-attitude verbs (‘know’, ‘believe’, (...) ‘doubt’, ‘assume’, ‘reject’) and the kind of entity capable of standing in inferential relations (which are basically implication and incompatibility). The aim of this paper is to argue for [OI]. In doing so, I will show that even what is probably the most repeated argument against non-descriptivism, the so-called Frege-Geach Argument (FGA), presupposes something like [OI], a presupposition that Geach shares with his critics. Despite the huge success of FGA, a thorough analysis of the actual scope of this argument has yet to be given. I will provide such an analysis in section 3 below. In this paper, I argue that [OI] is a meta-theoretical principle which is neutral with respect to specific metaphysical debates about the nature of propositions, as well as specific proposals about the semantics of declarative sentences. (shrink)

Quasi-realist expressivists set themselves the task of developing a metaethical theory that at once captures what they call the “realist-sounding” elements of ordinary moral thought and discourse but is also distinctively antirealist. Its critics have long suspected that the position cannot have what it wants. In this essay, I develop this suspicion. I do so by distinguishing two paradigmatic versions of the view—what I call Thin and Thick expressivism respectively. I contend that there is a metaethical datum regarding our epistemic (...) achievements in the moral domain that presents challenges for each variety of expressivism. Thin expressivism opts not to accommodate and explain this datum but I contend that its rationale for not doing so rests on a suspect methodology. Thick expressivism looks as if it must accommodate and explain this datum but I argue that it is poorly situated to do so. I conclude that we have reason to believe that paradigmatic expressivism cannot have all that it wants. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Imagine you’re teaching someone how to play chess. You might start by saying ‘White must move first’, where the word ‘must’ is used to convey a rule. You would.

Epistemic expressivism is the application of a nexus of ideas, which is prominent in ethical theory (more specifically, metaethics), to parallel issues in epistemological theory (more specifically, metaepistemology). Here, in order to help those new to the debate come to grips with epistemic expressivism and recent discussions of it, I first briefly present this nexus of ideas as it occurs in ethical expressivism. Then, I explain why and how some philosophers have sought to extend it to a version of epistemic (...) expressivism. Finally, I consider a number of objections and replies with the aim of giving the reader the tools needed to begin to evaluate the promise and prospects of epistemic expressivism. (shrink)

This paper presents a comparative evaluation of constructivist and error theoretic accounts of moral claims. It is argued that constructivism has distinct advantages over error theory.

L’objectif de cette article est de comprendre la neutralité axiologique non pas comme une exigence épistémologique, mais plutôt comme un idéal éducationnel. Max Weber propose une science basée sur la description factuelle, de laquelle on exclut la formulation de jugements de valeur. Or, il faut démontrer pourquoi il est préférable de séparer les jugements descriptifs des jugements évaluatifs. L’objectif de Weber est de préserver l'autonomie intellectuelle des étudiants. Pour Weber, la classe et l'académie en général sont des lieux politiques. Ces (...) rapports au sein de la classe sont nécessaires pour transmettre des connaissances, des méthodes et le goût de l'autonomie intellectuelle. Or, il serait contraire au principe d'autonomie de laisser le professeur influencer et convaincre ses étudiants, de façon partisane, d'adhérer à certaines thèses normatives. Weber propose ainsi un mécanisme pour éviter que le professeur n'ixnfluence ses étudiants de manière illégitime. (shrink)