Online research in philosophy

Reviews work on moral judgment motivational internalism from the last two decades.

What is it for a speech act to be sincere? The most common answer amongst philosophers is that a speech act is sincere if and only if the speaker is in the state of mind that the speech act functions to express. However, a number of philosophers have advanced counterexamples purporting to demonstrate that having the expressed state of mind is neither necessary nor sufficient for speaking sincerely. One may nevertheless doubt whether these considerations refute the orthodox conception. Instead, it (...) may be argued, they expose other ways of elucidating sincerity in speech. “Sincerity in speech” is ambivalent between a number of different conceptions. Against this background this paper presents two alternative conceptions, viz., Sincerity as Spontaneity and Sincerity as Presenting Oneself as one takes Oneself to be and develops a third conception which we may call Sincerity as a Communicative Virtue. This conception emphasizes the speaker’s intention in communicating her attitudes and the need to be properly justified in saying what one does. (shrink)

This paper examines some aspects of Mitchell Green’s account of self-expression. I argue that Green fails to address the distinction between success and evidential notions of expression properly, which prevents him from adequately discussing the relation between these notions. I then consider Green’s explanation of how a speech act shows what is within, i.e., because of the liabilities one incurs and argue that this is false. Rather, the norms governing speech acts and liabilities incurred give us reason to think that (...) the speaker is in a particular state of mind. It thus supports an evidential rather than success notion. Finally, I suggest that it is because of the sincerity of what is said, rather than the liabilities incurred, that you show what is within. (shrink)

The Frege‐Geach problem is probably the most serious worry for the prospects of any kind of metaethical expressivism. In a recent article, Ridge suggests that a new version of expressivism, a view he calls ecumenical expressivism, can avoid the Frege‐Geach problem.1 In contrast to pure expressivism, ecumenical expressivism is the view that moral utterances function to express not only desire‐like states of mind but also beliefs with propositional content. Whereas pure expressivists’ solutions to the Frege‐Geach problem usually have rested on (...) some kind of “logic of attitudes,” Ridge argues that it is the expressed belief in the ecumenical machinery that holds the key. Although Ridge’s ecumenical expressivism is promising, this essay argues that his solution is flawed. However, this does not mean that every form of ecumenical expressivism is a failure. Ridge briefly contrasts his view with the kind of view Hare advanced but argues that Hare cannot make use of the ecumenical machinery.2 I argue that this is incorrect. Not only is an ecumenical reading of Hare very plausible and something that establishes him as an important forerunner of today’s ecumenical trend in metaethics, but, more important, it offers guidance where Ridge goes wrong. It solves the Frege‐Geach problem in a way that meets the criticism of more standard solutions head‐on, and it seems to be able to handle the most pressing problems for ecumenical theories. The ecumenical theory that emerges is therefore powerful enough to establish itself as one of the most (if not the most) plausible form of ecumenism on the market. The first part of this article is largely concerned with advancing an ecumenical reading of Hare’s The Language of Morals and the kind of solution it offers in response to the Frege‐Geach problem. Some of the problems such a reading encounters will be addressed as we outline the theory. The most serious worries, however, are addressed in the final part of the essay. (shrink)

It is part of our everyday experience that there is a reliable connection between moral opinions and motivation. Thinking that an act is right (wrong) tends to be accompanied by motivation to (avoid to) perform the act in question. This is mirrored in moral talk. We tend to think that someone who says that he thinks that it is right (wrong) to act in a certain way without being motivated, to some extent, will most likely be speaking insincerely. Moveover, moral (...) utterances have a dynamic function to exhort and guide conduct. This suggests that moral utterances involve a kind of attitudinal expressiveness that makes them very different from prosaically factual utterances. These commonsensical features of our moral practice represent the practicality of moral thought and talk. The main purpose of this essay is to investigate how the practicality of moral thought and talk is best represented and whether it supports either a cognitivist or noncognitivist analysis of moral judgments. I argue that sophisticated versions of internalism and externalism, the main competing explanations of the connection between moral judgments and motivation, represent the reliable connection equally good and that the relevant kind of attitudinal expression can be accomodated by both cognitivists and noncognitivists. The upshot is that considerations based on the practicality of moral thought and talk does not cut much philosophical ice. Hence, the rivalry between cognitivists and noncognitivists analyses must be settled beyond considerations based on practicality. Maybe the belief-like features of moral thought and talk can tilt things in favor of cognitivism. However, noncognitivists have different ways of accommodating the belief-like features. In fact, in the wake of different accommodation projects one wonders what remains of the traditional debate between cognitivist and noncognitivist analyses, a debate that shaped metaethics as we know it. (shrink)