How to Be an Ethical Expressivist

Abstract

Expressivism promises an illuminating account of the nature of normative judgment. But worries about the details of expressivist semantics have led many to doubt whether expressivism's putative advantages can be secured. Drawing on insights from linguistic semantics and decision theory, I develop a novel framework for implementing an expressivist semantics that I call ordering expressivism. I argue that by systematically interpreting the orderings that figure in analyses of normative terms in terms of the basic practical attitude of conditional weak preference, the expressivist can explain the semantic properties of normative sentences in terms of the logical properties of that attitude. Expressivism's problems with capturing the logical relations among normative sentences can be reduced to the familiar, more tractable problem of explaining certain coherence constraints on preferences. Particular attention is given to the interpretation of wide-scope negation. The proposed solution is also extended to other types of embedded contexts-most notably, disjunctions.

Advice for Noncognitivists

“…The point is also observed by Heim () and Stalnaker (), and more recently by Silk (). It is compatible with the claim that the relevant attitudes are sometimes sensitive to features of an information state that arguably resist an adequate characterization as an attitude toward possible worlds, for instance to credences (as discussed by Cariani () and Yalcin (), among others), though capturing such sensitivities would require a more complex model of an agent's state of mind.…”

“…To be clear, the claim here is not that every explanation of inconsistency between noncognitive states of mind must be an A ‐type explanation. Building on Dreier's () account, Silk () suggests that there is an alternative to this strategy that also avoids appealing to stipulated inconsistencies between primitive, logically unrelated attitudes ( B ‐type inconsistencies). On his proposal, accepting that stealing is wrong and that stealing is not wrong involve incoherent preferences, where such preferences are non‐representational features of a state of mind.…”

“…There is a sense in which these attitudes clash, but the sentences used to express them are not semantically inconsistent (though an utterance of 'Grass is green and I do not believe that grass is green' is pragmatically marked). 6 An alternative strategy is pursued by Silk (2015) and Starr (2016), who (while parting ways at crucial moments of detail) explain disagreement between conative states in terms of preferential incoherence rather than in terms of inconsistency of their contents. Part of the exercise pursued here is to demonstrate that this moveirrespective of its virtues or vicesis strictly optional for those with noncognitivist sympathies.…”

“…An alternative strategy is pursued by Silk () and Starr (), who (while parting ways at crucial moments of detail) explain disagreement between conative states in terms of preferential incoherence rather than in terms of inconsistency of their contents. Part of the exercise pursued here is to demonstrate that this move – irrespective of its virtues or vices – is strictly optional for those with noncognitivist sympathies.…”

The Generalized Integration Challenge in Metaethics

“…Thus, on Yalcin's approach, semantics and metasemantics prescind from any claims about the substantive contents words express or communicate. Some normative expressivists have recently argued that they can accept the same formal compositional semantics as realists: so formal semantics and narrow metasemantics are strictly neutral about whether a subject's use of ‘this is right’ attributes a specific property or expresses a non‐cognitive attitude toward a salient object (Ridge ; Chrisman ; Pérez Carballo ; Silk ).…”