Should Expressivism Be a Theory at the Level of Metasemantics?

Abstract

Michael Ridge argues that metaethical expressivism can avoid its most worrisome problems by going ‘Ecumenical’. Ridge emphasizes that he aims to develop expressivism at the level of metasemantics rather than at the level of (first‐order) semantics. This is supposed to allow him to avoid a mentalist semantics of attitudes and instead offer an orthodox, truth‐conditional or propositional semantics. However, I argue that Ridge's theory remains committed to mentalist semantics, and that his move to go metasemantic doesn't bring any clear advantages to the debate between expressivism and its opponents.

The real and the quasi-real: problems of distinction

“…11.There has recently been a flurry of interest in the idea that expressivism is a meta-semantic theory rather than a semantic theory; I cannot address that issue here, but I suspect the matter is more complicated. See Alwood (2016), Perez Carballo (2014), Ridge (2014), Ridge (2015), for some examples.…”

Quasi-Naturalism and the Problem of Alternative Normative Concepts

“…Ridge uses the label metasemantic expressivism for this view, because it helps explain why normative claims have the context-sensitive semantic contents that they do, butFinlay (2014) andAlwood (2016) have argued that we are still dealing here with expressivism as a theory in first-order semantics. Nothing in the present paper hinges on this taxonomical issue.20 This is compatible with holding that etiquette claims pragmatically convey that the speaker has certain desirelike attitudes concerning the relevant standards, at least in typical circumstances.…”