Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-nptnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-06T08:23:08.462Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neo-pragmatism, morality, and the specification problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Joshua Gert
Joshua Gert*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA
*
Email: jngert@wm.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A defender of any view of moral language must explain how people with different moral views can be be talking to each other, rather than past each other. For expressivists this problem drastically constrains the search for the specific attitude expressed by, say, ‘immoral’. But cognitivists face a similar difficulty; they need to find a specific meaning for ‘immoral’ that underwrites genuine disagreement while accommodating the fact that different speakers have very different criteria for the use of that term. This paper explains how neo-pragmatism deals with this issue while avoiding problems that arise with existing expressivist and cognitivist solutions.

Keywords

Neo-pragmatismmoralityexpressivismcognitivismmetaethicsdisagreement
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 3-4: Special issue: Representation and Evaluation , 2018 , pp. 447 - 467
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

Björnsson, Gunnar, and McPherson, Tristram. 2014. “Moral Attitudes for Non-Cognitivists: Solving the Specification Problem.” Mind 123: 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. 1991a. “Just Causes.” Philosophical Studies 61: 3–42. 10.1007/BF00385831CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. 1991b. “Reply to Sturgeon.” Philosophical Studies 61: 39–42.Google Scholar
Gert, Joshua. 2002. “Expressivism and Language Learning.” Ethics 112: 292–314. 10.1086/324236CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horgan, Terence, and Timmons, Mark. 1991. “New-Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin Earth.” In Rationality, Morality, and Self-Interest, edited by Heil, J., 115–133. Lanman, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kelly, Daniel. 2011. Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Huw. 1988. Facts and the Function of Truth. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Price, Huw. 2003. “Truth as Convenient Friction.” Journal of Philosophy 100: 167–190. 10.5840/jphil200310048CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Huw. 2008. “The Semantic Foundations of Metaphysics.” In Minds, Ethics, and Conditionals: Essays in Honour of Frank Jackson, edited by Ravenscroft, I., 111–140. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Mark. 2008. Being For: Evaluating the Semantic Program of Expressivism. New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199534654.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeter, Laura. 2012. “Bootstrapping Our Way to Samesaying.” Synthese 189: 177–197. 10.1007/s11229-012-0099-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeter, Laura, and Schroeter, François. 2014. “Normative Concepts: A Connectedness Model.” Philosopher's Imprint 14: 1–26.Google Scholar
Sepielli, Andrew, 2016, “Moral Realism Without Moral Metaphysics, ” Oxford Studies in Metaethics 11: 265–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas. 1991. “Contents and Causes.” Philosophical Studies 61: 19–37.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar