What Normative Terms Mean and Why It Matters for Ethical Theory.

Philosophy of Language;Metaethics;Ethics;Normative Language;Modals;Conditionals;Philosophy;Humanities;Philosophy

Silk, AlexSwanson, Eric Peter ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Philosophy of Language;    Metaethics;    Ethics;    Normative Language;    Modals;    Conditionals;    Philosophy;    Humanities;    Philosophy;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/97949/asilk_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation investigates how philosophy of language, ethics, and metaethics can mutually inform one another.Chapter 1 develops what I call condition semantics for normative language. I argue that, just as ordinary factual sentences distinguish among possible worlds (or test whether a possible world meets a certain condition), so do normative sentences distinguish among normative standards (or test whether a normative standard meets a certain condition). Normative sentences place conditions on normative standards, conditions those standards must satisfy in order for them to be characterized by those sentences. The framework of condition semantics offers a perspicuous way of posing classic ethical and metaethical questions — e.g., concerning expressivism, cognitivism, relativism, realism, and judgment internalism. This can encourage clearer, better motivated answers and suggest new ways the dialectic may proceed.Chapter 2 develops an account of the distinction between weak necessity modals (;;ought’, ;;should’) and strong necessity modals (;;must’, ;;have to’). I argue that what makes weak necessity modals ;;weak” is that they express a kind of conditional necessity, necessity on the supposition that the ;;applicability conditions” of certain premises are satisfied. The resulting analysis generalizes across readings of modals, elucidates a special role that ;;ought’ claims play in conversation, and captures a wide range of seemingly disparate linguistic phenomena. Greater sensitivity to differences among necessity modals can also improve theorizing on broader philosophical issues. I consider three: moral dilemmas, supererogation, and judgment internalism.It is common in ethics to distinguish what we objectively ought to do from what we subjectively ought to do — i.e., what we ought to do given all the facts about the world, known and unknown, from what we ought to do given our evidence, limited as it invariably is. But at first glance it appears that the standard analysis for modals from Angelika Kratzer implicitly assumes that we always ought to do what we objectively ought to do. I argue in Chapter 3 that, contrary to the standard semantics, relative deontic value between possibilities sometimes depends on which possibilities are live. I then develop an ordering semantics for modals and conditionals that captures this point.