Moral expressivism and sentential negation
Philosophical Studies 152 (3):385-411 (2011)
Abstract
This paper advances three necessary conditions on a successful account of sentential negation. First, the ability to explain the constancy of sentential meaning across negated and unnegated contexts (the Fregean Condition). Second, the ability to explain why sentences and their negations are inconsistent, and inconsistent in virtue of the meaning of negation (the Semantic Condition). Third, the ability of the account to generalize regardless of the topic of the negated sentence (the Generality Condition). The paper discusses three accounts of negation available to moral expressivists. The first—the dominant commitment account—fails to meet the Fregean Condition. The two remaining accounts—commitment semantics and the expression account—satisfy all three conditions. A recent argument that the dominant commitment account is the only option available to expressivists is considered and rejected.
Keywords
Categories
(categorize this paper)
PhilPapers/Archive ID
SINMEA
Upload history
Added to PP index
2009-12-02
Total views
698 ( #6,491 of 57,045 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
12 ( #45,041 of 57,045 )
2009-12-02
Total views
698 ( #6,491 of 57,045 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
12 ( #45,041 of 57,045 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.