The Meaning of 'Ought' : Beyond Descriptivism and Expressivism in Metaethics Hardback
by Matthew (Reader in Philosophy, Reader in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh) Chrisman
Part of the Oxford Moral Theory series
Hardback
Description
The word 'ought' is one of the core normative terms, but it is also a modal word.
In this book Matthew Chrisman develops a careful account of the semantics of 'ought' as a modal operator, and uses this to motivate a novel inferentialist account of why ought-sentences have the meaning that they have.
This is a metanormative account that agrees with traditional descriptivist theories in metaethics that specifying the truth-conditions of normative sentences is a central part of the explanation of their meaning.
But Chrisman argues that this leaves important metasemantic questions about what it is in virtue of which ought-sentences have the meanings that they have unanswered.
His appeal to inferentialism aims to provide a viable anti-descriptivist but also anti-expressivist answer to these questions.
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:280 pages
- Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
- Publication Date:05/11/2015
- Category:
- ISBN:9780199363001
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:280 pages
- Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
- Publication Date:05/11/2015
- Category:
- ISBN:9780199363001
