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Disagreement lost and found
Finlay, Stephen
Finlay, Stephen
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Abstract
According to contextualist and other content-relativist views in metaethics, different speakers use the same moral and normative sentences to say different things. These views face a classic problem of Lost Disagreement, which they attempt to solve by identifying pragmatic, non-content-based kinds of disagreement. This chapter critically compares two broad strategies of this kind, (1) quasi-expressivist views that analyze disagreement over whether S ought to do A in terms of conflicting attitudes towards S doing A, and (2) metalinguistic views that analyze such disagreement in terms of conflicting attitudes towards how to talk about S’s doing A. While the main objection to quasi-expressivist views (concerning the felicity of semantic negation markers like “wrong,” “incorrect,” and “false”) fails, objections to metalinguistic views are argued to be decisive. Content-relativists should be quasi-expressivists about fundamental normative disagreement.
Keywords
moral disagreement, normative disagreement, contextualism, relativism, quasi-expressivism, metalinguistic, pragmatics
Date
2017
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
Oxford Studies in Metaethics; Volume 12
Volume
Issue
Page Range
187-205
Article Number
ACU Department
Dianoia Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Open Access Status
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Controlled