Failures of Stability

Reality and Morality ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198858256.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 53-86

Author(s):

Billy Dunaway

Keyword(s):

Substantive Theory ◽

Moral Language ◽

Moral Rightness ◽

Twin Earth ◽

Moral Twin Earth

This chapter argues against the Universal Disagreement thesis. Some possible communities use moral language, but do not have substantive disagreements with others who use their moral language differently. These are cases where the parties both use their terms with a moral role, but instead of differing over which substantive theory they follow when applying their moral terms (as in the original Moral Twin Earth cases), they differ in which additional roles they use these terms with. This is consistent with intuitions about Moral Twin Earth cases, but shows that they can lead to overgeneralizations about the semantic effects of a moral role. Instead, what needs to be explained by a meta-semantics for moral language is a more limited claim. Realists will have to show that moral terms are highly stable, but that it is possible to use a term such as ‘right’ with a moral role without referring to moral rightness.

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Disagreement, Semantics, and Meta-Semantics

Reality and Morality ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198858256.003.0002 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 14-52

Author(s):

Billy Dunaway

Keyword(s):

Thought Experiments ◽

Moral Language ◽

Twin Earth ◽

Moral Twin Earth

Moral Twin Earth thought experiments appear to show that practical language is highly stable, and that many possible users of practical language are capable of having genuine disagreements with each other. This chapter clarifies a tempting generalization of this idea, which is that the members of every pair of possible users of moral language are capable of having a genuine disagreement. This is the Universal Disagreement thesis. It then shows how this thesis can be adapted to a contextualist semantics for ‘ought’ and other practical terms. It concludes by arguing that, for the realist, the central explanatory target is a claim about the stability of practical language.

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Return to Moral Twin Earth

Canadian Journal of Philosophy ◽

10.1080/00455091.2002.10716518 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 207-240 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

David Merli

Keyword(s):

Moral Disagreement ◽

Moral Language ◽

Half Century ◽

Crucial Element ◽

Simple Observation ◽

Twin Earth ◽

Normative Language ◽

Descriptive Account ◽

Evaluative Meaning ◽

Moral Twin Earth

Roughly a half-century ago, R.M. Hare gave us a potent argument against attempts to account for the meaning of moral language in non-normative or ‘descriptive’ terms. The argument relies on the idea that in order to have genuine moral disagreement, we have to be talking about the same thing. Real disagreement requires agreement in meaning: if the words we use in our disputes mean different things, then we're just talking past, and not to, one another. Using this simple observation, Hare argues that if the meaning of an evaluative word such as ‘good’ were primarily descriptive, then groups with sufficiently different standards for applying ‘good’ wouldn't be able to enter into a real evaluative disagreement. But these disagreements are possible. Hence, he concluded, it's the evaluative meaning of ‘good’ that's primary — and any descriptive account is bound to fail because it doesn't capture the crucial element of endorsement that's central to normative language.

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Presentationalism

10.1093/oso/9780198717829.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Matti Eklund

Keyword(s):

Twin Earth ◽

Moral Twin Earth

This chapter explores the view—“presentationalism”—that normative sentences and propositions are mind-independently true, but what they represent is not normative. There are no normative properties or facts. This view, whatever in the end its fate, combines attractive features of realism and antirealism. The view is curiously absent from prominent accounts of the theoretical options. The possibility of a view like this problematizes important arguments in the literature, for example certain arguments for non-naturalism, and shows that one must be careful to distinguish between normative facts and normative truths. Toward the end of the chapter, I consider whether the Moral Twin Earth arguments present problems for the view.

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