scholarly journals What Makes Normative Concepts Normative

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Shawn Hernandez ◽  
N. G. Laskowski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Normative Concepts ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Normative Role ◽  
The Way

When asked which of our concepts are normative concepts, metaethicists would be quick to list such concepts as good, ought, and reason. When asked why such concepts belong on the list, metaethicists would be much slower to respond. Eklund (2017) is a notable exception. He argues by elimination for “the Normative Role view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of having a “normative role” or being “used normatively” (2017, p. 79). One view that Eklund aims to eliminate is “the Metaphysical view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of referring to normative properties (2017, p. 71).2 In addition to arguing that Eklund’s objection looks doubtful by its own lights, we argue that there are several plausible versions of the Metaphysical view that Eklund doesn’t eliminate, defending various claims about normative concepts and their relationships to deliberation, competence, reference, and possession along the way.

Normative Properties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Eklund
Keyword(s):  
Normative Concept ◽  
Normative Role ◽  
The Way

What is it for a property to be normative? Some possible answers are explored and rejected in this chapter, among them that a property is normative if it is ascribed by some normative concept. A positive claim defended is that a property is normative if and only if it is ascribed by some concept whose reference is determined by normative role. Along the way, the supposed connection between normativity and motivation is addressed. Theoretically important distinctions are drawn relating to the idea of normative role determining reference. Normative role can determine reference either fully or partially. Also, the possibility of reference magnetism complicates how one should think about some of these things.

Normative Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Eklund
Keyword(s):  
Positive Answer ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

What is it for a concept to be normative? Some possible answers are explored and rejected, among them that a concept is normative if it ascribes a normative property. The positive answer defended is that a concept is normative if it is in the right way associated with a normative use. Among issues discussed along the way are the nature of analyticity, and there being a notion of analyticity—what I call semantic analyticity—such that a statement can be analytic in this sense while failing to be true. Considerations regarding thick concepts and slurs are brought to bear on the issues that come up.

Epítetos e insultos de grupo en español: Sobre una ambigüedad y sus implicaciones sintáctico-semánticas

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-205
Author(s):  
Andrés Saab ◽  
Eleonora Orlando
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Structural Ambiguity ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Expressive Content ◽  
Conventional Implicatures ◽  
Expressive Dimension ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Proper Analysis ◽  
The Way

Abstract In this paper, we further elaborate on a syntactic ambiguity between slurs and epithets first noticed in Orlando, Eleonora & Andrés Saab. 2020b. A stereotype semantics for syntactically ambiguous slurs. Analytic Philosophy 61(2). 101–129. Here, we discuss in detail the large theoretical implications of such an ambiguity both for the proper analysis of binominal constructions in Spanish (e.g., el idiota de Juan) and for the way in which it is advisable to model the expressive content slurs and certain epithets (those deriving from slurs) have. As for the first aspect, we contend that mainstream approaches in terms of predicate inversion for binominal constructions cannot account for why slurs lose their predicative import when occurring as epithets in binominal environments. In consequence, we propose a new analysis for epithets both in simple occurrences and in binominal constructions. This analysis derives the above-mentioned ambiguity as a type of structural ambiguity, according to which certain slurs can occur in predicative and in non-predicative positions. When they occur as predicates, they have a mixed semantics (McCready, Eric. 2010. Varieties of conventional implicatures. Semantics & Pragmatics 3. 1–57) reflected both in the truth-conditional and the expressive dimensions, but when they occur as epithets, the truth-conditional dimension is lost and only the expressive content survives. As for the second aspect, we defend a stereotype semantics, according to which stereotypes are modeled as Kratzerian modal bases (i.e., set of propositions) in virtue of which stigmatizing theories of human groups are reflected in a parallel, expressive dimension of meaning. This way of modeling some kinds of expressive contents explains how different slurs and epithets manage to communicate different theories about particular human groups, which are the target of derogation.

Evaluation Turned on Itself

2021 ◽  
pp. 207-232
Author(s):  
Tristram McPherson ◽  
David Plunkett
Keyword(s):  
Normative Concept ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The Way

This chapter clarifies and addresses a deep challenge to the conceptual ethics of normativity. The challenge arises from the fact that we need to use some of our own normative concepts in order to evaluate our normative concepts. This might seem objectionably circular, akin to trying to verify the accuracy of a ruler by checking it against itself. We dub this the vindicatory circularity challenge. If the challenge cannot be met, it would suggest that all normative inquiry (not just the conceptual ethics of normativity) rests on worryingly arbitrary foundations. We defend a way of answering the challenge that adapts anti-skeptical resources from epistemology. Along the way, we reject several alternative replies to the challenge. These include dismissing the challenge because it cannot be formulated with our concepts, answering it by appeal to a distinctive normative concept, and answers that appeal to certain metaphysical or metasemantic resources.

Doxastic Wrongs

Reasons First ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Tamar Gendler ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

Chapter 9 extends the arguments of Chapter 8 by defending the view that we can wrong each other in virtue of what we believe about one another, and arguing that this is best and most conservatively explained by Pragmatic Intellectualism. It is argued that cases from Rima Basu, Simon Keller, Sarah Stroud, Tamar Gendler, and Berislav Marušić all involve doxastic wrongs. Though there are two prominent objections to the idea that beliefs can wrong, it is shown that Pragmatic Intellectualism offers answers to each of these objections. And finally it is argued that we have independent grounds to think that the best cases of doxastic wrongs are also among the very best cases for pragmatic encroachment, because of the way that the wrongs they involve are stable over time.

Analyticity Reconsidered1

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian ◽  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Justification ◽  
Metaphysical Notion ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
The Way

This essay distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemological conceptions of analyticity. The former is the idea of a sentence that is ‘true purely in virtue of its meaning’ while the latter is the idea of a sentence that ‘can be justifiably believed merely on the basis of understanding its meaning’. It further argues that, while Quine may have been right to reject the metaphysical notion, the epistemological notion can be defended from his critique and put to work explaining a priori justification. Along the way, a number of further distinctions relevant to the theory of analyticity and the theory of apriority are made and their significance is explained.

Spinoza’s Symptomatic Theory of Emotions

2019 ◽  
pp. 10-27
Author(s):  
Youpa Andrew
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Qualitative Character ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter shows that Spinoza believes that an episode of emotion represents a change in the power of the subject’s body in the way that a symptom represents that of which it is symptomatic. On the reading here defended, some emotions symptomatically represent increases in the power of the subject’s body. Others symptomatically represent decreases in power. Regardless of whether it is symptomatic of an increase or a decrease, an episode of an emotion qua mental item is symptomatic of the state of the power of acting of the subject’s body, and an emotion serves as a symptom in virtue of its qualitative character. It represents a change in power by virtue of the way it feels to experience an emotion. While an episode of the qualitative character of joy signals an increase in the body’s power, an episode of the qualitative character of sadness signals a decrease in its power.

Basic Perceptual Reasons

Reasons First ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 51-76
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Epistemology Of Perception

Chapter 3 takes up the first obstacle to the idea that reasons come first among normative concepts in epistemology: the problem of unjustified belief. It does so by introducing the issues that arise in the epistemology of perception when we ask what reason or evidence you acquire for ordinary conclusions about the external world in virtue of having perceptual experiences. The resulting space of possible answers is explored, including the natural ways in which it leads to skepticism, rationalism, coherentism, dogmatism, pure externalism, and disjunctivism. These views are contrasted with answers that allow reasons to be false, and by doing so avoid all of the distinctive commitments of each of these alternatives.

scholarly journals Eliminating Prudential Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Worsnip
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter argues, contrary to the consensus of most contemporary Western ethics, that there are no (distinctively, fundamentally) prudential reasons for action. That is to say: there is no class of reasons for action that is distinctively and fundamentally about the promotion of the agent’s own well-being. Considerations to do with the agent’s well-being can supply the agent with reasons only in virtue of her well-being mattering morally or in virtue of her caring about her own well-being. In both of these cases, the way that such prudential considerations supply reasons for action is a way that the well-being of others can supply reasons for action too.

scholarly journals Consciousness and Knowledge

2020 ◽  
pp. 585-609
Author(s):  
Berit "Brit" Brogaard ◽  
Elijah Chudnoff
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Cognitive Penetration ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Core Theme ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

This chapter focuses on the relationship between consciousness and knowledge, and in particular on the role perceptual consciousness might play in justifying beliefs about the external world. A version of phenomenal dogmatism is outlined according to which perceptual experiences immediately, prima facie justify certain select parts of their content, and do so in virtue of their having a distinctive phenomenology with respect to those contents. Along the way various issues are considered in connection with this core theme, including the possibility of immediate justification, the dispute between representational and relational views of perception, the epistemic significance of cognitive penetration, the question of whether perceptual experiences are composed of more basic sensations and seemings, and questions about the existence and epistemic significance of high-level content. A concluding section briefly considers how some of the topics pursued here might generalize beyond perception.

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