Expressivism Generalised (EχGen)

The Scope of Non-Descriptive Thought and Talk

Moral expressivism is the view that moral language and thought are not descriptive. Thinking that murder is morally wrong is not to have a belief that represents a fact of some sort, but to have a practical attitude towards murder (e.g. to disapprove of it); to say "murder is wrong" is to express that attitude. Recently, the debate about expressivism has taken a new turn. A number of philosophers have argued that expressivism can be extended to other domains, covering a large part of everyday thinking and communication. This includes statements about probability, epistemic modality, epistemic justification, knowledge, modality, logic, meaning, and truth. Others have argued that moral expressivism is untenable since the arguments for it generalize to non-moral domains where expressivism is implausible. Against this background, the present project will study the distinction between descriptive and non-descriptive domains of thought and communication through a systematic and comprehensive examination of extensions of expressivism to non-moral domains. We will critically assess recent research on this issue, with the aim of contributing to the understanding of (a) the different distinct domains of thought and communication, (b) the features that make an expressivist analysis apt or not apt in a given domain, (c) the merits of expressivism compared to competing views, (d) the relevance of extensions of expressivism to moral expressivism, and (e) the expressivist framework itself .

Head of the project: Folke Tersman (Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University).

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Hartrey Field Workshop and Conference 2014

May 30-31, 2014
Poster and programme