Expressivism and Irrationality

Bibliographic Data

ID10696300
AuthorsMark Van Roojen (0000-0003-2822-3153, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume105
Issue3
Pages311
Publication date1996-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2185703
OpenAlexW2315667894
LanguageEN
Citations received31

Noncognitive analyses of evaluative discourse characterize moral discourse as primarily functioning to express attitudes that are not, strictly speaking, representational in the way that ordinary beliefs are representational. But, since expressivists must explain our practices of making evaluative judgments as we do, they owe us an explanation of the logical relations between these evaluative judgments and other judgments. For it is part of our ordinary evaluative practices to make inferences based upon and leading to evaluative judgments. The most thorny problem for this project has been to explain the logical relations between evaluative judgments and other judgments best expressed using evaluative terms in unasserted contexts, such as clauses embedded in conditionals. Because one may use evaluative terms in such unasserted contexts without expressing the attitudes usually associated with them in asserted contexts, it becomes hard to explain why there should be logical relations between the judgments expressed. The noncognitivist who has given this problem the most sustained attention over the years is Simon Blackburn,' and recently he has been joined by Allan Gibbard.2

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · Expressivism · General interest · Irrationality · Rationality · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment