Chang, Chung-Hung; (2002) Expressivism and the use of moral language. Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The most stubborn challenge moral expressivism has faced so far is how to explain the propositional surface of moral language, a challenge, illustrated by the so-called Frege-Geach problem, about our linguistic behaviour of treating moral judgments as propositions, which regarded by the expressivist as belonging to different category from moral judgments. The purpose of this dissertation is to see how the two most prominent expressivists in recent years, Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard set out to explain the surface. I shall first present the core doctrines of expressivism, demonstrating the problem, in order to see what is in issue. After that I turn to Blackburn's quasi-realism, arguing that he fails to devise a logic of attitudes required by his theory and his quasi-realism cannot be done without damaging expressivism he wants to defend. Next, I tum to Gibbard's norm-expressivism, arguing that his theory can at best be seen as a version of normative fictionalism, which is not expressivism at all. I then conclude that both of Blackburn's and Gibbard's attempt come out as a failure. Their failing, I suggest, indicates the difficulties of what I label expressivism-rooted and expressivism-targeted approach of expressivism I finally examine an approach proposed by Horwich who argues that his minimalist theory of tmth can help expressivism. The conclusion I come to is exactly opposite to what Horwich has claimed. The final upshot of this dissertation is that we do not so far have any expressivistic theory capable of doing justice to the propositional surface of moral language, nor do we have any clear idea how the job can be done.

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