Department of Philosophy & Cognitive Science

I here propose a hitherto unnoticed possibility of solving embedding problems for noncognitivist expressivists in metaethics by appeal to Conceptual Role Semantics. I show that claims from the latter as to what constitutes various concepts can be used to define functions from states expressed by atomic sentences to states expressed by complex sentences, thereby allowing an expressivist semantics that satisfies a rather strict compositionality constraint (as well as a further, substantial explanatory constraint). The proposal can be coupled with several different types of concept individuation claim (e.g., normative or causal-functional), and is shown to pave the way to novel accounts for, e.g., negation.

The paper discusses what kind of truth bearer, or truth-ascription, a deflationist should take as primary. I first present number of arguments against a sententialist view. I then present a deflationary theory which takes propositions as primary, and try to show that it deals neatly with a wide range of linguistic data. Next, I consider both the view that there is no primary truth bearer, and the most common account of sentence truth given by deflationists who take propositions as primary, and argue that they both attribute an implausible type of ambiguity to " true ". This can be avoided, however, if truth-ascriptions to sentences are taken as a certain form of pragmatic ellipses. I end by showing how this hypothesis accommodates a number of intuitions involving truth-ascriptions to sentences.

I here argue for a particular formulation of truth-deflationism, namely, the propositionally quantified formula, (Q) " For all p, <p> is true iff p ". The main argument consists of an enumeration of the other (five) possible formulations and criticisms thereof. Notably, Horwich's Minimal Theory is found objectionable in that it cannot be accepted by finite beings. Other formulations err in not providing non-question-begging, sufficiently direct derivations of the T-schema instances. I end by defending (Q) against various objections. In particular, I argue that certain circularity charges rest on mistaken assumptions about logic that lead to Carroll's regress. I show how the propositional quantifier can be seen as on a par with first-order quantifiers and so equally acceptable to use. While the proposed parallelism between these quantifiers is controversial in general, deflationists have special reasons to affirm it. I further argue that the main three types of approach the truth-paradoxes are open to an adherent of (Q), and that the derivation of general facts about truth can be explained on its basis.

Most people would deny that there is something entirely composed of Alpha Centauri and my left thumb. We are more tolerant of composites whose parts are more " connected " , a prime example being molecules. And then there are the various " intermediate " candidates, perhaps the mereological sum of a pregnant woman and the foetus, or schools of fish—cases in which we are not sure whether " there are " such putative things. As we move along the succession of mereological sums from the very connected toward the very scattered, we are decreasingly prone to agree with the claim that there is a thing composed of the objects in question. Since this will be so even as we have eliminated all vagueness in " composed of " and in terms referring to the putative parts, we have a prima facie reason for claiming that the unrestricted existential quantifier is vague.

It is argued that, although George Bealer's influential " Self-Consciousness argument " refutes standard versions of reductive functionalism (RF), it fails to generalize in the way Bealer supposes. To wit, he presupposes that any version of (RF) must take the content of " pain " to be the property of being in pain (and so on), which is expressly rejected in independently motivated versions of Conceptual Role Semantics (CRS). Accordingly, there are independently motivated versions of (RF), incorporating (CRS), which avoid Bealer's main type of refutation. I focus particularly on one such theory, which takes concepts to be event types that are individuated by their psychological roles, which has the resources of responding to each of the more specific worries Bealer expresses.

Abstract:  Many philosophers believe that people who are not capable of grasping the significance of moral considerations are not open to moral blame when they fail to respond appropriately to these considerations. I contend, however, that some morally blind, or ‘psychopathic,’ agents are proper targets for moral blame, at least on some occasions. I argue that moral blame is a response to the normative commitments and attitudes of a wrongdoer and that the actions of morally blind agents can express the relevant blame-grounding attitudes insofar as these agents possess the capacity to make judgments about non-moral reasons.