TY - JOUR

T1 - Quasi-Realism, Negation, and the Frege-Geach Problem

AU - Unwin, Nicholas

PY - 1999/7

Y1 - 1999/7

N2 - Every expressivist theory of moral language requires a solution to the Frege-Geach problem, i.e., the problem of explaining how moral sentences retain their meaning in unasserted (e.g., conditional and disjunctive) contexts. An essential part of Blackburn’s ‘quasi-realist project’, i.e., the project of showing how we can earn the right to treat moral sentences as if they have ordinary truth-conditions, is to provide a sophisticated solution. I show, however, that simple negated contexts provide a fundamental difficulty, since accepting the negation of a sentence is easily confused with merely refusing to accept that sentence. I argue that Blackburn’s model-set semantics for his ‘Hooray!’ and ‘Boo!’ operators requires logical apparatus to which he is not entitled. I consider various modifications, but show that they do not succeed.

AB - Every expressivist theory of moral language requires a solution to the Frege-Geach problem, i.e., the problem of explaining how moral sentences retain their meaning in unasserted (e.g., conditional and disjunctive) contexts. An essential part of Blackburn’s ‘quasi-realist project’, i.e., the project of showing how we can earn the right to treat moral sentences as if they have ordinary truth-conditions, is to provide a sophisticated solution. I show, however, that simple negated contexts provide a fundamental difficulty, since accepting the negation of a sentence is easily confused with merely refusing to accept that sentence. I argue that Blackburn’s model-set semantics for his ‘Hooray!’ and ‘Boo!’ operators requires logical apparatus to which he is not entitled. I consider various modifications, but show that they do not succeed.

U2 - 10.1111/1467-9213.00146

DO - 10.1111/1467-9213.00146

M3 - Journal article

VL - 49

SP - 337

EP - 352

JO - The Philosophical Quarterly

JF - The Philosophical Quarterly

SN - 1467-9213

IS - 196

ER -