"Do moral facts exist? What would they be like if they did? What does it mean to say that a moral claim is true? What is the link between moral judgment and motivation? Can we know whether something is right or wrong? Is morality a fiction? Metaethics: An Introduction presents a…
"Do moral facts exist? What would they be like if they did? What does it mean to say that a moral claim is true? What is the link between moral judgment and motivation? Can we know whether something is right or wrong? Is morality a fiction? Metaethics: An Introduction presents a…
In addition to 'thin' concepts like the good, the bad and the ugly, our evaluative thought and talk appeals to 'thick' concepts like the lewd and the rude, the selfish and the cruel, the courageous and the kind - concepts that somehow combine evaluation and nonevaluative descrip…
"In addition to thin concepts like the good, the bad and the ugly, our evaluative thought and talk appeals to thick concepts like the lewd and the rude, the selfish and the cruel, the courageous and the kind--concepts that somehow combine evaluation and non-evaluative descriptio…
An international team of experts explores the distinction between 'thin' concepts (general, evaluative terms like 'good' and 'bad') and 'thick' concepts (more specific concepts, such as 'brave', or 'rude'). Their essays touch on key debates in metaethics about the evaluative and…
Michael Ridge presents an original expressivist theory of normative judgments which offers distinctive treatments of key problems in metaethics, semantics, and practical reasoning. He argues that normative judgments are hybrid states partly constituted by ordinary beliefs and pa…
Provides a taxonomy of the array of theories about the nature of so-called normative judgments, and argues for a more expressivist hybrid theory that accommodates both the context-sensitivity of normative predicates and a broadly truth-conditional approach to semantics.
Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. It explores the historical context of the debate; assesses J.L. Mackie's famous arguments, defends error theory against challenges and consider…
Jonas Olson presents an original account of the historical background of moral error theory, and examines in particular J.L. Mackie's influential contributions to the debate. In Part I (History), Olson provides the historical context of the debate, and discusses the moral error …
"The two main competing traditions in mainstream metaethics are cognitivism and non-cognitivism. The traditional view of this divide is that the cognitivist understands moral (and other normative) judgments as representational states (e.g. beliefs) whereas the non-cognitivist un…
Confusion of tongues: a theory of normative language
Can normative words like 'good', 'ought', and 'reason' be defined in entirely non-normative terms? This book argues that they can, advancing an end-relational theory of the meaning of this language as providing the best explanation of the many different ways it is ordinarily use…