The Meaning of 'Ought' - Beyond Descriptivism and Expressivism in Metaethics (Hardcover)

The word 'ought' is one of the core normative terms, but it is also a modal word. In this book Matthew Chrisman develops a careful account of the semantics of 'ought' as a modal operator, and uses this to motivate a novel inferentialist account of why ought-sentences have the meaning that they have. This is a metanormative account that agrees with traditional descriptivist theories in metaethics that specifying the truth-conditions of normative sentences is a central part of the explanation of their meaning. But Chrisman argues that this leaves important metasemantic questions about what it is in virtue of which ought-sentences have the meanings that they have unanswered. His appeal to inferentialism aims to provide a viable anti-descriptivist but also anti-expressivist answer to these questions.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Oxford Moral Theory
Release date:	November 2015
Authors:	Matthew Chrisman (Reader in Philosophy)
Dimensions:	240 x 170 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	280
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-936300-1
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Philosophy of language Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy > General Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy > General
LSN:	0-19-936300-5
Barcode:	9780199363001

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