NEIL SINCLAIR neil.sinclair@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Philosophy
Conceptual role semantics and the reference of moral concepts
Sinclair, Neil
Authors
Abstract
© 2017 The Authors European Journal of Philosophy Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This paper examines the prospects for a conceptual or functional role theory of moral concepts. It is argued that such an account is well-placed to explain both the irreducibility and practicality of moral concepts. Several versions of conceptual role semantics for moral concepts are distinguished, depending on whether the concept-constitutive conceptual roles are (i) wide or narrow (ii) normative or non-normative and (iii) purely doxastic or conative. It is argued that the most plausible version of conceptual role semantics for moral concepts involves only ‘narrow’ conceptual roles, where these include connections to motivational, desire-like, states. In the penultimate section it is argued, contrary to what Wedgwood, Enoch and others have claimed, that such an account of moral concepts cannot plausibly be combined with the claim that moral concepts refer to robust properties.
Citation
Sinclair, N. (2018). Conceptual role semantics and the reference of moral concepts. European Journal of Philosophy, 26(1), 95-121. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12191
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Nov 1, 2016 |
Online Publication Date | Jan 26, 2017 |
Publication Date | Mar 1, 2018 |
Deposit Date | Feb 1, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | Feb 1, 2017 |
Journal | European Journal of Philosophy |
Print ISSN | 0966-8373 |
Electronic ISSN | 1468-0378 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 26 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 95-121 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12191 |
Public URL | https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/838946 |
Publisher URL | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejop.12191/abstract |
Contract Date | Feb 1, 2017 |
Files
Sinclair-2017-European_Journal_of_Philosophy.pdf
(242 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
Copyright information regarding this work can be found at the following address: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
You might also like
Metaethics, teleosemantics and the function of moral judgements
(2012)
Journal Article
MORAL REALISM, FACE-VALUES AND PRESUMPTIONS
(2012)
Journal Article
On standing one's ground
(2014)
Journal Article
Reasons, inescapability and persuasion
(2016)
Journal Article
On the connection between normative reasons and the possibility of acting for those reasons
(2016)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Repository@Nottingham
Administrator e-mail: discovery-access-systems@nottingham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search