Metasemantic ethics
Date
04/02/2020Author
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Abstract
The idea that experts (especially scientific experts) play a privileged role in determining the meanings of our words and the contents of our concepts has become commonplace since the work of Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, and others in the 1970s. But if experts have the power to determine what our words mean, they can do so responsibly or irresponsibly, from good motivations or bad, justly or unjustly, with good or bad effects. This paper distinguishes three families of metasemantic views based on their attitudes towards bad behaviour by meaning‐fixing experts, and draws a series of distinctions relevant for the normative evaluation of meaning‐determining actions.
Citation
Ball , D 2020 , ' Metasemantic ethics ' , Ratio , vol. Early View . https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12256
Publication
Ratio
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0034-0006Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12256
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