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Bar-On, Dorit and Matthew Chrisman. Ethical Neo-Expressivism
2009, In Shafter-Landau, R. (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Vol. 4: 132-64. New York: Oxford University Press.
Topics: Grammar and Meaning; Language and Mind; Metaethics
Keywords: expressivism; motivation; pragmatics; semantics
Traditions: Analytic; European; Mediterranean; West Asian
Languages: English

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Added by: Graham Bex-Priestley
Abstract: A standard way to explain the connection between ethical claims and motivation is to say that these claims express motivational attitudes. Unless this connection is taken to be merely a matter of contingent psychological regularity, it may seem that there are only two options for understanding it. We can either treat ethical claims as expressing propositions that one cannot believe without being at least somewhat motivated (subjectivism), or we can treat ethical claims as nonpropositional and as having their semantic content constituted by the motivational attitudes they express (noncognitivism). In this paper, we argue that there is another option, which can be recognized once we see that there is no need to build the expression relation between ethical claims and motivational states of mind into the semantic content of ethical claims.
Comment: This is a different way of incorporating what seems attractive about expressivism without losing the semantic advantages of cognitivism. It draws upon resources from the philosophy of language.
Difficulty: Advanced
Recommended use: Specialised

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Bromwich, Danielle. Motivational Internalism and the Challenge of Amoralism
2016, European Journal of Philosophy 24 (2):452-471.
Topics: Metaethics
Keywords: amoralism; motivational externalism; motivational internalism
Traditions: Analytic; European
Languages: English

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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Danielle Bromwich
Abstract:
Article: Motivational internalism is the thesis that captures the commonplace thought that moral judgements are necessarily motivationally efficacious. But this thesis appears to be in tension with another aspect of our ordinary moral experience. Proponents of the contrast thesis, motivational externalism, cite everyday examples of amoralism to demonstrate that it is conceptually possible to be completely unmoved by what seem to be sincere first-person moral judgements. This paper argues that the challenge of amoralism gives us no reason to reject or modify motivational internalism. Instead of attempting to diagnose the motivational failure of the amoral agent or restrict the internalist thesis in the face of these examples, I argue that we should critically examine the assumptions that underlie the challenge. Such an examination reveals that the examples smuggle in substantive assumptions that the internalist has no reason to accept. This argument has two important implications for the debate in moral motivation: first, it reveals that the motivational externalist needs a new argumentative strategy; and second, it shows that there is nothing especially problematic about a formulation of the thesis that captures the core internalist intuition that first-person moral judgements are necessarily accompanied by motivation.
Comment: This is a stub entry. Please add your comments below to help us expand it
Difficulty: Intermediate
Recommended use: Specialised

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Ross, Steven, Warenski, Lisa. Socratic Metaethics Imagined
2017, Sophia and Philosophia 1.3., 1-8
Topics: Metaethics Keywords: amoralists; moral expressivism; moral justification; moral skepticism
Traditions: Historical; North American Languages: Ancient Greek; English
Figures: Socrates
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Added by: Björn Freter

Abstract: A time machine mysteriously appeared one day in ancient Athens. Curious about the future of philosophical dialogue, Socrates entered the device and traveled to the 21st Century. He spent several months in the United Kingdom and United States discussing metaethics before returning to Athens, now a devoted and formidable quasi-realist moral genderexpressivist.

Comment: This is a stub entry. Please add your comments below to help us expand it
Difficulty: Intermediate
Recommended use: Specialised
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