Nothing New in Ecumenia?: Hare, Hybrid Expressivism and de dicto Beliefs
One important trend in the debate over expressivism and cognitivism is the emergence of hybrid or ecumenical theories. According to such theories, moral sentences express both beliefs, as cognitivism has it, and desire-like states, as expressivism has it. One may wonder, though, whether the hybr...
| Published in: | Ethical theory and moral practice |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2016]
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
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| RelBib Classification: | NCA Ethics VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Relational expressivism
B Frege-Geach problem B Hybrid expressivism B Ecumenical expressivism B Hare |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | One important trend in the debate over expressivism and cognitivism is the emergence of hybrid or ecumenical theories. According to such theories, moral sentences express both beliefs, as cognitivism has it, and desire-like states, as expressivism has it. One may wonder, though, whether the hybrid move is as novel as its advocates seem to take it to beor whether it simply leads us back to the conceptions of early expressivists, such as Charles Stevenson or Richard Hare. Michael Ridge has recently argued that we ought not to see Hare as a hybrid expressivist because Hares approach allows for moral sentences that do not express any descriptive beliefs at all. Yet, Ridges reading has been challenged by John Eriksson, who even goes as far as to claim that modern hybrid expressivists should follow in Hares footsteps because it is Hares framework that actually provides a solution to the so-called Frege-Geach problem. In the present paper, I first want to show that we can defend Erikssons reading with regard to the official version of Hares theory. I will, secondly, argue that, in line with what we may take to be Ridges critical perspective on Hare, this official version faces serious difficulties, resulting from the possibility of unknown speaker standards. Thirdly, I will demonstrate that a modern reconstruction of Hare in terms of what I will refer to as de dicto beliefs, though in principle possible, will not allow us to solve the Frege-Geach problem. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-015-9681-6 |