Emerging Themes in 21st Century meta-ethics: Evaluative and Normative Language

这一研究网络将成为规范性语言和评价性语言研究新方向的推动力。规范性和评价性语言包括“好”、“坏”、“合理”、“不公平”、“应该”、“必须”和“应该”等词。在过去的十年里，有一个明确的趋势，在探索所谓的混合理论的元伦理学的方向。根据这些理论，这些词既描述了它们的主题，又表达了对它的评价态度。不幸的是，这些理论的研究者很少持续关注那些似乎能够同时描述一个主题和表达对它的评价态度的词（例如诽谤和贬义语言）。这是一个缺点，因为理解这些词如何工作将是元伦理学在确定规范性和评价性语言是否以同样的双重方式发挥作用时的极大兴趣。元伦理学先前工作的狭隘焦点的第二个方面是，哲学家倾向于只关注规范性和评价性语言在集中伦理语境中使用时如何发挥作用。因此，例如，研究伦理“必须”的哲学家往往忽视它与出现在关于可能性和必然性的主张中的“必须”的关系。有时，这种狭隘的关注是基于这样一种假设，即伦理学中使用的术语具有独特的含义。但其他时候，这个假设被忽视了，最近一些元伦理学家，包括那些我们计划参与这个网络的人，通过研究这些术语在非伦理话语中的作用，对这个假设提出了挑战。它也来自于哲学和语言学其他领域的工作人员，他们已经开始研究诸如上下文敏感性和态度表达等特征，以及它们对规范性和评价性术语和其他表达的应用。随着哲学家们对这些术语的非伦理用途产生兴趣并与之协调，这导致了对元伦理的关注从元伦理扩展到元规范，并且越来越意识到语言哲学和语言学的工作应该对元伦理问题产生影响。一些关键的研究问题和主题是：（1）规范性判断（如酷刑是错误的判断）似乎与非规范性判断（如桌子是圆的判断）有很大不同。但是是什么让它们与众不同呢？是他们的主题，他们在思考和行动中扮演的角色，还是别的什么？它们是信仰，还是欲望，是两者的某种结合，还是别的什么？(2)规范性话语（例如“酷刑是错误的”的断言）似乎与非规范性话语（例如巴黎是法国首都的断言）有很大的不同。这种差异是否证明了将它们的意义视为与更平淡无奇的事实类话语不同的一类？(3)如果规范性判断以某种方式结合了联合收割机的信念和愿望，或者如果规范性话语的意义以某种方式不同于散文式的事实陈述所具有的那种意义，那么，诽谤和贬义语言是否为规范性判断和主张提供了一种有用的平行关系呢？但是，是否有一些贬义词的特征破坏了这种相似性呢？(4)规范性判断如何与模态判断（关于可能性和必要性的判断）相关联。例如，在“你必须公平地对待人们”和“所有上升的东西都必须下降”中，“必须”的各自用法之间是否有任何联系，或者在“你不能这样对待人们”和“电子不能比光速更快”中，“不能”的各自用法之间是否有任何联系。

This research network will be a stimulus for new directions in the study of normative and evaluative language. Normative and evaluative language includes words like 'good', 'bad', 'desirable', 'unfair', 'ought', 'must', and 'should'. Over the past decade there has been a clear trend in the direction of exploring so-called hybrid theories in meta-ethics. According to these theories, these words both describe their subject and express evaluative attitudes towards it. Unfortunately, those working on such theories have given little sustained attention to other words that seem to be capable of simultaneously describing a subject and expressing evaluative attitudes towards it (slurs and pejorative language for example). This is a shortcoming because an understanding of how these words work will be of great interest to meta-ethics in determining whether normative and evaluative language functions in this same dual manner.A second aspect of the narrow focus of previous work in meta-ethics is that philosophers have tended to only focus on how normative and evaluative language functions when used in centrally ethical contexts. Thus, for example, philosophers working on the ethical 'must' have tended to ignore how it relates to the 'must' that appears in claims about possibility and necessity. Sometimes this narrow focus was based on the assumption that the terms used in ethics have unique meanings. But other times the assumption goes unnoticed.Recently some metaethicists, including those we plan to involve in this network, have challenged this assumption by looking at how these terms work when used in non-ethical discourse. It has also come from people working in other areas of philosophy and in linguistics who have started to examine features such as context-sensitivity and attitude expression and their application to normative and evaluative terms and other expressions. This has led to a broadening in focus from meta-ethics to the meta-normative, as philosophers become interested in and attuned to the non-ethical uses of these terms, and an increasing awareness that the work in philosophy of language and linguistics should be brought to bear upon meta-ethical questions.This research network will be a stimulus for new directions in the study of normative and evaluative language. Some of the key research questions and themes are:(1) Normative judgements (e.g. judgements that torture is wrong) seem quite different from non-normative judgements (e.g. judgements that the table is round). But what makes them distinctive? Is it their subject matter, the role they play in thinking and action, or something else? Are they beliefs, or desires, some combination of the two, or something else?(2) Normative utterances (e.g. assertions of 'torture is wrong') seem quite different from non-normative utterances (e.g. assertions that Paris is the capital of France). Does this difference warrant treating their meaning as being of a different sort from more prosaically factual kinds of utterances?(3) If normative judgements somehow combine beliefs and desires, or if the meaning of normative utterances is somehow different from the kind of meaning that prosaically factual statements have, do slurs and pejorative language provide a useful parallel for normative judgements and claims? But are there features of pejorative terms that undermine this parallel?(4) How do normative judgements relate to modal judgements (judgements about possibility and necessity). For example, is there any connection between the respective uses of 'must' in 'you must treat people fairly' and 'everything that goes up must come down', or the respective uses of 'cannot' in 'you cannot treat people like this' and 'electrons cannot travel faster than the speed of light'.