The Basic Battle Lines of Metaethics (with complaints about mistaken appropriations of philosophical language) by Christian Tarsney
victorybriefs.substack.com
After I posted an irritated Facebook status about debaters’ misuse of the term “truth-functional,” Adam suggested that I write something for VBD to explain the terminological issue. The mistake is one worth rectifying, I think, if nothing else so that debaters will make themselves a greater credit to the activity when they talk to their philosophy professors in college. But it seems a bit unfair to clutter the debate webs with my own minor grievances, without throwing in something more constructive as well, so I thought I’d pair the clarification of terms with a little elucidation of the cognitivist/non-cognitivist distinction in metaethics which debaters mistakenly take “truth-functionality” to trace. This latter is something which many debaters grasp fairly well, but for those just starting to learn metaethics, I’ve found that it can be a little obscure, and easily confused with the realism/anti-realism distinction. Hopefully, then, this article will shed a little light on these basic dividing lines in metaethics, along with urging a change of expressions.
The Basic Battle Lines of Metaethics (with complaints about mistaken appropriations of philosophical language) by Christian Tarsney
The Basic Battle Lines of Metaethics (with…
The Basic Battle Lines of Metaethics (with complaints about mistaken appropriations of philosophical language) by Christian Tarsney
After I posted an irritated Facebook status about debaters’ misuse of the term “truth-functional,” Adam suggested that I write something for VBD to explain the terminological issue. The mistake is one worth rectifying, I think, if nothing else so that debaters will make themselves a greater credit to the activity when they talk to their philosophy professors in college. But it seems a bit unfair to clutter the debate webs with my own minor grievances, without throwing in something more constructive as well, so I thought I’d pair the clarification of terms with a little elucidation of the cognitivist/non-cognitivist distinction in metaethics which debaters mistakenly take “truth-functionality” to trace. This latter is something which many debaters grasp fairly well, but for those just starting to learn metaethics, I’ve found that it can be a little obscure, and easily confused with the realism/anti-realism distinction. Hopefully, then, this article will shed a little light on these basic dividing lines in metaethics, along with urging a change of expressions.