Expressivism and moral argumentation

Abstract

Abstract Familiar semantics for terms like ‘because’ appeal to cause or ground, but according to expressivists moral claims cannot enter into such relations. This calls into question whether expressivists can account for moral explanation. I argue that moral expressivists should also be expressivists about explanation. That is, claims like ‘A because B’ are used to express an attitude, namely that one endorses inferring A from B to be suitable for coming to believe A. This allows expressivists to give due to the asymmetric explanatory commitments of different ethical views. Moreover, the account identifies and explains the nature of moral argumentative discourse as proceeding by identifying similarities and adducing distinctions.