Dismantling Normativism
Dismantling Normativism

Summary/Abstract: In his article “Is Meaning Fraught with Ought?” (2009), Daniel Whiting advanced quite a battery of refurbished arguments for the claim that linguistic meaning is intrinsically normative. He ended the paper with the conclusion that he had managed to achieve two of his stated aims: to defend normativism and to show how the normativist can turn the innocent platitude that meaningful expressions possess conditions of correct use into an argument in favour of normativism. In the present article, I show that Whiting failed on both counts, although his failure reveals an important issue which has been overlooked by both parties to the debate. The issue in question is one of methodology: the plausibility of semantic normativism turns on the theory of practical normativity to which a particular philosopher tacitly or explicitly subscribes. To put my main criticism in a nutshell: semantic normativism cannot be defended without a plausible account of the nature of semantic reasons.

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