Ferens Chair, Department of Philosophy at University of Hull

Visiting Professor, Department of Music at Sao Paulo University.

Abstract: A central challenge for expressivism about morality is to show that it is not radically revisionary of ordinary moral thought and talk, convicting it of a mistake, or at least of containing serious errors in the sense of being committed to claims that cannot be explained or vindicated within the expressivist approach. One way to try to show that expressivism is not out of line with the way we think morally is to appeal to the social function of morality. This seems a promising way to underpin a system of attitudes so that central aspects of our moral thought can be vindicated. In this paper, I explore and assess this strategy. Considering certain simple-minded objections leads to the view being developed by analogy with a central strategy in the philosophy of law whereby certain claims are read ‘regulatively’ rather than ‘constitively’. While this does enable the simple-minded objections to be avoided, it also reveals a problem with the approach. So I argue.