Abstract

What is the moral relevance, if any, of semantic accounts of the ordinary meanings of moral terms? Given that such accounts proliferate in contemporary metaethics, this is a pressing question. Many of those whose job it is to think about ethics spend much of their careers developing descriptive accounts of the conceptual content that is ordinarily conveyed when people use moral terms. If such theorizing does not matter morally, significant opportunities for philosophers to contribute to moral progress will have been lost. ;Despite their primarily descriptive nature, it is at least possible that accounts of the ordinary meanings of moral terms could contribute to moral progress by improving moral inquiry. I begin the dissertation by outlining a general strategy for bringing semantic theories to bear on substantive normative issues. Because the truth of moral sentences is a function of the meaning of the terms appearing in them, accounts of those meanings can help us determine the truth-value of moral sentences and thereby help us answer some of the moral questions we pose. ;However, in order for a true sentence to appropriately guide our actions, it must be the case that the meanings of the terms appearing in that sentence are meanings that are well suited for the task of determining what to do. And there is considerable room to doubt that the ordinary meanings of moral terms that metaethicists commonly study are particularly well suited for this task. I present several arguments, many of which draw on recent work in experimental psychology, designed to undermine confidence that the way we actually use moral terms is optimal for moral inquiry. ;The final portion of the dissertation contains an assessment of these sceptical challenges. I develop, and ultimately largely reject, two potential responses that would dismiss the sceptical challenges on the grounds that they are incoherent. Finally, I suggest a justificatory strategy modeled on recent work in linguistics and social epistemology that I think constitutes metaethicists' best hope for recommending ordinary moral meanings. Whether or not such a strategy will ultimately be successful will remain an important question for future work