Normative Reference Magnets

Abstract

The concept of moral wrongness, many think, has a distinctive kind of referential stability, brought out by moral twin earth cases. This article offers a new account of the source of this stability, deriving it from a metaphysics of content: “substantive” radical interpretation, and first-order normative assumptions. This story is distinguished from extant “reference magnetic” explanations of the phenomenon, and objections and replies are considered.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Williams, JRG https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4831-2954

Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:

(c) 2018 by Cornell University. This is an author produced version of a paper published in The Philosophical Review. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.

Keywords:

naturalness; metaethics; metasemantics; radical interpretation

Dates:

Accepted: 9 June 2017
Published (online): 1 January 2018
Published: 1 January 2018

Institution:

The University of Leeds

Academic Units:

The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds)

Funding Information:

Funder	Grant number
EU - European Union	312938

Depositing User:

Symplectic Publications

Date Deposited:

13 Jun 2017 07:55

Last Modified:

17 Apr 2018 08:07

Status:

Published

Publisher:

Duke University Press

Identification Number:

https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-4230057

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)