Moral inferentialism and moral psychology

Abstract

This paper raises a challenge for moral inferentialism. Moral inferentialism explains moral discourse in terms of the distinctive kinds of discursive commitments we acknowledge and undertake in making moral claims. However, like any metaethical theory, inferentialism owes us an account not only of what it is to make moral claims, but of what it is to think moral thoughts. The paper argues that what inferentialists have said about moral thought is unsatisfactory. While more satisfactory accounts are available, adopting such accounts robs inferentialism of certain supposed advantages that it enjoys over its main competitor, moral expressivism. Insofar as inferentialism is motivated as a non-representationalist alternative to expressivism, the challenge therefore undermines a central motivation for inferentialism.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Brown, J.L.D. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3875-592X
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Moral inferentialism; Inferentialism; Expressivism; Metaethics; Moral judgment; Moral belief
Dates:	Accepted: 30 May 2025 Published (online): 1 July 2025 Published: 1 July 2025
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	08 Jul 2025 12:10
Last Modified:	08 Jul 2025 12:10
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1007/s11229-025-05102-7
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:228833

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Moral inferentialism and moral psychology

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