Author Description
An extraordinary amount of recent work by philosophers of language, meta-ethicists, and semanticists has focused on the meaning and function of language expressing concepts having to do with what is allowed, forbidden, required, or obligatory, in view of the requirements of morality, the law, one's preferences or goals, or what an authority has commanded: in short, deontic modality. This volume presents new work on the much-discussed topic of deontic modality by leading figures in the philosophy of language, meta-ethics, and linguistic semantics. The papers tackle issues about the place of decision and probability theory in the semantics of deontic modality, the viability of standard possible worlds treatments of the truth conditions of deontic modal sentences, the possibility of dynamic semantic treatments of deontic modality, the methodology of semantics for deontic modals, and the prospects for representationalist, expressivist, and inferentialist treatments of deontic modality.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This volume investigates the semantic structure and functional role of language used to express requirements, permissions, and obligations within moral, legal, and goal-oriented frameworks. Editors Matthew Chrisman and Nate Charlow curate a collection of essays from prominent philosophers and linguists to evaluate the adequacy of existing modal theories. The contributors analyze whether traditional possible-worlds semantics can account for deontic expressions or if alternative frameworks, such as dynamic semantics or expressivism, provide a more accurate model.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of decision and probability theory applications in deontic semantics
- Evaluation of truth conditions for deontic modal sentences
- Comparative studies of representationalist, expressivist, and inferentialist theories
- Methodological critiques of current semantic approaches to modality
Scope Limits
- The text does not provide a comprehensive historical survey of deontic logic
- It does not focus on applied legal or political theory outside of linguistic analysis
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Experts recognize this collection as a significant contribution to contemporary debates in meta-ethics and formal semantics. Readers frequently note the technical density of the prose, which assumes a strong background in linguistic theory and philosophical logic.
Page Count:
360
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
ISBN-10:
0191027766
ISBN-13:
9780191027765
Philosophy
Logic
Linguistics
Ethics
Semantics