Epistemic Expressivism: Traditional Views
Expressivist views in morality accept a similar ontology to that of error theories: they deny that moral facts exist. However, they also maintain that moral discourse does not even purport to state moral facts. So they are not versions of error theory. Epistemic expressivism is the epistemic counterpart to moral expressivism and comes in two varieties. This chapter discusses the first variety, so-called traditional epistemic expressivism. The argument is that this position does not fare much better than epistemic nihilism; it too yields a radical form of scepticism according to which there is no reason to believe anything. Allan Gibbard's position in Wise Choices, Apt Feelings is the version of traditional epistemic expressivism, it is claimed, that is most worth considering.
Keywords: epistemic expressivism, alethic thesis, ontic thesis, speech act thesis, Allan Gibbard, rationality, scepticism
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