Oughts and Thoughts: Rule-Following and the Normativity of Content

232 Pages·2007·1.07 MB·English

by  Anandi Hattiangadi

OUGHTS AND THOUGHTS
RULE-FOLLOWING AND THE NORMATIVITY
OF CONTENT
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Oughts and Thoughts
Rule-Following and the Normativity
of Content
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Preface
This book began its life as a doctoral dissertation, carried out under
the supervision of Martin Kusch and Peter Lipton, at the Department
of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University. I would
like to thank Martin for the animated disagreements which fuelled
the arguments in the thesis and continue to fuel the arguments in
the book, as well as his invariably thorough scrutiny of my work. I
am grateful to Peter for his encouragement, his remarkable gift for
making confused ideas lucid, and his ability to deliver devastating
criticism gently. I would also like to thank Simon Blackburn and
Bob Hale—who examined the dissertation—for their penetrating
criticisms and suggestions for improvement. Research towards the
dissertation was financially supported in the form of an Overseas
Research Studentship, grants from the Cambridge Commonwealth
Trust,TheSocialSciencesandHumanitiesResearchCouncilofCanada
andTrinityCollege,Cambridge.Theprocessofturningthedissertation
intoabookmanuscriptwaslargelycompletedduringthefourglorious
yearswhileIwasaResearchFellowatTrinityCollege,Cambridge.
Portions of this work draw upon material that has been published
previously. Much of the material in Chapter 7 appears in ‘Is Meaning
Normative’ (published in Mind and Language, 2002, pp. 220–40),
and the discussion of Brandom in Chapter 6 draws on ‘Making It
Implicit: Brandom on Rule Following’ (published in Philosophy and
PhenomenologicalResearch,2003:419–31).Earlierdraftsofthematerial
that makes up thisbook were presented at various seminars, including
theDepartmentalSeminarattheDepartmentofHistoryandPhilosophy
ofScience,CambridgeandtheMoralSciencesClub,Cambridge.Iam
grateful to the audiences of both sessions for their incisive comments.
I would also like to thank So¨ren Stenlund, who invited me to present
myworkathisseminarinphilosophyoflanguageattheDepartmentof
Philosophy,UppsalaUniversity.PeterPaginandKathrinGlu¨erkindly
invited me to discuss my work at the philosophy of language seminar
at the Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University. I would like
to thank them both for the discussion on that occasion, as well as for
all of the discussions we have had over the years since then. They are
wonderful allies to have—despite our broad agreement, they are very
viii OughtsandThoughts
much alive to errors and potential objections. I would like to thank
MartinKuschforinvitingmetotheSymposiumonTheNormativityof
Meaning,Wissenschaftskolleg zuBerlin. I profitedtremendouslyfrom
discussions with the participants at that workshop. Finally, I would
like to thank John Broome for inviting me to present my work at his
graduate seminar at the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University. I
amgratefultothecommentsofparticipantsofthissessionandfortheir
helpfulcommentsandsuggestions.
Many friends and family members have contributed to this project
with comments and criticism—or the odd question which has trig-
gered major revision. These include Arif Ahmed, Gustaf Arrhenius,
AnitaAvramides,StephenButterfill,ErikCarlson,AnjanChakravartty,
Cathy Gere, Martin Gustafsson, Jane Heal, Henry Jackman, Carrie
Jenkins, Neil Manson, Christina McLeish, Hugh Mellor, Alex Miller,
Amartya Sen, Mark Sprevak, Åsa Wikforss, Tim Williamson, and my
father—JagdishHattiangadi.ThankstoMartaWeissforsuggestingthe
coverillustration.IamgratefultoPeterMomtchiloff,JacquelineBaker,
and Victoria Patton at Oxford University Press, and their anonymous
readers,whosedetailedcommentsmadeagreatdifferencetothebook.
Finally, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Krister Bykvist,
who has been the first person I turn to with any of my problems,
philosophicalorotherwise.ItwasKristerwhofirstsuggestedthatIlook
closely at the normativity thesis, and who helped to bring me up to
speed on meta-ethics and deontic logic. Krister read and commented
on countless drafts of this work, and has discussed both minor and
major points at greater length than they no doubt deserve, at times
whenheprobablywouldhavepreferredtobedoingsomethingelse.He
is a tremendous source of strength, support, encouragement, rigorous
arguments, and ingenious ideas for getting out of tight spots; he is a
wonderfulfathertooursonandmyclosestfriend.
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. TheScepticalArgument 11
Thesceptic’schallenge 11
Thescopeofthescepticalargument 15
Thescepticalargument 21
Conclusion 34
3. NormsandNormativity 37
Fromnormativitytonon-factualism 38
Thefirsthornofthedilemma:the‘naturalisticfallacy’ 39
Thesecondhornofthedilemma:queerness 47
Fromnormstonormativity 51
Norm-relativity 61
Conclusion 63
4. CanwedoWithoutSemanticFacts? 65
Thescepticalsolution 66
Theincoherencecharge 69
Semanticnon-factualismanddeflationism 74
Thesocialconstructionofmeaning 87
Conclusion 103
5. Reductionism 105
Dispositionalismrealism 105
Dispositionsandconditionals 109
Extendeddispositionalism 116
Successsemantics 120
Teleosemantics 126
Asymmetricdependence 133
Thecausaltheoryofreference 141
Collectivism 144
Conclusion 149