Modal normativism on semantic rules

ABSTRACT

According to Amie Thomasson's modal normativism, the function of modal discourse is to convey semantic rules. But what is a “semantic rule”? I raise three worries according to which there is no conception of a semantic rule that can serve the needs of a modal normativist. The first worry focuses on de re and a posteriori necessities. The second worry concerns Thomasson's inferential specification of the meaning of modal terms. The third worry asks about the normative status of semantic rules.

KEYWORDS:

• Modality
• modal normativism
• Amie Thomasson

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Unless otherwise stated, all page numbers are to Thomasson (2020a).

2 Thomasson's prime examples of world-language semantic rules are “application conditions” – the conditions under which sortals apply – and in earlier work (2015, § 2.3) she excludes ‘“K” applies iff K exists' as an application condition for ‘K.’

3 Interestingly, in earlier work (2015, 95, fn. 13), Thomasson herself suggests (Obs Rule) as an instance of application conditions, on the same model as those for chemical kind terms like ‘water.’

4 See also Donaldson and Wang (2022) for a different worry for Thomasson's treatment of de re modality, along with a positive proposal for how the modal normativist should understand the semantic rules that figure in such modal claims. (Their paper was published while this paper was under review, so I have not had a chance to consider whether their proposal would help the normativist with the worries I raise.)

5 The complementary introduction rule also specifies the inferential role ‘necessary’ plays in the context of subjunctive suppositional reasoning.

6 See, e.g. Lewis (1973, § 1.5).

7 As I read Foot, she treats the distinction as a version of the hypothetical/categorical imperative distinction. But I think this is misleading: some clearly hypothetical imperatives have the tie to reasons and actions that are characteristic of substantive ought claims.

8 McPherson (2018, 258) seems skeptical of this approach – presumably because he is skeptical that we have an independent grip on the notion of a reason.

9 Following Burgess and Plunkett (2013, 1095–1096), distinguish the question of how we ought to use such-and-such a concept and the question of whether we ought to use such-and-such a concept. Presumably the ought involved in the second question is substantive. Here, I am asking about the first question.

10 For instance, the analogy between semantic rules and rules of a game looms large in her thinking. Whenever she discusses 'the idea that our terms are being governed by semantic rules' like those in (Bach Rule), she tells the reader to think of such rules as 'analogous to the rules of a game' like chess or basketball (71). But oughts used to state the rules of a game are paradigmatically formal ought claims. And when she explicitly considers ways in which semantic rules are and are not different from the rules of a game (71-76), there is no mention of a special normative authority accorded to semantic rules as opposed to chess rules.

11 Gibbard (2013) argues that semantic oughts are substantively normative. As I read Hattiangadi (2007), she argues that any semantic oughts would be merely formal.

12 Although, see Wodak (2017) for an argument that, in so far as we adopt expressivism about substantive oughts, we are under pressure to adopt expressivism for other oughts as well.

13 Compare: In her (2020b, fn. 29), Thomasson expresses some sympathy for non-cognitivist interpretations of the ‘ought’ involved in questions of conceptual engineering, noting that such a treatment ‘goes naturally with the functional pluralism’ that characterizes much of her work. See also the ‘Second Critical Question’ raised in Chrisman and Scharp (2022).