Expressivism and Progress in Ethics, Philosophy, and Science

Abstract

In the ongoing debate over the nature of philosophical progress, it is often assumed that normative ethics is just one philosophical subdiscipline among others and that it does not require special treatment. In this paper I argue that if expressivism about moral discourse is correct, then that assumption is false and we need at least two different accounts of philosophical progress, one suited to the type of project ethics (and, presumably, other nonrepresentational projects in philosophy) is and one suited to the type of project that, e.g., metaethics is.