Illocutionary force and attitude mode in normative disputes

Abstract

Disagreements about what we owe to each other and about how to live pervade different dimensions of human interaction. We communicate our different moral and normative views in discourse. These disputes have features that are challenging to some semantic theories. This paper assesses recent Stalnakerian views of communication in moral and normative domains. These views model conversational context updates made with normative claims. They also aim to explain disputes between people who follow different norms or values. The paper presents various problems for these Stalnakerian views. Together, the problems show the insufficiency of metasemantic theories based only on speakers’ psychological states in general, and of their application to normative communication in particular. The paper concludes that the problems require a new conception of how common ground relates to illocutionary force and attitude mode.