Publications
Review of 'Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules' [published version, pdf]
Ethics 135(1): 202-206, 2024.
David Owens’s Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules is an original and stimulating defense of the intrinsic value of social convention. The list of things that even have a chance of plausibly being valuable for their own sake is short: pleasure, knowledge, beauty. That might be the whole list. So when Owens writes a book arguing that social conventions can also be valuable for their own sake, he is doing something bold. I argue that John Rawls’s distinction between summary and non-summary rules puts pressure on Owens’s metaphysical account of social convention. I find Owens’s book to be a stimulating and valuable philosophical work. It is worth reading both by those interested in the specific conventions mentioned and by those interested in the value and nature of social rules and conventions in general.
The Normativity of Meaning Without the Normativity [published version, pdf]
Inquiry 67(10): 4041-4061, 2024.
The normativity of meaning matters because if meaning is normative, then theories of meaning will have to explain normativity, and not all theories of meaning are equipped to do that. Throughout the debate about the normativity of meaning, there has been considerable discussion of what putative features of meaning count as “normativity.” The suggestion of this paper is that the issue of normativity can be bypassed altogether. We can, instead, focus directly on the ways in which various features of meaning constitute constraints on theories of meaning. Since meaning facts directly entail correctness conditions, which in turn rule out certain reductive theories of meaning, correctness conditions—often thought to be peripheral to the debate about the normativity of meaning—matter in exactly the way that the normativity of meaning was thought to matter.
A New Problem for Rules [published version, pdf]
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107(3): 671-691, 2023.
This paper presents a series of arguments aimed at showing that, for an important subclass of social rules—non-summary rules—no adequate metaphysical account has been given, and it tentatively suggests that no such account can be given. The category of non-summary rules is an important one, as it includes the rules of etiquette, fashion, chess, basketball, California state law, descriptive English grammar, and so on. This paper begins with behavioristic accounts of the conditions for the existence of such rules, and proceeds through progressively more complex accounts, all the way to what are labeled ‘normative attitude accounts,’ which are prima facie plausible and particularly popular. In each case it is argued that the type of account under consideration cannot explain the existence of the relevant type of social rule.
The Internal Point of View [published version, pdf]
Law and Philosophy 42(3): 211-236, 2023.
The most discussed theory of law of the 20th century—HLA Hart’s theory from The Concept of Law—is fundamentally psychological. It explains the existence of legal systems in terms of an attitude taken by legal officials: the internal point of view. Though much has been said about this attitude (what statements express it, what it is not, how Hart ought to have conceived of it, etc.), we nonetheless lack an adequate account of the attitude itself. This paper presents and defends an account of the internal point of view and shows how, when understood as the account suggests, this attitude can play the several roles that Hartian positivists need it to play.
The Structure of Semantic Norms [published version, pdf]
Analytic Philosophy 64 (4): 373-391, 2023.
The normativity of meaning—introduced by Kripke in 1982, and the subject of active debate since the early 1990s—has been historically understood as involving norms with a particular structure: the structure of duty-imposing norms. But there exist norms of a different type, with a very different structure: authority-conferring norms. Philosophers thinking and writing about the normativity of meaning—normativists, anti-normativists, and even Kripke himself—seem to have failed to consider the possibility that semantic norms are authority-conferring. I argue that semantic norms should be understood as having an authority-conferring structure, and show how this allows normativism about meaning to escape the two most popular arguments against it.
In Defense of Hart’s Supposedly-Refuted Theory of Rules [pre-print, published version, pdf]
Ratio Juris 34(4): 331-355, 2021.
H.L.A. Hart’s ‘practice theory’ of rules is widely thought to face two problems: (1) it fails to account for the normativity of law, and (2) it is susceptible to a decisive counterexample dating back to Warnock (1971). In this paper, I offer solutions to both problems. In response to (2), I appeal to an old, but underappreciated distinction made by Rawls (1955) and argue that the counterexample is no counterexample at all. In response to (1), I apply a newly-popular distinction regarding the nature of law’s normativity and argue that Hart’s practice theory has no problem accounting for the normativity of law.
Attitude and Social Rules, or Why It’s Okay to Slurp Your Soup [published version, pdf]
Philosophers’ Imprint 21(28): 1-18, 2021.
Many of the most important social institutions—e.g., law and language—are thought to be normative in some sense. And philosophers have been puzzled by how this normativity can be explained in terms of the social, descriptive states of affairs that presumably constitute them. This paper attempts to solve this sort of puzzle by considering a simpler and less contentious normative social practice: table manners. Once we are clear on the exact sense in which a practice is normative, we see that some practices can be normative in an interesting and non-trivial sense, but also explicable with merely descriptive resources. In addition to arguing that it is possible to explain normative practices with descriptive resources, I present and defend such an explanation—an account of the nature of table manners that appeals only to descriptive states of affairs.
Speech, Mockery, and Sincere Concern: An Account of Trolling [pre-print, published version]
Public Affairs Quarterly 35(3): 204-227, 2021.
This paper offers an account of a phenomenon that seems increasingly common in public discourse: trolling. The term “troll” is colloquial, and no formal synonym exists in English. But the informality of the term should not mislead us into thinking that the underlying concept is so unimportant as to be unworthy of philosophical attention or so ill-behaved as to be resistant to philosophical analysis. This paper presents such an analysis.
The Problem with Descriptive Correctness [pre-print, published version, pdf]
Ratio 33(2): 79-86, 2020.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the normativity of meaning was thought to be more-or-less 'incontestable.' But in the last 25 years, many philosophers of mind and language have contested it in several seemingly different ways. This, however, is somewhat illusory. There is an unappreciated commonality among most anti-normativist arguments, and this commonality, I argue, poses a problem for anti-normativism. The result, however, is not a wholesale rejection of anti-normativism. Rather, an insight from the anti-normativist position can be harnessed to reveal an unappreciated position in the normativity of meaning debate.
Attitude and the Normativity of Law [pre-print; published version, pdf]
Law and Philosophy 36(5): 469-493, 2017.
Though legal positivism remains popular, HLA Hart’s version has fallen somewhat by the wayside. This is because, according to many, the central task of a theory of law is to explain the so-called “normativity of law.” Hart’s theory, it is thought, is not up to the task. Some have suggested modifying the theory accordingly. This paper argues that both Hart’s theory and the normativity of law have been misunderstood. First, a popular modification of Hart’s theory is considered and rejected. It stems from a misunderstanding of Hart and his project. Second, a new understanding of the mysterious but often-mentioned “normativity of law” is presented. Once we have dispelled some misunderstandings of Hart’s view and clarified the sense in which law is supposed to be normative, we see that Hart’s view, unmodified, is well suited to the task of explaining law’s normativity.
Papers under review have been removed to preserve anonymity.
Dissertation
Weightless Normativity: A Theory of Law, Language, and More
Reductive theories of law and language appear to face an insurmountable obstacle: they are normative practices, and normativity cannot be explained in merely descriptive terms. I argue that this obstacle can be overcome. Law, language, and other practices are normative in a neglected sense—they do not necessarily generate reasons, but they consist of rules. Rule-constituted practices can be accounted for in descriptive terms, though with ineliminable mention of evaluative attitudes. I offer accounts of law and language along these lines. [dissertation abstract]