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Is Meaning Normative?

ANANDI HATTIANGADI
Abstract: Many people claim that semantic content is normative, and that therefore

naturalistic theories of content face a potentially insuperable difficulty. The normativity of content allegedly undermines naturalism by introducing a gap between semantic oughts and the explanatory resources of naturalism. I argue here that this problem is not ultimately pressing for naturalists. The normativity thesis, I maintain, is ambiguous; it could mean either that the content of a term prescribes a pattern of use, or that it merely determines which pattern of use can be described as correct. For the antinaturalist argument to go forward, content must be prescriptive. I argue, however, that it is not. Moreover, the thesis that content supplies standards for correct use is insufficient to supply a similar, a priori objection to naturalism.

Many philosophers find irresistible the thesis that meaning is normative (Baker and Hacker, 1984; Bloor, 1997; Brandom, 1994; Boghossian, 1989; Glock, 1994, 1996; Kripke, 1982; Lance and OLeary Hawthorne, 1997; McDowell, 1993, 1998; McGinn, 1984; Millar, 2004; Miller, 1998; Pettit, 1990; Wright, 1980, 1984). They are moved, quite often, by the following reasoning. Meaningful words have correctness conditions. The English word green applies correctly to something if and only if it is green. Furthermore, the fact that a speaker means green by green determines not that she will apply green to something if and only if it is green, but that she ought to do so. If she fails to apply green correctly, she will have failed to speak as she should. What someone means by a term thus determines how she ought to use it. If this reasoning is cogent, anyone committed to the assumption that meaningful terms have correctness conditions seems equally committed to the normativity of meaning. This poses a problem especially, though perhaps not exclusively, for naturalists about meaning. By naturalist, I refer to those who do not think meaning, intentionality or normativity can be among the building blocks of the universe (Fodor, 1990). Naturalists seek to explain what it is for someone to mean something by a term without making further appeal to normative, semantic or intentional facts. The trouble is that naturalists trade in is statements, whereas meaning is allegedly fraught with oughts; and on the face of it, there seems to be a yawning gap between is and ought or between the two distinct spacesthe normative space of reasons and the causal space of nature (McDowell, 1998, p. 392; Sellars, [1956] 1997). Given its potency, the thesis that meaning is normative has invited some suspicion (Bilgrami, 1993; Dretske, 2000; Fodor, 1990; Glu er, 1999; Glu er, 2001; Glu er and Pagin, 1999; Papineau, 1999 and Wikforss, 2001). Yet, most

Address for correspondence: St. Hildas College, Cowley Place, Oxford OX4 10Y, UK. Email: anandi.hattiangadi@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
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people assume, without sufficient argument, that meaning is normative. Even those who aim to naturalise semantic normativity often assume, along with those who oppose naturalism, that meaning is normative; though they maintain that the normativity of meaning can be naturalised (Blackburn, 1993; Dretske, 1986; Millikan, 1995). Against this overwhelming consensus, I will argue that we have no good reason to believe that meaning is normative in a sense that justifies a presumption against naturalism. In the next section, I will present what I take to be the most intuitive argument in favour of the normativity of meaning, and will argue that it equivocates between one sense of normative that is no trouble for naturalism and a sense of normative as prescriptive, that does yield a presumption against naturalism. In section 2, I will present some general arguments against the assumption that meaning is prescriptive. In subsequent sections I criticise what I take to be the most compelling reasons that might be given in favour of the thought that meaning is prescriptive.

1. Correctness and Prescriptivity What is a normative statement? Here are a few un-contentious examples: you ought to give some of your income to charity; torturing innocent people is wrong; keeping your promises is right. In contrast, here are some un-contentious examples of descriptive statements: snow is white; the earth is flat; elephants never forget. What seems special about normative statements, what distinguishes them from descriptive statements, is that normative statements tell us what to do, whereas non-normative statements simply describe how things are. G. E. Moore ([1903] 1993) and David Hume ([1739] 1978) have both argued, in different ways, that this fundamental difference between normative and nonnormative concepts and statements makes normative concepts and statements irreducible to natural concepts and statements. Moore said that any attempt to reduce normative concepts to natural concepts is to commit the Naturalistic Fallacy. Hume argued that you cannot validly derive a normative statement from a consistent set of descriptive statements. Both of these arguments are controversial, and I cannot go into the controversies here (cf. Darwall, Gibbard and Railton, 1992; Hudson, 1969; Miller, 2003). Rather, I will simply grant the anti-naturalist the assumption that some such arguments can be made good and ask instead whether meaning is normative in the relevant sense. There are few explicit arguments for the normativity of meaning. Most normativists assume the thesis as a platitude, part of our intuitive or pre-theoretic picture of meaning and understanding (Brandom, 1994; Boghossian, 1989; Glock, 1996; McDowell, 1993; McGinn, 1984; Kripke, 1982; Pettit, 1990; Wright, 1980, 1984). Since I do not share this intuition, I would like to try to reconstruct an argument for the normativity of meaning that starts with assumptions we can all share. The argument does, I think, capture the line of reasoning that leads many
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people to assume that meaning is normative. However, as it turns out, the argument equivocates between two senses of the claim that meaning is normative, one of which is innocuous, and the other of which is damaging to naturalism. Intuitively, it is a necessary condition for a term to have a meaning that it has conditions of correct application. More precisely, where t is a term, F its meaning, and f the feature or collection of features in virtue of which F applies, what we might call the Meaning Platitude says: Meaning Platitude: t means F ! (x)(t applies correctly to x $ x is f )1 The expression applies correctly is a placeholder for the various semantic relations a term can have to the world: t applies correctly to x stands for t refers to x, t denotes x, or t is true of x. Thus, if t means green, t is true of all and only green things; if t means Socrates, it denotes Socrates and only Socrates. In short, we might say, according to MP, the meaning of a term can be expressed by its correctness conditions. Many people take MP to be a platitude because it hardly seems open to us to deny that in order to have meaning, terms must have correctness conditions. This is what distinguishes the use of language from the making of mere noise. Of course, MP has been denied. In philosophy nothing is uncontroversial. However, those who deny MP typically do so on the force of sceptical arguments (Quine, 1960; Kripke, 1982). Moreover, most of those who seek to naturalise meaning seem to subscribe to some form or other of MP (Dretske, 1986, 2000; Fodor, 1990; Millikan, 1984, 1995). As I have formulated it, MP does not mention a speaker. The thought that meaning is normative, however, is the thought that meaning is normative for a speaker. Since MP does not imply that meaning is normative, where does the assumption that meaning is normative come from? The answer is that it comes from another, allegedly intuitive assumption: that a speaker who means something by an expression must be following a rule (norm) for its correct application. Sometimes, to say that meaning is normative just is to say that for someone to mean something by a word, she must be following a rule. One meaning of the word normative is pertaining to a norm or a standard, so if a speaker must follow a rule in order to mean something by a term, then, the reasoning goes, meaning must be normative. But the fact that a speaker follows a rule does not, in itself, make meaning normative in the sense that is required for the Humean and Moorean arguments to take hold. The reason is that there are different kinds of rules that a speaker might be said to be following, in order to mean something by an expression (Glu er and Pagin, 1999). But it is only if the rules speakers follow are prescriptive, its only if they tell us
1

I am assuming a truth-theoretic interpretation of MP throughout, but it could just as well be given an assertion-theoretic interpretation. See Glu er, 1999 for further discussion of the assertion-theoretic version and normativity. I will stick to the truth-theoretic interpretation for simplicity and because it is one that many naturalists hope to capture.

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what to do, that the Humean and Moorean arguments could be made to apply. However, very often, the thought that meaning is normative is presented as the thought that a speaker must be following a rule that simply specifies the conditions of correct and incorrect use of an expression. For instance, Boghossian says that the normativity of meaning turns out to be, in other words, simply a new name for the familiar fact that . . . meaningful expressions possess conditions of correct use (1989, p. 513). A rule that specifies the correct use of a term (assuming MP) is the following: R1: (x)(t applies correctly to x $ x is f ). Though R1 is indeed a norm, the fact that I must follow it does not make meaning normative in the appropriate sense. R1 simply states the correctness conditions of an expression; it does not tell me what to do (Glu er, 1999; Glu er and Pagin, 1999). Rather, if I am following R1, then R1 supplies a description of my uses of t as those that are correct and those that are incorrect. Furthermore, recall that the correctness conditions of a term are just the conditions under which the term refers to or is true of an object to which it is applied. R1 just tells the speaker what these conditions are. For example, in the case of square, a rule of the form of R1 would state that for all x, square refers to x if and only if x is square. It does not follow from the fact that I am following such a rule that I ought to apply square to something if and only if it is square.2 The mere fact that I am following such a rule implies only that if I apply square to something square, my application can be described as correct, i.e., in accordance with the rule that I am following, and if I apply square to something non-square, my application can be described as incorrect, i.e. failing to accord with the rule that I am following. On this interpretation of normative, to say that meaning is normative is to say that when I mean something by an expression, I must be following a rule that distinguishes between those uses that accord with the meaning and those which do not. This can be captured by the principle I will call Correctness.

One might argue that for me to mean something by an expression, a rule of the form of R1 must be in force (Glu er and Pagin, 1999). If R1 is in force for a speaker, then it is binding; the speaker ought to aim to comply with R1 (thanks to an anonymous referee for this suggestion). That is, R1 will tell me which uses of t are correct, and an additional rule will tell me that I ought to aim to use t correctly, in accordance with R1. This additional rule will, indeed, be normativeit tells me what I ought to doeven though R1 remains descriptive. However, if meaning something by a term implies that I ought to aim to comply with a rule like R1, then this view will suffer precisely the same objections as Prescriptivity, which I discuss in the following. Moreover, there is a more usual sense in which we say that, for example, a legal rule is in forcei.e., in the sense that it is accepted and enforced by sanctions. So, to say that a rule like R1 is in force need not be to say that one ought to comply with it, but merely that it is a rule that is accepted, in a linguistic community, for example, and non-compliance with it will result in sanctions. These are all descriptive statements, as are the statements that are made true by the fact that R1 is in force (i.e. regarding which actions accord with R1 and which do not).
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A. Hattiangadi Correctness: S means F by t ! (x)(S applies t correctly to x $ x is f ).

Where S is a speaker, and the other terms are as defined above. If the slogan meaning is normative just is Correctness, then meaning is not normative in the sense that would engage Humes and Moores argumentsfor those arguments to take hold, meaning-determining rules must tell the speaker what to do. Assuming Correctness, however, the fact that I mean green by green is merely the fact that when I apply green to something green, my use can be described as correct and when I apply green to something non-green, my use can be described as incorrect. It might be argued that correct is a normative term, so Correctness itself constitutes a presumption against naturalism. Indeed, many philosophers take the statement that some use of an expression is correct to imply that it is the use that a speaker who grasps the meaning of an expression ought to make that application of the expression (e.g. Boghossian, 1989, p. 509; Brandom, 1994, p. 27). However, deontic terms, such as correct and right, are not always normative. Sometimes, to say that something is right does not imply a prescription; rather, it is to say that it meets a certain standard. For example, think of theme parks where there is a minimum height requirement for some of the more dangerous rides. This is a standard children must meet if they are to go on the ride. But however happy Niblet may be to meet the standard, whether or not she does is a straightforwardly non-normative, natural factit is the fact that she is four feet tall. We might say that Niblet is the right height or the correct height, but this is clearly not to say that it is a height she ought to pursue quite independently of any of her desires.3 Rather, it is simply to say that she is four feet tall. In contrast, if I say something like the right action is the one that maximises overall happiness, I mean that such actions ought to be taken even in the absence of any relevant desire. It is clear, however, that we should not assume that the correct in Correctness has prescriptive force (Glu er, 1999; Glu er, 2001; Soames, 1998; Wikforss, 2001 and Wilson, 1994). Given MP, it seems more plausible to take correct to have descriptive force. Remember that in the initial formulation of MP, correct is just a catch all phrase for the various semantic relations terms can have to the world. To say that some use of a term is correct is thus to say that it accords with an application rule that specifies the conditions under which it refersit is to say that the term refers to or is true of the thing to which it has been applied. If we keep this firmly in view, it no longer makes sense to treat correct prima facie as a prescriptive term. Consider, for instance, the statement that the word square applies correctly to a particular table top. This is not a normative statementit is not equivalent to the statement that you ought to say that the table top is square
3

It may be true that if Niblet wants to go on the ride, she ought to aim to be four feet tall, but this is a hypothetical means/end imperative, where being at least four feet tall is a means to satisfying her desire to go on the ride. However, hypothetical means/end imperatives are not troubling for the naturalist. I discuss this further in Section 3.

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quite independently of any desire (such as the desire to tell the truth, for instance); rather, it is equivalent to the straightforwardly non-normative judgement that the table top is square and that, in being square, it meets the standard for the correct application of the word square. To say that some use of a term is correct is thus merely to describe it in a certain wayin light of the norm or standard set by the meaning of the term. For meaning to be normative in the required sense, the slogan meaning is normative must be glossed as meaning is prescriptive. It is this sense of normative that is crucial in distinguishing normative from non-normative statements in Humes and Moores arguments, so anyone who claims that meaning is in principle irreducibly normative needs to assume that meaning is normative in this sense. Kripke certainly suggests that meaning is fraught with oughts. He says, for instance: Ordinarily, I suppose that, in computing 68 57 as I do . . . I follow directions I previously gave myself that uniquely determine that in this new instance I should say 125 (Kripke, 1982, p. 10, emphasis added). And again, he says, I feel confident that there is something in my mindthe meaning I attach to the plus signthat instructs me what I ought to do in all future cases. I do not predict what I will do . . . but instruct myself what I ought to do to conform to the meaning (Kripke, 1982, pp. 2221). Later, he says, The point is not that, if I meant addition by , I will answer 125, but that, if I intend to accord with my past meaning of , I should answer 125 (Kripke, 1982, p. 37). On this view, the rule that I must be following in order to mean addition by plus is a prescriptive rule, such as R2: R2: (x)(apply t to x $ x is f !). Unlike R1, R2 prescribes a course of action; it tells me what I ought to do. If meaning something by t requires that I follow a rule like R2, and if following a rule implies that one ought to do what it tells one to do, then in order to mean something by t, I ought to to apply t to x $ x is f. On this construal of meaning is normative, if I mean green by green, I ought to say that something is green if and only if it is. This thought is captured by the following principle: Prescriptivity: S means F by t ! (x)(S ought (to apply t to x $ x is f )).4

Prescriptivity should not be expressed so as to have narrow scope, that is, as follows: S means F by x ! (a)(S ought (to apply x to a) $ a is f ). So formulated, the principle states that if S means F by x then, under certain conditions (namely, if and only if a is f ), S has an obligation (to apply x to a). In contrast, as it is formulated in the main text, the ought has wide scope. This is to say that if S means F by x, then S has an obligation with a conditional content; that is, she has an obligation (to apply x to a $ a is f ). The formulation with wide scope seems to better capture the suggestion that if a speaker means something by an expression, she incurs an obligationto use the expression correctly, given its meaning. Krister Bykvist pointed out this scope ambiguity to me.
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If meaning is normative in the sense expressed by Prescriptivity, the normativity of meaning will pose a serious problem for naturalism. Crucially, Prescriptivity engages Humes Lawthat you cannot derive an ought from an isbecause according to Prescriptivity it is a necessary condition for someone to mean, say, square by square that she ought to apply square to all and only squares. If Prescriptivity is true, there may turn out to be a gap between the explanatory resources of naturalism, appropriate to the space of nature, and meaning, which remains inaccessible in the space of reasons. Naturalists will face the additional and potentially intractable difficulty of bridging that gap. In contrast, even if Correctness is true, meaning still remains firmly on the is side of the is/ought gap because what someone means only makes true a special kind of description of her behaviour. Hence, Correctness does not yield a potential objection to naturalism a priori. Of course, it may turn out to be difficult for naturalists to accommodate Correctnessbecause they will need to find a natural relation that determines the correctness conditions of an agents terms (Dennett, 1998; Fodor, 1990; Stich and Warfield, 1994). Yet, difficult though this may prove, it is just the familiar problem of explaining intentionality naturalistically (Fodor, 1990; Wikforss, 2001). As I will argue in the following, naturalists have no need to worry about the normativity of meaning. Prescriptivity, though potentially troubling for naturalism, is false. In the next section, I will consider some general objections to Prescriptivity. In the following sections, I address some arguments that might be made in defence of Prescriptivity. Though I cannot consider all possible arguments for Prescriptivity, I will consider those that are either the most prominent or the most compelling, and will argue that they fail to show that meaning is fraught with oughts.

2. Prescriptivity The Prescriptivity Principle, as I have presented it, says that if I mean horse by horse, I ought to apply horse to something if and only if it is a horse. My semantic obligation has this biconditional content because Prescriptivity was initially presented as an attempt to capture what it is for a speaker to mean something by an expression, assuming MP. Since MP says that t applies correctly to x if and only if x is f, Prescriptivity says that if someone means something by an expression she incurs an obligation with biconditional content. However, on this construal, Prescriptivity seems to be too strong. As a prerequisite for carrying out her obligation to apply her words correctly, a speaker will have to ensure that: (1) (2) (x) (S applies t to x $ x is f ) (x) (x is f ! S applies t to x)

Unpacking the biconditional highlights a difficulty. Though an agent may be able to ensure that (1) is true, she surely cannot ensure that (2) is true. In many cases, it
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is not up to her whether a is f; so, in order to make (2) true, she would have to apply t to every a that is f. That is, if she meant horse by horse, in order to carry out her semantic obligation, she would have to apply horse to all the horses in the universe. Because ought implies can, (2) is not just too demanding, it is false. This difficulty should already arouse our suspicions. Unlike Prescriptivity, Correctness can be formulated so as to capture MP: That is, according to Correctness, if I understand horse to mean horse, horse will apply correctly (i.e. refer) to all and only horses. There is no analogous difficulty in saying that the correct application of horse outstrips what I can docorrect or refers does not imply can.5 Thus, it seems as though Correctness can capture what it is for a speaker to mean something by a word, whereas Prescriptivity cannot. Since Prescriptivity is clearly too strong, perhaps we should assume a weaker principle, such as the following: Prescriptivity*: S means F by t ! S ought: (x)(S applies t to x $ x is f ). According to Prescriptivity*, a speaker who means something by an expression ought to ensure that she uses it only when it is correct to do so. But Prescriptivity* is also false: it is not the case that in order for someone to mean something by a term, it is necessary that she ought only to use it correctly. Under some circumstances, I might be obligated to tell a lie, which does not imply that I mean something non-standard by my expressions. For example, I want to teach my son never to touch the oven, so I say the oven is hot even when it is cool. Indeed, given the advantages of my sons avoiding the oven, I ought to say to him the oven is hot even when it is not. In this case, I ought to apply hot to something that is cool, which does not imply that I do not mean hot by hot. The general point against Prescriptivity is that the correct use of a term is not always the use that we ought to make. Sometimes we ought to lie for the sake of a greater goodsuch as to protect someone from danger. On other occasions, we ought to use words incorrectly simply because it will have a more powerful effect or because it will make people laugh. Yet, according to Prescriptivity, a speaker who means something by a term ought to apply it correctly, where applies correctly stands in for refers to, is true of, denotes, and so forth. Thus, Prescriptivity makes it a necessary condition of meaning something by a term that a speaker ought to speak the truth. But this requirement is too strong to be a purely semantic requirement. It implies that on occasions when someone ought not to tell the truth, she does not mean what she ordinarily means by her terms.

This problem holds even if MP is understood in the assertion-theoretic sense. I cannot be obligated to assert all of the terms I understand every time I am warranted in doing so, because there are just too many statements, at any given time, that I have warrant to assert.
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3. Hypothetical and Categorical Obligations It might seem intuitive to suppose that meaning is normative because if a speaker wants to tell the truth, or if a speaker wants to communicate, then she ought only to use her words correctly. For instance, Kripke says if I intend to accord with my past meaning of , I should answer 125 (to 68 57?) (Kripke, 1982, p. 37, emphasis added). However, on the face of it, this is an example of a hypothetical means/end prescription, and if Prescriptivity is to undermine naturalism, the semantic oughts it introduces cannot be of this kind. Hypothetical means/end prescriptions are conditional prescriptions in which the consequent and antecedent bear a relationship of means to end. An example of an ordinary hypothetical means/end prescription is this: If you want to get from Oxford to Cambridge by noon, you ought to take an early morning train. Taking an early morning train is a means of getting from Oxford to Cambridge by noon. A categorical prescription, in contrast, is not contingent on an end. This distinction is not just about form: categorical prescriptions can have a conditional structure so long as the antecedent and consequent are not related as end to means. Hence, If you are a moral agent, you ought to aim to maximise happiness is a categorical prescription: aiming to maximise happiness is not a means to being a moral agent; it is a condition of your being one. The distinction between categorical and hypothetical oughts is difficult to draw.6 Nevertheless, the distinction is decisive, since many hypothetical oughts pose no difficulty for naturalism. The reason is that on our usual, normative interpretation of ought, hypothetical ought-statements seem to be plainly false. How can it be that someones desire or intention to do something makes it the case that she ought to do it? It is clearly not the case that just because George W. Bush wants or intends to invade Iraq, he ought to do so. Hence, as R. M. Hare suggested, the force of many hypothetical ought-statements must be descriptive, rather than prescriptive (Hare, 1952, Ch. 3). To say if you want to get from Oxford to Cambridge by noon, you ought to take an early morning train is merely to describe a way of getting from Oxford to Cambridge by noon. Similarly, to use Hares somewhat outdated example, to say if you want to go to the largest grocer in Oxford, you ought to go to Grimbly Hughes is to say that Grimbly Hughes is the largest grocer in Oxford. Since these statements seem to have descriptive, rather than prescriptive force, they do not tell us what we ought to do, despite appearances. Thus, it is important that the oughts foisted on the naturalist are not hypothetical oughts, and thus descriptive. If meaning is normative, if meaning is genuinely oughty, then the fact that an agent means something by an expression must amount to the fact that she ought to use the expression in accordance with its meaning quite independently of what she wants to do (cf. Glu er, 1999, 2001; Wikforss, 2001).

I have now and will in the following drop the qualification means/end and simply use hypothetical as short for hypothetical means/end prescriptions.

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One reason that is often cited in defence of semantic normativity is that a theory of content must allow for the possibility of error. For instance, Kripke (1982) presents the normativity thesis in the course of his argument against the dispositionalist, whose failure to accommodate error is diagnosed as a failure to capture semantic prescriptions. Kripkes dispositionalist maintains that the correctness conditions of a speakers terms, and thus what she means by them, can be read off of her dispositions. That is, the dispositionalist says that a speaker who means horse by horse is disposed to apply horse to some creature if and only if it is a horse. Kripke points out that the dispositionalist will have difficulties dealing with people who are disposed to make mistakes. Imagine, for example, someone who systematically forgets to carry digits when doing complex sums. We would normally want to say that such a person means addition by plus despite systematically making mistakes (Kripke, 1982, p. 29). The dispositionalist, however, cannot take this into account. If someone is disposed to give the right answer sometimes and the wrong answer at other times, which disposition determines what the speaker means? Somehow, the dispositionalist must specify, without circularity, which of the speakers dispositions are meaning constituting and which are error producing. But this, Kripke argues, the dispositionalist cannot do (Kripke, 1982, pp. 2637). Kripke diagnoses the dispositionalists failure as the failure to capture semantic prescriptions. He says that a full specification of my dispositions will tell you what I will do, never what I ought to do (Kripke, 1982, p. 36). The fact that I mean addition by plus implies that I ought to apply plus in accordance with its meaning; the fact that I am disposed to use plus in a certain way implies no such thing. Hence, no matter how much we know about a speakers dispositions, we will not thereby know that she means addition by plus. The dispositionalist fails, that is, because he fails to capture semantic oughts. Indeed, the problem of error is a variant of the familiar problem, made prominent by Fred Dretske (1986): that any theory of representation must allow for the possibility of misrepresentation.7 It is tempting to gloss this, as Kripke does, in prescriptive terms. But, in the end, the gloss is just gloss and nothing prescriptive lies beneath (Wikforss, 2001). Kripke is right to point out that dispositionalism, at least as he formulates it, faces a difficulty. The dispositionalist seems to say that the correctness conditions of a term can be read off of a speakers dispositions to use that term; that we can find out what horse refers to by looking at the conditions under which a speaker is disposed to use the term horse. The problem is that under some conditions, the speaker will be disposed to apply horse to non-horses. Sometimes, as Kripke points out, when she does so, she will have made a mistake. But this is just a special case of a more general problem that ultimately has nothing to do with semantic

However, Dretske (2000) argues, against his former self, that misrepresentation has nothing to do with normativity.
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oughts. Sometimes, when the speaker applies horse to a non-horse, she will be lying; at other times, she will be joking, speaking ironically, or sarcastically. In these cases, we hardly want to say that she has made a mistake, that she has failed to speak as she ought. Indeed, because the dispositionalist tries to derive truth conditions from dispositions, she will have difficulty accommodating cases in which the speaker is disposed to say nothing whatsoever in the presence of a horse. It may be that under some circumstancessuch as when the speaker has better things to think aboutshe will not say, even to herself, lo, a horse in the presence of a horse. Since the dispositionalist generates the extensions of terms from the stimulus conditions of dispositions, the dispositionalist seems constrained to say that horse neither refers only to horses, nor to all horses. But once again, we do not always think that the speaker has made a mistake when she is disposed either to apply horse to a non-horse, or disposed not to apply horse to a present horse. The point is that if the dispositionalist solution is a failure, it is a failure because our dispositions do not generate correctness conditions. Its failure does not indicate that there are semantic obligations.

5. Usually, Mostly, Normally One might argue that lying is parasitic on truth telling, and that what someone means by an expression is constituted by obligations she incurs on occasions of sincere use.8 So, what someone means by a term is constituted by the obligations she incurs when she aims to tell the truth. Though contingent on her aim to tell the truth, these obligations might nevertheless be essential to what she meansin order for her words to have meaning, she must aim to use them correctly at least most of the time. On occasions when she does not strive to tell the truth, the meaning of the termas constituted on occasions of sincere usesimply carries over. Thus, a speaker can meaningfully lie, but at the same time, meaning is constituted by semantic obligations. There are several difficulties with this suggestion. The first is that the obligations incurred on occasions of sincere use will not yield the right pattern of semantic obligations. Suppose, for example, that Matilda (Who Told Such Dreadful Lies) wants, on some occasion, to tell the truththat her house is on fire. In that case, given what she wants, given what she means, and given that her house is on fire, she ought to say my house is on fire. Matilda does not acquire, on that occasion of sincere use, the obligation to use is on fire of something only if it is on fire. Rather, she acquires the obligation to say that that house is on fire, at that time. This obligation concerns only a singular occasion of use. Now suppose that Matilda

Martin Kusch and Simon Blackburn have suggested this to me in conversation. It could be interpreted as a Davidsonian move, but for further reasons why this does not defend Prescriptivity see Bilgrami, 1993; Glu er, 1999, 2001 and Wikforss, 2001.

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has incurred obligations, on separate occasions, to say this house is on fire, this log is on fire, this oven mitt is on fire and so forth. All these taken together do not add up to the obligation to say that something is on fire only if it is. Matilda just has a list of obligations to say one thing in one circumstance, another thing in another. Since it is permissible for Matilda to lie, on the suggestion under consideration, there will be some occasions on which it is not the case that she ought to apply her terms though it is correct to do so. There is thus no way that the conjunction of Matildas singular obligations will add up the obligation to use her expressions only if correct. If the suggestion does not even give us Prescriptivity*, however, it is difficult to see how this could provide an adequate defence of Prescriptivity. The second problem is that these oughts seem to be hypothetical, and thereby not troubling for the naturalist. If we apply Hares reasoning, to say if Matilda wants to tell the truth, and if she means fire by fire, she ought to say that the house is on fire, is simply to say the house is on fire is true in Matildas language. The ought simply drops out. Thus, even if it is true that a speaker must aspire to use her words correctly most of the time, this only gives rise to hypothetical oughts of a kind that pose no difficulties for the naturalist.

6. Prima Facie Obligations Perhaps Matilda does have a semantic obligation to tell the truth, which is not contravened when she wants to lie, but overridden. Obligations that can be overridden by other obligations are called prima facie obligations (Ross, 1987). For example, if I promise to meet Cathy tomorrow for tea, some would say that I undertake a prima facie obligation to meet her tomorrow for tea. This is only a prima facie obligation because I might be justified in breaking my promise under extenuating circumstancesfor instance, if at the time of our tryst, Krister requires me more urgently. My obligation to Krister overrides my obligation to Cathy, but this does not mean that I had no obligation to Cathy in the first place, nor does it mean that the obligation went away; it was just trumped, as it were, by my obligation to Krister. The fact that I have a prima facie obligation to Cathy is the fact that, all things being equal, I ought to drink tea with Cathy. Hence, one might argue that my semantic obligations are prima facie obligations. If I mean something by an expression, I have an obligation to tell the truth, all things being equal; my obligation will be overridden if I ought to tell a lie. I suspect that the surface plausibility of this suggestion trades on our smuggling in desires on which the obligation to tell the truth is contingent. In order to test whether I have a prima facie obligation to use an expression correctly, we need to consider a case in which all is genuinely equal. So, not only should we assume that I have no desire to tell a lie, but that I have no desire to tell the truthotherwise, my obligation to apply a term correctly might just be contingent on that desire. Moreover, we have to rule out the possibility that the obligation is really moral or
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prudential. So, we have to assume that I have no desire to communicate; that if I have an audience, my audience is utterly indifferent to whether or not I tell the truth; and that nothing whatsoever hangs on what I sayit will not lead me to act imprudently or irrationally. The question is, given that my audience and I are indifferent to whether I tell the truth, and given that nothing hangs on what I say, am I still obligated to tell the truth? I see no reason why. If what I say affects nothing and no one, it hardly seems to matter whether I apply the term horse only to horses. One might suppose that it is necessary for an account of a speakers meaning that we posit a prima facie obligation for a speaker to use her terms correctly. However, this does not seem to be true. Given that I mean horse by horse, MP tells us that horse refers to all and only horses. Given Correctness, however I use the term horse, it will be correct in application to something if and only if it is a horse. This seems to be sufficient to account for the meaning of horse; nothing is added by saying that, ceteris paribus I ought to apply horse only if it is correct to do so. Furthermore, there is a difficulty in supposing that a speaker has a prima facie obligation to use her words correctlybecause the obligation to speak correctly would be overridden not only by an obligation to lie, but also, it seems, simply by the desire to lie. In contrast, my obligation to meet Cathy for tea cannot be overridden by a desire not to do so, but only by another obligation. If the obligation to speak the truth can be overridden by a mere desire not to do so, this seems to undermine the idea that an obligation, even a prima facie obligation, places a categorical constraint, whether I like it or not. Thus, instead of saying that I have a prima facie obligation to speak correctly that can be overridden by a desire to lie, it seems more plausible to suppose that what I have is not a prima facie categorical obligation, but a hypothetical one: if I want to tell the truth, I ought to use my words correctly; if I want to lie, I ought to use them incorrectly. What might have looked like a prima facie obligation to tell the truth is more plausibly construed as a hypothetical obligation contingent on a desire to tell the truth. Once again, this poses no serious problem for the naturalist.

7. Truth as a Conceptual Norm Many philosophers are inclined to argue that though meaning may not be normative, conceptual content is. Though insincere or otherwise incorrect uses of language may violate no semantic norms, misapplications of concepts do. When Matilda tells another whopper, she chooses to use her words incorrectly. Yet, Matilda can hardly choose to apply her concepts incorrectly. She can hardly help thinking that her house is on fire when she feels the heat of the flames, whatever she might say about it. However, Matildas being compelled to apply the concept fire only to fire is not tantamount to her being obligated to apply the concept fire only to fire. Matildas compulsion to believe that the house is on fire can be explained naturalisticallyin terms of her dispositions. The fact that she cannot help but
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apply the concept fire as she does is simply the fact that she is disposed to think fire! when confronted with fire. There is a disposition here, not an obligation. Nevertheless, it could be argued that though we may not be obligated to speak the truth, we ought to believe only what is true (Horwich, 1998, Ch. 8). If this supposition is correct, it will turn out to be a prerequisite for believing only what is true that we ought to apply our concepts correctly. To defend this line of reasoning, one might employ Michael Dummetts argument for the value of truth (Dummett, 1978). Dummett makes an analogy between the concept of truth and that of winning at a game such as chess. He observes that you could specify all the rules of chess, specify how all the pieces move, what constitutes winning or loosing the game, and still something would be left out: that the whole point of the game is to win. Similarly, Dummett argues, specifying the conditions under which a belief is true leaves out the important fact that truth is valuable, that truth is the aim of belief. If truth is valuable then we ought to believe only what is true. And, if we ought to believe only what is true, then we ought to apply concepts only when correct.9 Dummetts argument is compelling because most of us do value truthwe clearly want to believe only what is true. But our wanting to believe what is true and our being obligated to believe only what is true are two different things. If we ought to believe only truths only as a means to satisfying a desire to believe only truths, then this is merely a bypothetical ought and so not troubling for the naturalist. Moreover, it does seem as though this ought is hypothetical. I want to believe only what is true because having true beliefs will make me more successful in getting what I want. This is obviously true of particular beliefs. Consider Pam, who wants some ice cream, and who believes that there is ice cream in the freezer. Clearly, Pam wants her belief to be true because if it is true, then she can successfully act on itshe can go to the freezer and find ice cream. This is not just to say that Pam wants there to be ice cream in the freezer; rather, she wants to believe that there is ice cream in the freezer only if there is. If there is no ice cream in the freezer, she would rather believe that there is no ice cream in the freezer, so she will be prevented from making an unnecessary trip. In general, Pam wants her beliefs to be true because they form part of an interconnected system that helps her to get about in the world. Thus, Pam wants all of her beliefs to be true (Whyte, 1990; Mellor, 1990; Horwich, 2000). The obligation to believe only what is true is thus a hypothetical obligation contingent on the desirewhich most of us have to believe only what is true. If the argument from the value of truth is to support Prescriptivity, it must be the case that we ought to believe only what is true quite independently of any desire to do so. However, while it may be plausible to suppose that we want to believe only truths, it is difficult to support the claim that we categorically ought to believe only what is true. This is because, in some circumstances, the weight of evidence will

For another Dummettian argument for Prescriptivity, and criticism, see Glu er, 2001.
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favour a falsehood, in which case we ought to believe the falsehood. If we have overwhelming evidence that the butler committed the crime, it would be irrational to believe that he is innocent, even if it is true that he is innocent. Hence, even if truth is intrinsically valuable, we can at best be obligated to seek the truth, not to believe only what is true.10 But an obligation to seek the truth will not imply that we ought to apply our terms or concepts only correctly.11

8. Communication and Community Some readers will be impatient to point out that the community supplies the elusive normativity; that it is because I am a member of a linguistic community that I ought to use my words correctly. In one sense, this is true: if I want to be understood by others, then I ought to use my words as they do, or in such a way that they would understand. Most of the time, communication is best served by the correct use of words. But this obligation is of course contingent on my desire to communicate. If I have no such desire, then the obligation goes away. If I wish to lie, or make you laugh, or even if I wish to tell the truth but know that you think I will lie, then I ought to use my words incorrectly. Some people maintain, however, that meaning is essentially social; that correctness conditions are constituted by communal agreement. Moreover, communal agreements, like promises, create obligations. When I promise to return your book tomorrow, I undertake an obligation to return your book tomorrow. I create an obligation by making the promise. Similarly, when I am initiated into a community, I must undertake an obligation to abide by the conventions of that community. Where this is a linguistic community, I undertake an obligation to use my expressions correctly. This, in rough outline, is a view defended at length by Brandom: The particular norms of concern . . . are discursive normative statuses, the sort of commitment and entitlement that the use of concepts involves. These norms, it will be claimed, are instituted by social practices . . . Elaborating an account along these lines is pursuing three of Wittgensteins grand themes: the insistence on the normative character of language and intentionality, the pragmatist commitment to understanding these norms in terms of practices . . . and the recognition of the essentially social character of such norms (Brandom, 1994, p. 55).

10 11
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For an argument as to why it is not the case that we ought to seek the truth, see Papineau, 1999. For further discussion of semantic normativity and the value of truth, see Wikforss, 2001.

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To paint it in broad strokes, Brandoms picture is one in which communities institute semantic or conceptual conventions by taking attitudes of approval or disapproval towards bits of behaviour. Any behaviour that tends to meet with disapproval is thereby wrong, by the communitys lights, whereas behaviour that tends to meet with approval is thereby right. What a given speaker ought to say, then, is what tends to meet with approval rather than disapproval. Thus, the social practice of treating types of behaviour as correct or incorrect creates semantic obligations. Whatever the merits of this picture of meaning, it cannot be marshalled in defense of the thesis that meaning is normative. Some argument must be given for saying that meaning is essentially social, and in Brandoms case, the argument that is given depends on the assumption that meaning is normative. Like Kripke, Brandom assumes that the normativity of meaning is basic to our intuitive view. He says, for instance, that our ordinary understanding of states and acts of meaning, understanding, intending, or believing something is an understanding of them as states and acts that commit or oblige us to act and think in various ways (Brandom, 1994, p. 13). He then proceeds to argue that no naturalistic theory of meaning would doand concludes that normativity must be assumed as primitive (Brandom, 1994, pp. 425). It is not clear why this would make meaning essentially social; since whatever normativity is brought in at the social level might equally be brought in at the individual level (Blackburn, 1993). Nevertheless, by introducing communal practices, Brandom purports to explain how we create obligations obligations he takes to be there, standing in need of explanation. This just fails to speak to my concerns; my worry is that there are no semantic obligations to be explained in the first place. Moreover, there is a distressing circularity in the claim that semantic obligations are constituted by communal attitudes. Brandom seems to think that we can catapult ourselves into language via our attitudes. But this is like pulling ourselves up by our own socks, or turning ourselves into promise-keepers by promising to keep our promises. If semantic obligations are supposed to be essential to content, then there can be no content without the relevant obligations. But if the obligations are created by our attitudes, then they are themselves the products of contentful states. If I approve of your saying red in the presence of this apple, my endorsement has contentI endorse that you say red in the presence of this apple. If I can have an attitude with this content, then for one thing, I must grasp the concept apple. Assuming Prescriptivity*, this means that I ought to apply the concept apple only if it is correct to do so. But if obligations such as these are uniformly created by attitudes, then how is my obligation to apply the concept apple created? If by another attitude, we embark on a regress. If by my dispositions, the view will ultimately bottom out into a dispositional theory, which Brandom rejects on the grounds that it fails to accommodate normativity (Hattiangadi, 2003). So, Brandom faces a dilemma. Either way, we have no reason to think that we must assume that there are semantic obligations, standing in need of an explanation.
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9. Contractual Commitments Kripke, Wright, and McDowell (among others) suggest that we are committed to Prescriptivity* because we intuitively subscribe to what Wright calls the contractual theory of understanding (Brandom, 1984; Kripke, 1982; McDowell, 1993; Pettit, 1990 and Wright, 1980).12 According to the contractual theory, to understand an expression is to be committed to a particular pattern of application of that expression. This commitment then confers an obligation on the speaker to carry out the pattern of application in question. McDowell presents this assumption as follows: We find it natural to think of meaning and understanding in, as it were, contractual terms. Our idea is that to learn the meaning of a term is to acquire an understanding that obliges us subsequentlyif we have occasion to deploy the concept in questionto judge and speak in certain determinate ways, on pain of failure to obey the dictates of the meaning we have grasped; that we are committed to certain patterns of linguistic usage by the meanings we attach to expressions (McDowell, 1993, p. 257 quoting Wright, 1980, p. 21). The reasoning behind this goes roughly as follows: to accept MP is to accept that a term has content in virtue of its correctness conditions. In order for me to mean something by an expression, I must have adopted some standard of correctness for that expression. In adopting a standard of correctness, I must have formed an intention towards that standard. Otherwise, what is it for me to have adopted the standard in the first place? The trouble is that the contractualist needs to show that when I form an intention towards a standard, I incur the right set of obligations. That is, the contractualist needs to show that if I grasp the concept horse, I ought to apply it only to horses. The contractual theorist thus holds that in order for me to mean something by an expression, I must be committed not just to using the standard in any old way, but to meeting it; I am committed to carrying out a particular pattern of use for the expression I understand. Wright suggests this when he says that we intuitively suppose that [w]hen I assent to the rule: F is to be applied only to individuals which are f, I commit myself to a quite determinate way of using F (Wright, 1980, p. 36). Or, to put it more schematically, the Contractual Theory (CT ) can be expressed as follows: Contractual Theory: S means F by t $ S intends that: (a)(S applies t to a $ a is f ).

12

Kripke (1982) claims that intentions yield obligations, whereas Wright (1980) and McDowell (1993) both suggest that commitments yield obligations. I discuss both versions. It should be noted that the contractual theory is presented as part of our intuitive view, one that is rejected both by Wright and Kripke, and modified by McDowell.

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If CT is indeed part of our intuitive viewwhich I doubtwe ought to revise our intuitive view. To begin with, if an agent were to form the intention to use an expression correctly, then given a referential standard of correctness, this would be tantamount to her forming the intention never to lie. Think again of Matilda, who claims that her house is on fire when she knows full well that it is not. In order for her lie to be genuineand not just a case of mistaken beliefshe has to form the intention to say the house is on fire despite her awareness that the statement is false. Assuming CT, though, if Matilda means fire by fire, she must have the intention to apply the expression only if it is true. The trouble is that when she lies, of course, she forms the intention to utter a statement that she believes to be false. This obviously results in a difficulty: Matilda cannot simultaneously intend to apply t to a only if a is f, and intend to apply t to a when it is not the case that a is f. Intentions (as opposed to desires or beliefs) cannot stand in conflict, since intentions are the result of firm decisions to carry out actions. Hence, at best, the contractual theory makes it impossible for anyone to consistently form the intention to lie. One might think that this objection can be met if the contractualist sticks to the idea of someone being committed rather than merely intending to act in accordance with a rule.13 However, if Matilda is committed to apply t to a only if a is f, then she still cannot intend to apply t to a in full knowledge that it is not the case that a is f without affecting her commitment. A one-off intention to lie might not destroy her commitment, but if Matilda intended to lie too many times, presumably we would no longer wish to say that she was committed to speaking the truth. But it is odd to think that what Matilda means is hostage to her intentions in this manner. Compulsive liars, like Matilda, do not gradually begin to attach non-standard meanings to their expressions. When Matilda lies, jokes, or misleads, she presupposes the ordinary or literal meanings of her terms, so she cannot change them just by lying. Perhaps the contractualist could meet this objection by restricting himself to conceptual, as opposed to linguistic, content. In Matildas case, she lies because she believes that the house is not on fire, when she says that it is. In her mind she carries out her semantic obligations, while in her speech she uses the meanings of her words to convey false information. Given that she grasps the concept fire, she is committed at least to think fire! only when there are flames about. If this is the contractualists argument, however, it will succumb to an objection that was made previously: we have here a prudential obligation masquerading as a semantic one, and the prudential obligation can be given a naturalistic explanation. Though there might be value in only believing what is true, this seems to follow from a general prudential obligation contingent on a desire to get what we want. The obligation in question is therefore not semantic.

13

I am grateful to Bob Hale for making this suggestion.


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10. Conclusion The normativity thesis arises in the context of Kripkes discussion of rule following. Perhaps the most natural reason for supposing that meaning is normative is the thought that to understand a concept is to follow the rule for its correct application. And rules tell us what we ought to do. The Highway Code tells us how we ought to drive. The Ten Commandments tell us how we ought to act. So, if there are semantic rules, surely they will tell us what we ought to say. The reason why this argument fails should now be obvious from the foregoing discussion. For this argument from rule following to go forward, semantic rules clearly need to be both meaning constituting and prescriptive. Semantic rules will have to be meaning constituting because otherwise they will not be essential to meaning; and of course they will have to be prescriptive or they will not introduce semantic oughts. The trouble is that these two constraints pull in opposite directions (Glu er and Pagin, 1999). For a rule to be prescriptive, it must tell me what I ought to do. According to MP, the meaning constituting rule for horse must imply that horse applies correctly to all and only horses. However, it is not the case that I ought to apply horse to all and only horsesI am not obligated to apply horse to all horses because I cannot do so, and ought implies can. The weaker rule, stating that I should apply horse only to horses cannot constitute the meaning of horse. The rule that tells me to apply horse only to horses does not distinguish between my meaning horse by horse and something else, such as brown horse or black horse. Moreover, I sometimes ought to tell lies, or use my words incorrectly to prove a point or make people laugh, and the fact that I ought to use my words incorrectly does not imply that I do not mean what I ordinarily mean by my words. Since the weaker rule cannot distinguish my meaning any number of things by horse, it simply cannot constitute meaning. Thus, Prescriptivity must be false, and meaning is not normative in the sense that is required to generate a presumption against naturalism. St. Hildas College, Oxford

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