Derecho a preservar su honra y su intimidad:

Korsgaard’s metaethical considerations lead to the requirement of certain condi- tions to the candidate source of semantic normativity. Our transposition set the search for an answer within the limits set by these conditions with respect to lin- guistic meaning. What is the resulting relation this suggests between metaethics and metasemantics?12

5.2.1

Normative statements or judgments?

We want to analyze the two sides of the linkage suggested by Gibbard’s we quoted in 1.4.13 We need to see first whether the link suggested relates statements, judgments, reasons or what.

On the one hand, Gibbard refers to metaethics as “the theory of meaning applied in a special domain, namely ethics.” (Gibbard (1994)) This seems to sug- gest that metaethics, as his quotation presents it, is a discipline which deals with normative statements about ethics. Although it is not clear from this passage, if the underlying claim is a stronger one, namely that metaethics is concerned

only with normative statements about ethics, then our transposition seems not to exemplify such linkage.

Our transposition of Korsgaard’s apparatus onto linguistic meaning does not aim at understanding statements about semantic (in)correctness but judgments in general. A judgment of (in)correctness might not be expressed as an explicit statement but rather as an action or a reaction by the speaker or interpreter. Our bridging between metaethics and metasemantics implies not only that normative statements but also that normative reactions in our linguistic uses and interpre- tations can be better understood if our scaffolding draws upon the study of how may moral judgments be supported or defended.

In 2.3.2–3, semantic judgment is situated on the spur of linguistic and non- linguistic interaction. This approach to the subject matter of semantics lets us find relevance of our practical reasoning in both ethical and semantic judgments. Both kinds of judgments should prompt action and not only warrant beliefs. Rea- sons which justify and not only explain need to confront and resist possible flaws of regress which threaten both ethical and linguistic justifications. Congruence of reasons provided by a source available for the parties in a dialogue is needed if normativity is to be preserved against complete relativism. The parallel ap- 12 _{Just to recall what we mean by metasemantics we quote Kaplan (1989): “The fact that}

a word or phrase has a certain meaning clearly belongs to semantics. On the other hand, a claim about the basis for ascribing a certain meaning to a word or phrase does not belong to semantics. (...) Perhaps, because it relates to how the language is used, it should be categorized as part of (...) pragmatics ..., or perhaps, because it is a fact about semantics, as part of (...) metasemantics.”

plication of the requirements set down by Korsgaard provided us with a means for assessing candidate sources for semantic normativity. Indeed we relied on the conceptual framework of metaethics to approach the question of how semantic judgments can be supported or defended.

5.2.2

A reduction of the sources?

On the other hand, Gibbard predicts that “If meaning is normative, then a central topic in the philosophy of language becomes a part of metaethics. Metaethics can turn imperialistic, and grab territory from the philosophy of language. It takes over the study of what meaning means.” (Gibbard (1994))

An important point: does this imply that we require that the source is or should be the same? In principle, the arch we have set does not imply that the reasons in one and other case are to be identified. The fact that the requirements for a normative theory for ethics and for semantics can be found parallel does not entail that reasons for positive moral judgment should be justificatory of linguistic uses/interpretations or vice versa. What we can expect from someone who utters or understands an expression is not what we ethically demand her to do. We can have reasons to interpret someone’s words as an insult and still find this morally condemnable.

However, the fact that wecan provide and establish ethical and semantic rea- sons can, we have tried to show, be found by way of similar operations in one and other domain. The appeal to autonomy describes a demanding reflective operation that is performed upon interaction considered either morally or seman- tically, and in one and other application it can yield reasons which are materially adequate and formally correct. Success in the cross autonomy test and in Kors- gaard’s appeal to autonomy can motivate us for action and can justify judgments about action. Either an external witness or the agent performing an action can plausibly rely on the same examination to obtain a prompt or a judgment of what they do, an action which forms and is limited by our practical identity. One method can be shown to satisfy the conditions settled for each domain. Norma- tivity in these aspects of our action does not seem to be supported by different authorities, our autonomy seems to be the arbiter in these different domains.

5.2.3

Normative reasons, ethics and semantics

Metasemantics (like metaethics) is about in-virtue-of-what certain judgments can be supported, semantics (like normative ethics) deals with what these judgments are about. The conceptual reliance on metaethics and the fact that the same possible source of reasons can be articulated in a metasemantic proposal do not directly compromise what semantic theories are about, but rather what can be a normative theory of meaning.

Therefore, our general considerations in 4.1 are not a claim for a substantive identification of semantics and ethics. None of our ethical borrowings imply that descriptive semantics and ethics should coincide. A person who made linguistic mistakes is not immoral, and a morally appraisable subject might have poor linguistic competence. In the particular case of the appeal to autonomy, possible categorical reasons provided by basic expectations are not argued to have an ethical import as maxims that are lawful ethical categorical norms. Likewise, compliance with universally valid ethical maxims does not have a bearing on our observance of conditions of semantic correctness.

Again, although this is not something that Gibbard (1994) explicitly suggests, the generality of his proposed bridge between metaethics and metasemantics. To take “over the study of what meaning means” (Gibbard (1994)) is not an identification of reasons in our investigation.

As we have tried to summarize here, our methodological exercise has a cer- tain significance as to how we consider metaethics and metasemantics to be re- lated. Ethics is concerned with our morally evaluative behaviour. We turned to metaethics to observe how this discipline attempts to understand our commit- ments in moral thought, talk, and practice. This provided us with a structure to examine how judgments of semantic (in)correctness can be warranted.

The relationship between these disciplines does not imply a reduction. Nor- mativity might be similarly sourced but the reasons for ethical and semantic considerations are not identical. Now we turn to see how this may be of any importance for the semanticist. When formal semantics is conceived of as an em- pirical or as a modeling task with respect to natural language interpretation an improper representation of the source of normativity might endanger the theory’s achievements.