PRECURSORES METABOLICOS Y EFECTOS DE LA OBESIDAD EN NIÑOS UNA DECADA DE PROGRESO: 1990 –

Relativist semantic theories have been defended for a variety of terms, such as epistemic modals like ‘might’ or ‘possible’1, for ‘knows’2, taste predicates3 and future contingents4. We can find rival contextualist proposals for epistemic modals5, ‘knows’6, and taste predicates7. As this list illustrates, the conflict between contextualism and relativism is not limited to the information-sensitivity of the deontic ‘should’ (or ‘ought’, for that matter), but extends to many other terms and has implications for the areas of philosophy that are concerned with the respective terms, such as aesthetics, epistemology, or metaphysics. I am solely concerned with the conflict between relativist and contextualist semantics for the information-sensitivity of the doxastic ‘should’ and do not intend to make any points about the other expressions.

The mentioned authors have somewhat different conceptions of what relativism is. Of the accounts of relativism on offer, I have chosen to focus on John MacFarlane’s. For one thing, his general theory of relativist semantics is extremely well-worked out (see his 2014 book). Furthermore, unlike all of the other relativists, he has provided a specific relativist semantics for the information-sensitivity of the deontic ‘should’.

As the reader knows, contextualism accounts for the information-sensitivity of the deontic ‘should’ by positing that ‘should’ has different semantic values

1

See Egan et al. (2005), Egan (2007), or MacFarlane (2011).

2

See Richard (2004) or MacFarlane (2005).

3

See K¨olbel (2002), Lasersohn (2005), or MacFarlane (2014: Ch. 7).

4

See MacFarlane (2003).

5_{See DeRose (1991), von Fintel and Gillies (2008), or Dowell (2011).} 6

See DeRose (1992) or Cohen (1998).

depending on which information-state is provided by the context in which the sentence containing the term is uttered (the context of utterance). A sentence of the form ‘S should do A’ can, in one context, mean ‘S should doA in light of S’s information’, in another context mean ‘S should doA in light of the collective evidence’, and in yet another context mean ‘S should doAin light of the facts’. In other words, sentences of the form ‘S should doA’ express different propositions in contexts that provide different information-states.

On MacFarlane’s (2014: 286) truth-relativism, ‘S should do A’ expresses the same proposition at every context of use (provided, of course, that ‘S’ and ‘A’ have the same reference and ‘should’ has not changed its modal flavour).

Information-sensitivity is rather modelled by the assumption that ‘S should doA’ has different truth-values relative to different context of assessment. A context of assessment is a possible situation in which someone can assess the truth of a sentence. This can be the same as the context of utterance—in cases where the speaker evaluates their own utterance—but often is not. An information-state is one of the parameters that a context of assessment can provide. A sentence of the form ‘S should do A’ is true at a context of assessment that provides the information-state ionly if ‘S should do A’ is true in light ofi.

At first sight, this seems to be a radical proposal. The truth-predicate is here not, as it is often assumed, a monadic predicate that just ascribes sentences (or propositions, beliefs, etc.) the properties truth or falsehood. It is rather taken to be a dyadic predicate that takes two arguments: a sentence and a context of assessment. Sentences are not true simpliciter, but only relative to a context of assessment. MacFarlane (2014: 49) claims that this is not as revisionary as it sounds. Standard semantic theories do not ascribe sentences truth-values

simpliciter, but evaluate their truth relative to circumstances of evaluation (to use Kaplan’s (1989a, 1989b) terminology). For example, sentences are only true relative to possible worlds. The sentence

(1) Barack Obama is the 44th President of the USA.

is true relative to the actual world, but not the world in which John McCain won the election in 2008. Some semantic models relativize sentences’ truth-values even further. On Kaplan’s (1989a, 1989b) model, sentences are evaluated at an index containing a world- and a time-parameter. A time-parameter is, on Kaplan’s view,

necessary in order to account for temporal operators like ‘yesterday’, which shift the time-parameter in the index. A sentence like ‘Yesterday I went to the shop’ is evaluated by evaluating the sentence under the scope of ‘yesterday’ relative to an index containing a world and whichever time ‘yesterday’ denotes.

To sum up, the truth-predicate of semantic theories is not monadic anyway. In standard semantic theorizing, sentences are at least evaluated relative to a possible-world-parameter, and in some cases even further parameters are added. What is new about MacFarlane’s truth-relativism are two aspects. First, it adds unusual parameters to the circumstance of evaluation, for example standards of taste or information-states. Second, these parameters are not restricted to parameters provided by the context of utterance.8 For example, we can think of a view on which the sentence ‘S should doA’ expresses, ceteris paribus, the same proposition at every context of utterance, but that the only information- state against which it can be evaluated is the one provided by the context of utterance. This view would agree with relativism that ‘S should doA’ is not true

simpliciter, but would stipulate that it is only true relative to the information- state provided by the context of utterance.9 According to truth-relativism, by contrast, this information-state is provided by the context of assessment. Since the default information-state provided by the context of assessment is the assessor’s evidence, it is oftennot the information-state provided by the context of utterance. MacFarlane calls terms that are evaluated relative to unusual parameters provided by contexts of assessment ‘assessment-sensitive’.

To illustrate the difference between contextualism and relativism, let’s look at theMiners case, which I discussed first in subsection 2.5.1:

Miners. Ten miners are trapped either in shaft 1 or in shaft 2. Floodwaters threaten to flood the shafts. Sean has enough sandbags to block one shaft, but not both. If Sean blocks one shaft, all the water will go into the other shaft, killing any miners inside it. If Sean blocks neither shaft, both shafts will fill halfway with water, and just

8

To be precise, this second condition is actually jointly sufficient and necessary for a semantics to be relativist in MacFarlane’s sense. The first condition is only typical of the semantics MacFarlane suggests for taste predicates, modals, etc. There is a possible relativist semantics that relativizes sentences only to a possible-world-parameter (see MacFarlane 2014: 89f.).

one miner, the lowest in the shaft where the miners are, will be killed. Sean does not know in which shaft the miners are. He says:

(2) I should block neither shaft.

A physicist, who knows that the miners are in shaft 1, hears this and says to Sean:

(3) No, you should block shaft 1.

We will look at this case in more detail in the next section, but for now let’s just focus on the following point. On a possible, and natural, contextualist reading of (2), Sean is speaking relative to his own information-state. That is, (2) is short

for:

(2*) In light of my [Sean’s] evidence, I should block neither shaft.

It follows that (2*), and thus (2), is true. Is (2) true according to relativism? In contrast to contextualism, there is no straightforward answer to this. Whether it’s true depends on the context of assessment it is evaluated from. Relative to Sean’s context of assessment, it is true because the information-state provided by his context of assessment is his own.10 This explains why Sean asserts (2). According to the pragmatics that MacFarlane (2014: Ch. 5) suggests for assessment-sensitive sentences, a speaker is permitted to utter such a sentence if it is true relative to their context (in this case context of utterance and assessment are the same). However, relative to the physicist’s context of assessment (2) is false as the physicist’s context of assessment provides her information-state. This explains why the physicist rejects Sean’s utterance of (2).

After this introduction to MacFarlane’s truth-relativism, I now turn to the first challenge to Doxastic Contextualism, the doxastic integration problem.