What is it to believe a normative ‘because’ claim like ‘Factory farming is wrong because it tortures animals’? On the attractive view known as expressivism, normative thoughts are plans for how to act rather than descriptions of the world. But in existing theories, a plan says only what to do, not why, and so expressivists have lacked an account of normative ‘because,’ or grounding, claims. I develop a new position, truthmaker expressivism, that supplies one. I then extend my expressivist accoun…
Read moreWhat is it to believe a normative ‘because’ claim like ‘Factory farming is wrong because it tortures animals’? On the attractive view known as expressivism, normative thoughts are plans for how to act rather than descriptions of the world. But in existing theories, a plan says only what to do, not why, and so expressivists have lacked an account of normative ‘because,’ or grounding, claims. I develop a new position, truthmaker expressivism, that supplies one. I then extend my expressivist account of grounding claims from ethics to metaphysics, dissolving several puzzles about what explains what, and show how expressivists can keep saying, with everyone else, that grounding claims are true and state facts.
