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SPEAKING WITH ATTITUDE:
MORAL DISCOURSE AND PEJORATIVES
by
Ryan Jeffrey Hay
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PHILOSOPHY)
August 2011
Copyright 2011 Ryan Jeffrey Hay
Object Description
| Title | Speaking with attitude: moral discourse and pejoratives |
| Author | Hay, Ryan Jeffrey |
| Author email | ryanhay@usc.edu;rjhay33@yahoo.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Philosophy |
| School | College of Letters, Arts And Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2011-06-13 |
| Date submitted | 2011-07-12 |
| Date approved | 2011-07-13 |
| Restricted until | 2011-07-13 |
| Date published | 2011-07-13 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Schroeder, Mark |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Finlay, Stephen Handley, William R. |
| Abstract | This project arose from my interest in a hybrid expressivist account of moral language. One of the main reasons to be optimistic about such an account is that hybrid expressivism seems to be the correct account for pejorative language. For instance, just as ‘Paul is a wop’ may express both the belief that Paul is Italian and a negative attitude about being Italian, ‘Stealing is wrong’ may express both the belief that stealing has the property of wrongness and a negative attitude about wrongness. At the heart of my dissertation is the serious consideration of this analogy. The work I do in the first two chapters of the dissertation—discussing noncognitivism, the embedding problem, and a range of hybrid views—all leads up to the analogy between moral and pejorative language discussed in the third chapter. ❧ One of the major contributions of the dissertation is that certain general pejoratives (like ‘jerk’) can be distinguished in two significant ways from pejorative racial and ethnic slurs (like ‘wop’). And with regard to both of these distinctions, a correct hybrid framework for moral language should hold that moral terms work more like general pejoratives than slurs. By taking the analogy between moral terms and general pejoratives seriously, I examine two ways in which a hybrid picture of general pejoratives might be called into question. ❧ One issue is that general pejoratives may in fact be genuinely thick; their descriptions may be infused with evaluation. For instance, perhaps what it is to be a ‘jerk’ is just to be inconsiderate in inappropriate circumstances. If general pejoratives turn out to be genuinely thick, it would seem strange to model thin moral terms on how they work. I examine this in the fourth chapter, and I argue that general pejoratives are not genuinely thick. Clarifying where slurs and general pejoratives stand with relation to the thick/thin distinction is also another main contribution of the dissertation. ❧ Another issue in drawing an analogy between moral language and pejoratives is that many pejorative terms—including both slurs and general pejoratives—are offensive, and this is a quality that moral language seems to lack altogether. In the fifth chapter, I examine the concept of offensiveness, and its potential relation to the expressive capacity of pejoratives. While it is clear that certain pejoratives can be offensive in multiple respects- they can be useful for offending or downright obscene, or both- the fact that they may be so does not interfere with a hybrid expressivist account of their meanings. ❧ So I make several distinctions between moral language, general pejorative language, slurs, and thick-evaluative terms. The distinctions I have made here should be relevant not only to hybrid theorists interested in the nature of moral language, but also those who are interested in the meaning of pejoratives, including racial and ethnic slurs. While this investigation arose originally from my interest in a hybrid expressivist account of moral language, I think that there are useful lessons here even if, in the end, one is uneasy about a hybrid view for moral language specifically. |
| Keyword | expressivism; meta-ethics; non-cognitivism; slurs; language; wrong; hybrid |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Hay, Ryan Jeffrey |
| Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume71/etd-HayRyanJef-80.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | SPEAKING WITH ATTITUDE: MORAL DISCOURSE AND PEJORATIVES by Ryan Jeffrey Hay A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PHILOSOPHY) August 2011 Copyright 2011 Ryan Jeffrey Hay |
