Speech and Morality: On the Metaethical Implications of Speaking [Paperback]

Terence Cuneo presents a new argument for moral realism. According to the normative theory of speech, speech acts are generated by an agent's altering her normative position with regard to her audience. In doing so she takes on rights and responsibilities, some of which are moral and objective: these are a necessary condition of speech.Terence Cuneo develops a novel line of argument for moral realism. The argument he defends hinges on the normative theory of speech, according to which speech acts are generated by an agent's altering her normative position with regard to her audience, gaining rights, responsibilities, and obligations of certain kinds. Some of these rights, responsibilities, and obligations, Cuneo suggests, are moral. And these moral features are best understood along realist lines, in part because they explain how it is that we can speak. If this is right, a necessary condition of being able to speak is that there are moral rights, responsibilities, and obligations of a broadly realist sort.Preface1. Clarke's Insight2. A Normative Theory of Speech3. The Moral Dimensions of Speech4. Against the Mixed View: Part I5. Against the Mixed View: Part II6. Three Antirealist Views7. Epistemic ImplicationsBibliographyIndexTerence Cuneois Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vermont. In addition to having published a wide array of essays in the foundations of ethics, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of religion, Cuneo's books includeThe Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism(OUP, 2007), which was awarded Honorable Mention, American Philosophical Association Biennial Book Prize 2007-2009,Foundations of Ethics(edited with Russ Shafer-Landau; Blackwell, 2007), andThe Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid(edited with Rene van Woudenberg; CUP, 2004). Positive arguments in favor of moral realism are not wildly abundant. Cuneo has provided us with one that is bold, highly original, clearly argued, broalƒ&