Hattiangadi - Normativity

Is Meaning Normative?

ANANDI HATTIANGADI

Abstract: Many people claim that semantic content is normative, and that thereforenaturalistic theories of content face a potentially insuperable difficulty. The normativityof content allegedly undermines naturalism by introducing a gap between semantic‘ought’s and the explanatory resources of naturalism. I argue here that this problem isnot ultimately pressing for naturalists. The normativity thesis, I maintain, is ambiguous;it could mean either that the content of a term prescribes a pattern of use, or that itmerely determines which pattern of use can be described as ‘correct’. For the anti-naturalist argument to go forward, content must be prescriptive. I argue, however, thatit is not. Moreover, the thesis that content supplies standards for correct use isinsufficient to supply a similar, a priori objection to naturalism.

Many philosophers find irresistible the thesis that meaning is normative (Baker and

Hacker, 1984; Bloor, 1997; Brandom, 1994; Boghossian, 1989; Glock, 1994,

1996; Kripke, 1982; Lance and O’Leary Hawthorne, 1997; McDowell, 1993,

1998; McGinn, 1984; Millar, 2004; Miller, 1998; Pettit, 1990; Wright, 1980,

1984). They are moved, quite often, by the following reasoning. Meaningful

words have correctness conditions. The English word ‘green’ applies correctly to

something if and only if it is green. Furthermore, the fact that a speaker means green

by ‘green’ determines not that she will apply ‘green’ to something if and only if it is

green, but that she ought to do so. If she fails to apply ‘green’ correctly, she will

have failed to speak as she should. What someone means by a term thus determines

how she ought to use it.

If this reasoning is cogent, anyone committed to the assumption that meaningful

terms have correctness conditions seems equally committed to the normativity of

meaning. This poses a problem especially, though perhaps not exclusively, for

naturalists about meaning. By ‘naturalist’, I refer to those who do not think

meaning, intentionality or normativity can be among the building blocks of the

universe (Fodor, 1990). Naturalists seek to explain what it is for someone to mean

something by a term without making further appeal to normative, semantic or

intentional facts. The trouble is that naturalists trade in ‘is’ statements, whereas

meaning is allegedly fraught with ‘ought’s; and on the face of it, there seems to be a

yawning gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ or between the two distinct spaces—the

normative space of reasons and the causal space of nature (McDowell, 1998,

p. 392; Sellars, [1956] 1997).

Given its potency, the thesis that meaning is normative has invited some

suspicion (Bilgrami, 1993; Dretske, 2000; Fodor, 1990; Gluer, 1999; Gluer,

2001; Gluer and Pagin, 1999; Papineau, 1999 and Wikforss, 2001). Yet, most

Address for correspondence: St. Hilda’s College, Cowley Place, Oxford OX4 10Y, UK.Email: [email protected]

Mind & Language, Vol. 21 No. 2 April 2006, pp. 220–240.# 2006 The AuthorJournal compilation # 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

people assume, without sufficient argument, that meaning is normative. Even those

who aim to naturalise semantic normativity often assume, along with those who

oppose naturalism, that meaning is normative; though they maintain that the

normativity of meaning can be naturalised (Blackburn, 1993; Dretske, 1986;

Millikan, 1995).

Against this overwhelming consensus, I will argue that we have no good reason

to believe that meaning is normative in a sense that justifies a presumption against

naturalism. In the next section, I will present what I take to be the most intuitive

argument in favour of the normativity of meaning, and will argue that it equivo-

cates between one sense of ‘normative’ that is no trouble for naturalism and a sense

of ‘normative’ as ‘prescriptive’, that does yield a presumption against naturalism. In

section 2, I will present some general arguments against the assumption that

meaning is prescriptive. In subsequent sections I criticise what I take to be the

most compelling reasons that might be given in favour of the thought that meaning

is prescriptive.

1. Correctness and Prescriptivity

What is a normative statement? Here are a few un-contentious examples: ‘you

ought to give some of your income to charity’; ‘torturing innocent people is

wrong’; ‘keeping your promises is right’. In contrast, here are some un-contentious

examples of descriptive statements: ‘snow is white’; ‘the earth is flat’; ‘elephants

never forget’. What seems special about normative statements, what distinguishes

them from descriptive statements, is that normative statements tell us what to do,

whereas non-normative statements simply describe how things are.

G. E. Moore ([1903] 1993) and David Hume ([1739] 1978) have both argued,

in different ways, that this fundamental difference between normative and non-

normative concepts and statements makes normative concepts and statements

irreducible to natural concepts and statements. Moore said that any attempt to

reduce normative concepts to natural concepts is to commit the Naturalistic

Fallacy. Hume argued that you cannot validly derive a normative statement from

a consistent set of descriptive statements. Both of these arguments are controversial,

and I cannot go into the controversies here (cf. Darwall, Gibbard and Railton,

1992; Hudson, 1969; Miller, 2003). Rather, I will simply grant the anti-naturalist

the assumption that some such arguments can be made good and ask instead

whether meaning is normative in the relevant sense.

There are few explicit arguments for the normativity of meaning. Most ‘nor-

mativists’ assume the thesis as a platitude, part of our intuitive or pre-theoretic

picture of meaning and understanding (Brandom, 1994; Boghossian, 1989; Glock,

1996; McDowell, 1993; McGinn, 1984; Kripke, 1982; Pettit, 1990; Wright, 1980,

1984). Since I do not share this intuition, I would like to try to reconstruct an

argument for the normativity of meaning that starts with assumptions we can all

share. The argument does, I think, capture the line of reasoning that leads many

Is Meaning Normative? 221

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people to assume that meaning is normative. However, as it turns out, the

argument equivocates between two senses of the claim that meaning is normative,

one of which is innocuous, and the other of which is damaging to naturalism.

Intuitively, it is a necessary condition for a term to have a meaning that it has

conditions of correct application. More precisely, where t is a term, F it’s meaning,

and f the feature or collection of features in virtue of which F applies, what we

might call the Meaning Platitude says:

Meaning Platitude: t means F ! (x)(t applies correctly to x $ x is f )1

The expression ‘applies correctly’ is a placeholder for the various semantic relations

a term can have to the world: ‘t applies correctly to x’ stands for ‘t refers to x,’

‘t denotes x,’ or ‘t is true of x’. Thus, if t means green, t is true of all and only green

things; if t means Socrates, it denotes Socrates and only Socrates. In short, we might

say, according to MP, the meaning of a term can be expressed by its correctness

conditions. Many people take MP to be a platitude because it hardly seems open to

us to deny that in order to have meaning, terms must have correctness conditions.

This is what distinguishes the use of language from the making of mere noise. Of

course, MP has been denied. In philosophy nothing is uncontroversial. However,

those who deny MP typically do so on the force of sceptical arguments (Quine,

1960; Kripke, 1982). Moreover, most of those who seek to naturalise meaning

seem to subscribe to some form or other of MP (Dretske, 1986, 2000; Fodor, 1990;

Millikan, 1984, 1995).

As I have formulated it, MP does not mention a speaker. The thought that

meaning is normative, however, is the thought that meaning is normative for a

speaker. Since MP does not imply that meaning is normative, where does the

assumption that meaning is normative come from? The answer is that it comes

from another, allegedly intuitive assumption: that a speaker who means something

by an expression must be following a rule (norm) for its correct application.

Sometimes, to say that meaning is normative just is to say that for someone to

mean something by a word, she must be following a rule. One meaning of the

word ‘normative’ is ‘pertaining to a norm or a standard’, so if a speaker must follow

a rule in order to mean something by a term, then, the reasoning goes, meaning

must be normative. But the fact that a speaker follows a rule does not, in itself,

make meaning normative in the sense that is required for the Humean and

Moorean arguments to take hold.

The reason is that there are different kinds of rules that a speaker might be said to

be following, in order to mean something by an expression (Gluer and Pagin,

1999). But it is only if the rules speakers follow are prescriptive, it’s only if they tell us

1 I am assuming a truth-theoretic interpretation of MP throughout, but it could just as wellbe given an assertion-theoretic interpretation. See Gluer, 1999 for further discussion of theassertion-theoretic version and normativity. I will stick to the truth-theoreticinterpretation for simplicity and because it is one that many naturalists hope to capture.

222 A. Hattiangadi


what to do, that the Humean and Moorean arguments could be made to apply.

However, very often, the thought that meaning is normative is presented as the

thought that a speaker must be following a rule that simply specifies the conditions

of correct and incorrect use of an expression. For instance, Boghossian says that

‘the normativity of meaning turns out to be, in other words, simply a new name

for the familiar fact that . . . meaningful expressions possess conditions of correct use’

(1989, p. 513). A rule that specifies the correct use of a term (assuming MP) is the

following:

R1: (x)(t applies correctly to x $ x is f ).

Though R1 is indeed a norm, the fact that I must follow it does not make meaning

normative in the appropriate sense. R1 simply states the correctness conditions of

an expression; it does not tell me what to do (Gluer, 1999; Gluer and Pagin, 1999).

Rather, if I am following R1, then R1 supplies a description of my uses of t as those

that are ‘correct’ and those that are ‘incorrect’. Furthermore, recall that the

correctness conditions of a term are just the conditions under which the term refers

to or is true of an object to which it is applied. R1 just tells the speaker what these

conditions are. For example, in the case of ‘square’, a rule of the form of R1 would

state that for all x, ‘square’ refers to x if and only if x is square. It does not follow

from the fact that I am following such a rule that I ought to apply ‘square’ to

something if and only if it is square.2 The mere fact that I am following such a rule

implies only that if I apply ‘square’ to something square, my application can be

described as ‘correct’, i.e., in accordance with the rule that I am following, and if I

apply ‘square’ to something non-square, my application can be described as

‘incorrect’, i.e. failing to accord with the rule that I am following.

On this interpretation of ‘normative’, to say that meaning is normative is to say

that when I mean something by an expression, I must be following a rule that

distinguishes between those uses that accord with the meaning and those which do

not. This can be captured by the principle I will call Correctness.

2 One might argue that for me to mean something by an expression, a rule of the form ofR1 must be ‘in force’ (Gluer and Pagin, 1999). If R1 is ‘in force’ for a speaker, then it is‘binding’; the speaker ought to aim to comply with R1 (thanks to an anonymous refereefor this suggestion). That is, R1 will tell me which uses of t are correct, and an additionalrule will tell me that I ought to aim to use t correctly, in accordance with R1. Thisadditional rule will, indeed, be normative—it tells me what I ought to do—even thoughR1 remains descriptive. However, if meaning something by a term implies that I ought toaim to comply with a rule like R1, then this view will suffer precisely the same objectionsas Prescriptivity, which I discuss in the following. Moreover, there is a more usual sense inwhich we say that, for example, a legal rule is in force—i.e., in the sense that it isaccepted and enforced by sanctions. So, to say that a rule like R1 is ‘in force’ need not beto say that one ought to comply with it, but merely that it is a rule that is accepted, in alinguistic community, for example, and non-compliance with it will result in sanctions.These are all descriptive statements, as are the statements that are made true by the factthat R1 is ‘in force’ (i.e. regarding which actions accord with R1 and which do not).



Correctness: S means F by t ! (x)(S applies t ‘correctly’ to x $ x is f ).

Where S is a speaker, and the other terms are as defined above. If the slogan

‘meaning is normative’ just is Correctness, then meaning is not normative in the

sense that would engage Hume’s and Moore’s arguments—for those arguments to

take hold, meaning-determining rules must tell the speaker what to do. Assuming

Correctness, however, the fact that I mean green by ‘green’ is merely the fact that

when I apply ‘green’ to something green, my use can be described as ‘correct’ and

when I apply ‘green’ to something non-green, my use can be described as

‘incorrect’.

It might be argued that ‘correct’ is a normative term, so Correctness itself

constitutes a presumption against naturalism. Indeed, many philosophers take the

statement that some use of an expression is correct to imply that it is the use that a

speaker who grasps the meaning of an expression ought to make that application of

the expression (e.g. Boghossian, 1989, p. 509; Brandom, 1994, p. 27). However,

deontic terms, such as ‘correct’ and ‘right’, are not always normative. Sometimes,

to say that something is right does not imply a prescription; rather, it is to say that it

meets a certain standard. For example, think of theme parks where there is a

minimum height requirement for some of the more dangerous rides. This is a

standard children must meet if they are to go on the ride. But however happy

Niblet may be to meet the standard, whether or not she does is a straightforwardly

non-normative, natural fact—it is the fact that she is four feet tall. We might say

that Niblet is the ‘right’ height or the ‘correct’ height, but this is clearly not to say

that it is a height she ought to pursue quite independently of any of her desires.3

Rather, it is simply to say that she is four feet tall. In contrast, if I say something like

‘the right action is the one that maximises overall happiness’, I mean that such

actions ought to be taken even in the absence of any relevant desire.

It is clear, however, that we should not assume that the ‘correct’ in Correctness

has prescriptive force (Gluer, 1999; Gluer, 2001; Soames, 1998; Wikforss, 2001

and Wilson, 1994). Given MP, it seems more plausible to take ‘correct’ to have

descriptive force. Remember that in the initial formulation of MP, ‘correct’ is just a

catch all phrase for the various semantic relations terms can have to the world. To

say that some use of a term is ‘correct’ is thus to say that it accords with an

application rule that specifies the conditions under which it refers—it is to say that

the term refers to or is true of the thing to which it has been applied. If we keep this

firmly in view, it no longer makes sense to treat ‘correct’ prima facie as a

prescriptive term. Consider, for instance, the statement that the word ‘square’

applies correctly to a particular table top. This is not a normative statement—it is

not equivalent to the statement that you ought to say that the table top is square

3 It may be true that if Niblet wants to go on the ride, she ought to aim to be four feet tall,but this is a hypothetical means/end imperative, where being at least four feet tall is ameans to satisfying her desire to go on the ride. However, hypothetical means/endimperatives are not troubling for the naturalist. I discuss this further in Section 3.

224 A. Hattiangadi


quite independently of any desire (such as the desire to tell the truth, for instance);

rather, it is equivalent to the straightforwardly non-normative judgement that the

table top is square and that, in being square, it meets the standard for the correct

application of the word ‘square’. To say that some use of a term is ‘correct’ is thus

merely to describe it in a certain way—in light of the norm or standard set by the

meaning of the term.

For meaning to be normative in the required sense, the slogan ‘meaning is

normative’ must be glossed as ‘meaning is prescriptive’. It is this sense of ‘norma-

tive’ that is crucial in distinguishing normative from non-normative statements in

Hume’s and Moore’s arguments, so anyone who claims that meaning is in principle

irreducibly normative needs to assume that meaning is normative in this sense.

Kripke certainly suggests that meaning is fraught with ‘ought’s. He says, for

instance: ‘Ordinarily, I suppose that, in computing ‘‘68 þ 57’’ as I do . . . I follow

directions I previously gave myself that uniquely determine that in this new

instance I should say ‘‘125’’’ (Kripke, 1982, p. 10, emphasis added). And again, he

says, ‘I feel confident that there is something in my mind—the meaning I attach to

the ‘‘plus’’ sign—that instructs me what I ought to do in all future cases. I do not

predict what I will do . . . but instruct myself what I ought to do to conform to the

meaning’ (Kripke, 1982, pp. 22–21). Later, he says, ‘The point is not that, if I

meant addition by ‘‘þ’’, I will answer ‘‘125’’, but that, if I intend to accord with my

past meaning of ‘‘þ’’, I should answer ‘‘125’’’ (Kripke, 1982, p. 37). On this view,

the rule that I must be following in order to mean addition by ‘plus’ is a prescriptive

rule, such as R2:

R2: (x)(apply t to x $ x is f !).

Unlike R1, R2 prescribes a course of action; it tells me what I ought to do. If

meaning something by t requires that I follow a rule like R2, and if following a rule

implies that one ought to do what it tells one to do, then in order to mean

something by t, I ought to to apply t to x $ x is f. On this construal of ‘meaning

is normative’, if I mean green by ‘green’, I ought to say that something is green if

and only if it is. This thought is captured by the following principle:

Prescriptivity: S means F by t ! (x)(S ought (to apply t to x $ x is f )).4

4 Prescriptivity should not be expressed so as to have narrow scope, that is, as follows:S means F by x ! (a)(S ought (to apply x to a) $ a is f ). So formulated, the principlestates that if S means F by x then, under certain conditions (namely, if and only if a is f ), Shas an obligation (to apply x to a). In contrast, as it is formulated in the main text, the‘ought’ has wide scope. This is to say that if S means F by x, then S has an obligationwith a conditional content; that is, she has an obligation (to apply x to a $ a is f ). Theformulation with wide scope seems to better capture the suggestion that if a speakermeans something by an expression, she incurs an obligation—to use the expressioncorrectly, given its meaning. Krister Bykvist pointed out this scope ambiguity to me.



If meaning is normative in the sense expressed by Prescriptivity, the normativity of

meaning will pose a serious problem for naturalism. Crucially, Prescriptivity engages

Hume’s Law—that you cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’—because according

to Prescriptivity it is a necessary condition for someone to mean, say, square by

‘square’ that she ought to apply ‘square’ to all and only squares. If Prescriptivity is

true, there may turn out to be a gap between the explanatory resources of

naturalism, appropriate to the ‘space of nature’, and meaning, which remains

inaccessible in the ‘space of reasons’. Naturalists will face the additional and

potentially intractable difficulty of bridging that gap.

In contrast, even if Correctness is true, meaning still remains firmly on the ‘is’ side

of the ‘is’/‘ought’ gap because what someone means only makes true a special kind

of description of her behaviour. Hence, Correctness does not yield a potential objec-

tion to naturalism a priori. Of course, it may turn out to be difficult for naturalists

to accommodate Correctness—because they will need to find a natural relation that

determines the correctness conditions of an agent’s terms (Dennett, 1998; Fodor,

1990; Stich and Warfield, 1994). Yet, difficult though this may prove, it is just the

familiar problem of explaining intentionality naturalistically (Fodor, 1990;

Wikforss, 2001).

As I will argue in the following, naturalists have no need to worry about the

normativity of meaning. Prescriptivity, though potentially troubling for naturalism,

is false. In the next section, I will consider some general objections to Prescriptivity.

In the following sections, I address some arguments that might be made in defence

of Prescriptivity. Though I cannot consider all possible arguments for Prescriptivity,

I will consider those that are either the most prominent or the most compelling,

and will argue that they fail to show that meaning is fraught with ‘ought’s.

2. Prescriptivity

The Prescriptivity Principle, as I have presented it, says that if I mean horse by ‘horse’,

I ought to apply ‘horse’ to something if and only if it is a horse. My semantic

obligation has this biconditional content because Prescriptivity was initially presented

as an attempt to capture what it is for a speaker to mean something by an

expression, assuming MP. Since MP says that t applies correctly to x if and only

if x is f, Prescriptivity says that if someone means something by an expression she

incurs an obligation with biconditional content. However, on this construal,

Prescriptivity seems to be too strong. As a prerequisite for carrying out her obligation

to apply her words correctly, a speaker will have to ensure that:

(1) (x) (S applies t to x $ x is f )

(2) (x) (x is f ! S applies t to x)

Unpacking the biconditional highlights a difficulty. Though an agent may be able

to ensure that (1) is true, she surely cannot ensure that (2) is true. In many cases, it

226 A. Hattiangadi


is not up to her whether a is f; so, in order to make (2) true, she would have to

apply t to every a that is f. That is, if she meant horse by ‘horse’, in order to carry

out her semantic obligation, she would have to apply ‘horse’ to all the horses in the

universe. Because ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, (2) is not just too demanding, it is false.

This difficulty should already arouse our suspicions. Unlike Prescriptivity,

Correctness can be formulated so as to capture MP: That is, according to

Correctness, if I understand ‘horse’ to mean horse, ‘horse’ will apply correctly (i.e.

refer) to all and only horses. There is no analogous difficulty in saying that the

correct application of ‘horse’ outstrips what I can do—‘correct’ or ‘refers’ does not

imply ‘can’.5 Thus, it seems as though Correctness can capture what it is for a

speaker to mean something by a word, whereas Prescriptivity cannot.

Since Prescriptivity is clearly too strong, perhaps we should assume a weaker

principle, such as the following:

Prescriptivity*: S means F by t ! S ought: (x)(S applies t to x $ x is f ).

According to Prescriptivity*, a speaker who means something by an expression

ought to ensure that she uses it only when it is correct to do so. But

Prescriptivity* is also false: it is not the case that in order for someone to mean

something by a term, it is necessary that she ought only to use it correctly. Under

some circumstances, I might be obligated to tell a lie, which does not imply that I

mean something non-standard by my expressions. For example, I want to teach my

son never to touch the oven, so I say ‘the oven is hot’ even when it is cool. Indeed,

given the advantages of my son’s avoiding the oven, I ought to say to him ‘the oven

is hot’ even when it is not. In this case, I ought to apply ‘hot’ to something that is

cool, which does not imply that I do not mean hot by ‘hot’.

The general point against Prescriptivity is that the correct use of a term is not

always the use that we ought to make. Sometimes we ought to lie for the sake of a

greater good—such as to protect someone from danger. On other occasions, we

ought to use words incorrectly simply because it will have a more powerful effect

or because it will make people laugh. Yet, according to Prescriptivity, a speaker who

means something by a term ought to apply it correctly, where ‘applies correctly’

stands in for ‘refers to’, ‘is true of’, ‘denotes’, and so forth. Thus, Prescriptivity makes

it a necessary condition of meaning something by a term that a speaker ought to

speak the truth. But this requirement is too strong to be a purely semantic require-

ment. It implies that on occasions when someone ought not to tell the truth, she

does not mean what she ordinarily means by her terms.

5 This problem holds even if MP is understood in the assertion-theoretic sense. I cannot beobligated to assert all of the terms I understand every time I am warranted in doing so,because there are just too many statements, at any given time, that I have warrant toassert.



3. Hypothetical and Categorical Obligations

It might seem intuitive to suppose that meaning is normative because if a speaker

wants to tell the truth, or if a speaker wants to communicate, then she ought only to

use her words correctly. For instance, Kripke says ‘if I intend to accord with my past

meaning of ‘‘þ’’, I should answer ‘‘125’’ (to 68 þ 57¼?)’ (Kripke, 1982, p. 37,

emphasis added). However, on the face of it, this is an example of a hypothetical

means/end prescription, and if Prescriptivity is to undermine naturalism, the semantic

‘ought’s it introduces cannot be of this kind. Hypothetical means/end prescriptions

are conditional prescriptions in which the consequent and antecedent bear a rela-

tionship of means to end. An example of an ordinary hypothetical means/end

prescription is this: ‘If you want to get from Oxford to Cambridge by noon, you

ought to take an early morning train’. Taking an early morning train is a means of

getting from Oxford to Cambridge by noon. A categorical prescription, in contrast, is

not contingent on an end. This distinction is not just about form: categorical

prescriptions can have a conditional structure so long as the antecedent and con-

sequent are not related as end to means. Hence, ‘If you are a moral agent, you ought

to aim to maximise happiness’ is a categorical prescription: aiming to maximise

happiness is not a means to being a moral agent; it is a condition of your being one.

The distinction between categorical and hypothetical ‘ought’s is difficult to

draw.6 Nevertheless, the distinction is decisive, since many hypothetical ‘ought’s

pose no difficulty for naturalism. The reason is that on our usual, normative

interpretation of ‘ought’, hypothetical ‘ought’-statements seem to be plainly false.

How can it be that someone’s desire or intention to do something makes it the case

that she ought to do it? It is clearly not the case that just because George W. Bush

wants or intends to invade Iraq, he ought to do so. Hence, as R. M. Hare

suggested, the force of many hypothetical ‘ought’-statements must be descriptive,

rather than prescriptive (Hare, 1952, Ch. 3). To say ‘if you want to get from Oxford

to Cambridge by noon, you ought to take an early morning train’ is merely to

describe a way of getting from Oxford to Cambridge by noon. Similarly, to use

Hare’s somewhat outdated example, to say ‘if you want to go to the largest grocer

in Oxford, you ought to go to Grimbly Hughes’ is to say that Grimbly Hughes is

the largest grocer in Oxford. Since these statements seem to have descriptive,

rather than prescriptive force, they do not tell us what we ought to do, despite

appearances. Thus, it is important that the ‘oughts’ foisted on the naturalist are not

hypothetical oughts, and thus descriptive. If meaning is normative, if meaning is

genuinely ‘oughty’, then the fact that an agent means something by an expression

must amount to the fact that she ought to use the expression in accordance with its

meaning quite independently of what she wants to do (cf. Gluer, 1999, 2001;

Wikforss, 2001).

6 I have now and will in the following drop the qualification ‘means/end’ and simply use‘hypothetical’ as short for ‘hypothetical means/end’ prescriptions.

228 A. Hattiangadi


4. Mistakes and Lies

One reason that is often cited in defence of semantic normativity is that a theory of

content must allow for the possibility of error. For instance, Kripke (1982) presents

the normativity thesis in the course of his argument against the dispositionalist,

whose failure to accommodate error is diagnosed as a failure to capture semantic

prescriptions. Kripke’s dispositionalist maintains that the correctness conditions of a

speaker’s terms, and thus what she means by them, can be read off of her

dispositions. That is, the dispositionalist says that a speaker who means horse by

‘horse’ is disposed to apply ‘horse’ to some creature if and only if it is a horse.

Kripke points out that the dispositionalist will have difficulties dealing with people

who are disposed to make mistakes. Imagine, for example, someone who system-

atically forgets to carry digits when doing complex sums. We would normally want

to say that such a person means addition by ‘plus’ despite systematically making

mistakes (Kripke, 1982, p. 29). The dispositionalist, however, cannot take this into

account. If someone is disposed to give the right answer sometimes and the wrong

answer at other times, which disposition determines what the speaker means?

Somehow, the dispositionalist must specify, without circularity, which of the

speaker’s dispositions are meaning constituting and which are error producing.

But this, Kripke argues, the dispositionalist cannot do (Kripke, 1982, pp. 26–37).

Kripke diagnoses the dispositionalist’s failure as the failure to capture semantic

prescriptions. He says that a full specification of my dispositions will tell you what I

will do, never what I ought to do (Kripke, 1982, p. 36). The fact that I mean addition

by ‘plus’ implies that I ought to apply ‘plus’ in accordance with its meaning; the

fact that I am disposed to use ‘plus’ in a certain way implies no such thing. Hence,

no matter how much we know about a speaker’s dispositions, we will not thereby

know that she means addition by ‘plus’. The dispositionalist fails, that is, because he

fails to capture semantic ‘ought’s. Indeed, the ‘problem of error’ is a variant of the

familiar problem, made prominent by Fred Dretske (1986): that any theory of

representation must allow for the possibility of misrepresentation.7 It is tempting to

gloss this, as Kripke does, in prescriptive terms. But, in the end, the gloss is just

gloss and nothing prescriptive lies beneath (Wikforss, 2001).

Kripke is right to point out that dispositionalism, at least as he formulates it, faces

a difficulty. The dispositionalist seems to say that the correctness conditions of a

term can be read off of a speaker’s dispositions to use that term; that we can find

out what ‘horse’ refers to by looking at the conditions under which a speaker is

disposed to use the term ‘horse’. The problem is that under some conditions, the

speaker will be disposed to apply ‘horse’ to non-horses. Sometimes, as Kripke

points out, when she does so, she will have made a mistake. But this is just a special

case of a more general problem that ultimately has nothing to do with semantic

7 However, Dretske (2000) argues, against his former self, that misrepresentation hasnothing to do with normativity.



‘ought’s. Sometimes, when the speaker applies ‘horse’ to a non-horse, she will be

lying; at other times, she will be joking, speaking ironically, or sarcastically. In

these cases, we hardly want to say that she has made a mistake, that she has failed

to speak as she ought. Indeed, because the dispositionalist tries to derive truth

conditions from dispositions, she will have difficulty accommodating cases in

which the speaker is disposed to say nothing whatsoever in the presence of a

horse. It may be that under some circumstances—such as when the speaker has

better things to think about—she will not say, even to herself, ‘lo, a horse’ in the

presence of a horse. Since the dispositionalist generates the extensions of terms

from the stimulus conditions of dispositions, the dispositionalist seems constrained

to say that ‘horse’ neither refers only to horses, nor to all horses. But once again, we

do not always think that the speaker has made a mistake when she is disposed either

to apply ‘horse’ to a non-horse, or disposed not to apply ‘horse’ to a present horse.

The point is that if the dispositionalist solution is a failure, it is a failure because our

dispositions do not generate correctness conditions. Its failure does not indicate that

there are semantic obligations.

5. Usually, Mostly, Normally

One might argue that lying is parasitic on truth telling, and that what someone

means by an expression is constituted by obligations she incurs on occasions of

sincere use.8 So, what someone means by a term is constituted by the obligations she

incurs when she aims to tell the truth. Though contingent on her aim to tell the

truth, these obligations might nevertheless be essential to what she means—in

order for her words to have meaning, she must aim to use them correctly at least

most of the time. On occasions when she does not strive to tell the truth, the

meaning of the term—as constituted on occasions of sincere use—simply carries

over. Thus, a speaker can meaningfully lie, but at the same time, meaning is

constituted by semantic obligations.

There are several difficulties with this suggestion. The first is that the obligations

incurred on occasions of sincere use will not yield the right pattern of semantic

obligations. Suppose, for example, that Matilda (Who Told Such Dreadful Lies)

wants, on some occasion, to tell the truth—that her house is on fire. In that case,

given what she wants, given what she means, and given that her house is on fire,

she ought to say ‘my house is on fire’. Matilda does not acquire, on that occasion of

sincere use, the obligation to use ‘is on fire’ of something only if it is on fire.

Rather, she acquires the obligation to say that that house is on fire, at that time.

This obligation concerns only a singular occasion of use. Now suppose that Matilda

8 Martin Kusch and Simon Blackburn have suggested this to me in conversation. It couldbe interpreted as a Davidsonian move, but for further reasons why this does not defendPrescriptivity see Bilgrami, 1993; Gluer, 1999, 2001 and Wikforss, 2001.

230 A. Hattiangadi


has incurred obligations, on separate occasions, to say ‘this house is on fire’, ‘this

log is on fire’, ‘this oven mitt is on fire’ and so forth. All these taken together do

not add up to the obligation to say that something is on fire only if it is. Matilda just

has a list of obligations to say one thing in one circumstance, another thing in

another. Since it is permissible for Matilda to lie, on the suggestion under con-

sideration, there will be some occasions on which it is not the case that she ought

to apply her terms though it is correct to do so. There is thus no way that the

conjunction of Matilda’s singular obligations will add up the obligation to use her

expressions only if correct. If the suggestion does not even give us Prescriptivity*,

however, it is difficult to see how this could provide an adequate defence of

Prescriptivity.

The second problem is that these ‘ought’s seem to be hypothetical, and thereby

not troubling for the naturalist. If we apply Hare’s reasoning, to say ‘if Matilda

wants to tell the truth, and if she means fire by ‘‘fire’’, she ought to say that the

house is on fire’, is simply to say ‘‘the house is on fire’’ is true in Matilda’s

language’. The ‘ought’ simply drops out. Thus, even if it is true that a speaker

must aspire to use her words correctly most of the time, this only gives rise to

hypothetical ‘ought’s of a kind that pose no difficulties for the naturalist.

6. Prima Facie Obligations

Perhaps Matilda does have a semantic obligation to tell the truth, which is not

contravened when she wants to lie, but overridden. Obligations that can be

overridden by other obligations are called prima facie obligations (Ross, 1987).

For example, if I promise to meet Cathy tomorrow for tea, some would say that

I undertake a prima facie obligation to meet her tomorrow for tea. This is only a

prima facie obligation because I might be justified in breaking my promise under

extenuating circumstances—for instance, if at the time of our tryst, Krister requires

me more urgently. My obligation to Krister overrides my obligation to Cathy, but

this does not mean that I had no obligation to Cathy in the first place, nor does it

mean that the obligation went away; it was just ‘trumped’, as it were, by my

obligation to Krister. The fact that I have a prima facie obligation to Cathy is the

fact that, all things being equal, I ought to drink tea with Cathy. Hence, one might

argue that my semantic obligations are prima facie obligations. If I mean something

by an expression, I have an obligation to tell the truth, all things being equal; my

obligation will be overridden if I ought to tell a lie.

I suspect that the surface plausibility of this suggestion trades on our smuggling

in desires on which the obligation to tell the truth is contingent. In order to test

whether I have a prima facie obligation to use an expression correctly, we need to

consider a case in which all is genuinely equal. So, not only should we assume that

I have no desire to tell a lie, but that I have no desire to tell the truth—otherwise,

my obligation to apply a term correctly might just be contingent on that desire.

Moreover, we have to rule out the possibility that the obligation is really moral or



prudential. So, we have to assume that I have no desire to communicate; that if I

have an audience, my audience is utterly indifferent to whether or not I tell the

truth; and that nothing whatsoever hangs on what I say—it will not lead me to act

imprudently or irrationally. The question is, given that my audience and I are

indifferent to whether I tell the truth, and given that nothing hangs on what I say,

am I still obligated to tell the truth? I see no reason why. If what I say affects

nothing and no one, it hardly seems to matter whether I apply the term ‘horse’

only to horses.

One might suppose that it is necessary for an account of a speaker’s meaning that

we posit a prima facie obligation for a speaker to use her terms correctly. However,

this does not seem to be true. Given that I mean horse by ‘horse’, MP tells us that

‘horse’ refers to all and only horses. Given Correctness, however I use the term

‘horse’, it will be correct in application to something if and only if it is a horse. This

seems to be sufficient to account for the meaning of ‘horse’; nothing is added by

saying that, ceteris paribus I ought to apply ‘horse’ only if it is correct to do so.

Furthermore, there is a difficulty in supposing that a speaker has a prima facie

obligation to use her words correctly—because the obligation to speak correctly

would be overridden not only by an obligation to lie, but also, it seems, simply by

the desire to lie. In contrast, my obligation to meet Cathy for tea cannot be

overridden by a desire not to do so, but only by another obligation. If the

obligation to speak the truth can be overridden by a mere desire not to do so,

this seems to undermine the idea that an obligation, even a prima facie obligation,

places a categorical constraint, whether I like it or not. Thus, instead of saying that

I have a prima facie obligation to speak correctly that can be overridden by a desire

to lie, it seems more plausible to suppose that what I have is not a prima facie

categorical obligation, but a hypothetical one: if I want to tell the truth, I ought to

use my words correctly; if I want to lie, I ought to use them incorrectly. What

might have looked like a prima facie obligation to tell the truth is more plausibly

construed as a hypothetical obligation contingent on a desire to tell the truth. Once

again, this poses no serious problem for the naturalist.

7. Truth as a Conceptual Norm

Many philosophers are inclined to argue that though meaning may not be norma-

tive, conceptual content is. Though insincere or otherwise incorrect uses of

language may violate no semantic norms, misapplications of concepts do. When

Matilda tells another whopper, she chooses to use her words incorrectly. Yet,

Matilda can hardly choose to apply her concepts incorrectly. She can hardly help

thinking that her house is on fire when she feels the heat of the flames, whatever

she might say about it. However, Matilda’s being compelled to apply the concept

fire only to fire is not tantamount to her being obligated to apply the concept fire

only to fire. Matilda’s compulsion to believe that the house is on fire can be explained

naturalistically—in terms of her dispositions. The fact that she cannot help but

232 A. Hattiangadi


apply the concept fire as she does is simply the fact that she is disposed to think fire!

when confronted with fire. There is a disposition here, not an obligation.

Nevertheless, it could be argued that though we may not be obligated to speak

the truth, we ought to believe only what is true (Horwich, 1998, Ch. 8). If this

supposition is correct, it will turn out to be a prerequisite for believing only what is

true that we ought to apply our concepts correctly. To defend this line of reason-

ing, one might employ Michael Dummett’s argument for the value of truth

(Dummett, 1978). Dummett makes an analogy between the concept of truth and

that of winning at a game such as chess. He observes that you could specify all the

rules of chess, specify how all the pieces move, what constitutes winning or loosing

the game, and still something would be left out: that the whole point of the game is

to win. Similarly, Dummett argues, specifying the conditions under which a belief

is true leaves out the important fact that truth is valuable, that truth is the aim of

belief. If truth is valuable then we ought to believe only what is true. And, if we

ought to believe only what is true, then we ought to apply concepts only when

correct.9

Dummett’s argument is compelling because most of us do value truth—we

clearly want to believe only what is true. But our wanting to believe what is

true and our being obligated to believe only what is true are two different things. If

we ought to believe only truths only as a means to satisfying a desire to believe only

truths, then this is merely a bypothetical ‘ought’ and so not troubling for the

naturalist. Moreover, it does seem as though this ‘ought’ is hypothetical. I want to

believe only what is true because having true beliefs will make me more successful

in getting what I want. This is obviously true of particular beliefs. Consider Pam,

who wants some ice cream, and who believes that there is ice cream in the freezer.

Clearly, Pam wants her belief to be true because if it is true, then she can

successfully act on it—she can go to the freezer and find ice cream. This is not

just to say that Pam wants there to be ice cream in the freezer; rather, she wants to

believe that there is ice cream in the freezer only if there is. If there is no ice cream

in the freezer, she would rather believe that there is no ice cream in the freezer, so

she will be prevented from making an unnecessary trip. In general, Pam wants her

beliefs to be true because they form part of an interconnected system that helps her

to get about in the world. Thus, Pam wants all of her beliefs to be true (Whyte,

1990; Mellor, 1990; Horwich, 2000). The obligation to believe only what is true is

thus a hypothetical obligation contingent on the desire—which most of us have—

to believe only what is true.

If the argument from the value of truth is to support Prescriptivity, it must be the

case that we ought to believe only what is true quite independently of any desire to

do so. However, while it may be plausible to suppose that we want to believe only

truths, it is difficult to support the claim that we categorically ought to believe only

what is true. This is because, in some circumstances, the weight of evidence will

9 For another Dummettian argument for Prescriptivity, and criticism, see Gluer, 2001.



favour a falsehood, in which case we ought to believe the falsehood. If we have

overwhelming evidence that the butler committed the crime, it would be irrational

to believe that he is innocent, even if it is true that he is innocent. Hence, even if

truth is intrinsically valuable, we can at best be obligated to seek the truth, not to

believe only what is true.10 But an obligation to seek the truth will not imply that

we ought to apply our terms or concepts only correctly.11

8. Communication and Community

Some readers will be impatient to point out that the community supplies the

elusive normativity; that it is because I am a member of a linguistic community that

I ought to use my words correctly. In one sense, this is true: if I want to be

understood by others, then I ought to use my words as they do, or in such a way

that they would understand. Most of the time, communication is best served by the

correct use of words. But this obligation is of course contingent on my desire to

communicate. If I have no such desire, then the obligation goes away. If I wish to

lie, or make you laugh, or even if I wish to tell the truth but know that you think I

will lie, then I ought to use my words incorrectly.

Some people maintain, however, that meaning is essentially social; that correct-

ness conditions are constituted by communal agreement. Moreover, communal

agreements, like promises, create obligations. When I promise to return your book

tomorrow, I undertake an obligation to return your book tomorrow. I create an

obligation by making the promise. Similarly, when I am initiated into a commu-

nity, I must undertake an obligation to abide by the conventions of that commu-

nity. Where this is a linguistic community, I undertake an obligation to use my

expressions correctly. This, in rough outline, is a view defended at length by

Brandom:

The particular norms of concern . . . are discursive normative statuses, the sort

of commitment and entitlement that the use of concepts involves. These

norms, it will be claimed, are instituted by social practices . . . Elaborating an

account along these lines is pursuing three of Wittgenstein’s grand themes: the

insistence on the normative character of language and intentionality, the

pragmatist commitment to understanding these norms in terms of practices . . .

and the recognition of the essentially social character of such norms (Brandom,

1994, p. 55).

10 For an argument as to why it is not the case that we ought to seek the truth, seePapineau, 1999.

11 For further discussion of semantic normativity and the value of truth, see Wikforss, 2001.

234 A. Hattiangadi


To paint it in broad strokes, Brandom’s picture is one in which communities

‘institute’ semantic or conceptual conventions by taking attitudes of approval or

disapproval towards bits of behaviour. Any behaviour that tends to meet with

disapproval is thereby wrong, by the community’s lights, whereas behaviour that

tends to meet with approval is thereby right. What a given speaker ought to say,

then, is what tends to meet with approval rather than disapproval. Thus, the social

practice of treating types of behaviour as correct or incorrect creates semantic

obligations.

Whatever the merits of this picture of meaning, it cannot be marshalled in defense

of the thesis that meaning is normative. Some argument must be given for saying

that meaning is essentially social, and in Brandom’s case, the argument that is given

depends on the assumption that meaning is normative. Like Kripke, Brandom

assumes that the normativity of meaning is basic to our intuitive view. He says, for

instance, that ‘our ordinary understanding of states and acts of meaning, under-

standing, intending, or believing something is an understanding of them as states

and acts that commit or oblige us to act and think in various ways (Brandom, 1994,

p. 13).’ He then proceeds to argue that no naturalistic theory of meaning would

do—and concludes that normativity must be assumed as primitive (Brandom,

1994, pp. 42–5). It is not clear why this would make meaning essentially social;

since whatever normativity is brought in at the social level might equally be

brought in at the individual level (Blackburn, 1993). Nevertheless, by introducing

communal practices, Brandom purports to explain how we create obligations—

obligations he takes to be there, standing in need of explanation. This just fails to

speak to my concerns; my worry is that there are no semantic obligations to be

explained in the first place.

Moreover, there is a distressing circularity in the claim that semantic obligations

are constituted by communal attitudes. Brandom seems to think that we can

catapult ourselves into language via our attitudes. But this is like pulling ourselves

up by our own socks, or turning ourselves into promise-keepers by promising to

keep our promises. If semantic obligations are supposed to be essential to content,

then there can be no content without the relevant obligations. But if the obliga-

tions are created by our attitudes, then they are themselves the products of

contentful states. If I approve of your saying ‘red’ in the presence of this apple,

my endorsement has content—I endorse that you say ‘red’ in the presence of this apple.

If I can have an attitude with this content, then for one thing, I must grasp the

concept apple. Assuming Prescriptivity*, this means that I ought to apply the concept

apple only if it is correct to do so. But if obligations such as these are uniformly

created by attitudes, then how is my obligation to apply the concept apple created?

If by another attitude, we embark on a regress. If by my dispositions, the view will

ultimately bottom out into a dispositional theory, which Brandom rejects on the

grounds that it fails to accommodate normativity (Hattiangadi, 2003). So, Brandom

faces a dilemma. Either way, we have no reason to think that we must assume that

there are semantic obligations, standing in need of an explanation.



9. Contractual Commitments

Kripke, Wright, and McDowell (among others) suggest that we are committed to

Prescriptivity* because we intuitively subscribe to what Wright calls the ‘contractual

theory’ of understanding (Brandom, 1984; Kripke, 1982; McDowell, 1993; Pettit,

1990 and Wright, 1980).12 According to the contractual theory, to understand an

expression is to be committed to a particular pattern of application of that expres-

sion. This commitment then confers an obligation on the speaker to carry out the

pattern of application in question. McDowell presents this assumption as follows:

We find it natural to think of meaning and understanding in, as it were,

contractual terms. Our idea is that to learn the meaning of a term is to

acquire an understanding that obliges us subsequently—if we have occasion

to deploy the concept in question—to judge and speak in certain determin-

ate ways, on pain of failure to obey the dictates of the meaning we have

grasped; that we are ‘committed to certain patterns of linguistic usage by

the meanings we attach to expressions’ (McDowell, 1993, p. 257 quoting

Wright, 1980, p. 21).

The reasoning behind this goes roughly as follows: to accept MP is to accept that a

term has content in virtue of its correctness conditions. In order for me to mean

something by an expression, I must have adopted some standard of correctness for

that expression. In adopting a standard of correctness, I must have formed an

intention towards that standard. Otherwise, what is it for me to have adopted the

standard in the first place?

The trouble is that the contractualist needs to show that when I form an

intention towards a standard, I incur the right set of obligations. That is, the

contractualist needs to show that if I grasp the concept horse, I ought to apply it

only to horses. The contractual theorist thus holds that in order for me to mean

something by an expression, I must be committed not just to using the standard in

any old way, but to meeting it; I am committed to carrying out a particular pattern of

use for the expression I understand. Wright suggests this when he says that we

intuitively suppose that ‘[w]hen I assent to the rule: F is to be applied only to

individuals which are f, I commit myself to a quite determinate way of using F’

(Wright, 1980, p. 36). Or, to put it more schematically, the Contractual Theory

(CT ) can be expressed as follows:

Contractual Theory: S means F by t $ S intends that: (a)(S applies t to a $ a is f ).

12 Kripke (1982) claims that intentions yield obligations, whereas Wright (1980) andMcDowell (1993) both suggest that commitments yield obligations. I discuss both versions.It should be noted that the contractual theory is presented as part of our intuitive view,one that is rejected both by Wright and Kripke, and modified by McDowell.

236 A. Hattiangadi


If CT is indeed part of our intuitive view—which I doubt—we ought to revise our

intuitive view. To begin with, if an agent were to form the intention to use an

expression correctly, then given a referential standard of correctness, this would be

tantamount to her forming the intention never to lie. Think again of Matilda, who

claims that her house is on fire when she knows full well that it is not. In order for

her lie to be genuine—and not just a case of mistaken belief—she has to form the

intention to say ‘the house is on fire’ despite her awareness that the statement is

false. Assuming CT, though, if Matilda means fire by ‘fire’, she must have the

intention to apply the expression only if it is true. The trouble is that when she lies,

of course, she forms the intention to utter a statement that she believes to be false.

This obviously results in a difficulty: Matilda cannot simultaneously intend to apply

t to a only if a is f, and intend to apply t to a when it is not the case that a is f.

Intentions (as opposed to desires or beliefs) cannot stand in conflict, since inten-

tions are the result of firm decisions to carry out actions. Hence, at best, the

contractual theory makes it impossible for anyone to consistently form the inten-

tion to lie.

One might think that this objection can be met if the contractualist sticks to the

idea of someone being committed rather than merely intending to act in accordance

with a rule.13 However, if Matilda is committed to apply t to a only if a is f, then

she still cannot intend to apply t to a in full knowledge that it is not the case that a is

f without affecting her commitment. A one-off intention to lie might not destroy

her commitment, but if Matilda intended to lie too many times, presumably we

would no longer wish to say that she was committed to speaking the truth. But it is

odd to think that what Matilda means is hostage to her intentions in this manner.

Compulsive liars, like Matilda, do not gradually begin to attach non-standard

meanings to their expressions. When Matilda lies, jokes, or misleads, she presupposes

the ordinary or literal meanings of her terms, so she cannot change them just by

lying.

Perhaps the contractualist could meet this objection by restricting himself to

conceptual, as opposed to linguistic, content. In Matilda’s case, she lies because she

believes that the house is not on fire, when she says that it is. In her mind she

carries out her semantic obligations, while in her speech she uses the meanings of

her words to convey false information. Given that she grasps the concept fire, she is

committed at least to think fire! only when there are flames about. If this is the

contractualist’s argument, however, it will succumb to an objection that was made

previously: we have here a prudential obligation masquerading as a semantic one,

and the prudential obligation can be given a naturalistic explanation. Though there

might be value in only believing what is true, this seems to follow from a general

prudential obligation contingent on a desire to get what we want. The obligation

in question is therefore not semantic.

13 I am grateful to Bob Hale for making this suggestion.



10. Conclusion

The normativity thesis arises in the context of Kripke’s discussion of rule following.

Perhaps the most natural reason for supposing that meaning is normative is the

thought that to understand a concept is to follow the rule for its correct application.

And rules tell us what we ought to do. The Highway Code tells us how we ought

to drive. The Ten Commandments tell us how we ought to act. So, if there are

semantic rules, surely they will tell us what we ought to say.

The reason why this argument fails should now be obvious from the foregoing

discussion. For this argument from rule following to go forward, semantic rules

clearly need to be both meaning constituting and prescriptive. Semantic rules will

have to be meaning constituting because otherwise they will not be essential to

meaning; and of course they will have to be prescriptive or they will not introduce

semantic ‘ought’s. The trouble is that these two constraints pull in opposite

directions (Gluer and Pagin, 1999). For a rule to be prescriptive, it must tell me

what I ought to do. According to MP, the meaning constituting rule for ‘horse’

must imply that ‘horse’ applies correctly to all and only horses. However, it is not

the case that I ought to apply ‘horse’ to all and only horses—I am not obligated to

apply ‘horse’ to all horses because I cannot do so, and ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. The

weaker rule, stating that I should apply ‘horse’ only to horses cannot constitute the

meaning of ‘horse’. The rule that tells me to apply ‘horse’ only to horses does not

distinguish between my meaning horse by ‘horse’ and something else, such as brown

horse or black horse. Moreover, I sometimes ought to tell lies, or use my words

incorrectly to prove a point or make people laugh, and the fact that I ought to use

my words incorrectly does not imply that I do not mean what I ordinarily mean by

my words. Since the weaker rule cannot distinguish my meaning any number of

things by ‘horse’, it simply cannot constitute meaning. Thus, Prescriptivity must be

false, and meaning is not normative in the sense that is required to generate a

presumption against naturalism.

St. Hilda’s College,

Oxford

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Hattiangadi - Normativity