Abstract:What is it for a speech act to be sincere? The most common answer amongst philosophers is that a speech act is sincere if and only if the speaker is in the state of mind that the speech act functions to express. However, a number of philosophers have advanced counterexamples purporting to demonstrate that having the expressed state of mind is neither necessary nor sufficient for speaking sincerely. One may nevertheless doubt whether these considerations refute the orthodox conception. Instead, it may be argued… Show more
“…There is a vast literature on the problem of sincerity in speech and I cannot do justice to all of it here (see e.g. Searle, , p. 65; Ridge, , p. 501; Green, , p. 268; Davis, , p. 428; Eriksson, , p. 215; Joyce, , p. 23). My approach instead will be to outline the view to this problem that I find most independently plausible and which best serves to illuminate the sincerity of moral judgements.…”
According to unconditional motivational internalism, there is an a priori constraint on an agent's forming a sincere moral judgement, namely that she is, at least to some minimal extent, motivated to act as it dictates. In order to undermine this internalist position, proponents of motivational externalism typically appeal to the possibility of the amoralist-i.e. an individual who makes sincere moral judgements, but who is completely unmoved to act accordingly. This strategy is known as the challenge of amoralism. Against this strategy, I will argue that in order to represent a genuine case of amoralism, and a credible counterexample to unconditional motivational internalism, an agent would have to simultaneously satisfy an epistemically inconsistent set of conditions. Thus, the conclusion I will attempt to defend in this paper is that the challenge of amoralism does not succeed in posing a legitimate threat to unconditional motivational internalism.
“…There is a vast literature on the problem of sincerity in speech and I cannot do justice to all of it here (see e.g. Searle, , p. 65; Ridge, , p. 501; Green, , p. 268; Davis, , p. 428; Eriksson, , p. 215; Joyce, , p. 23). My approach instead will be to outline the view to this problem that I find most independently plausible and which best serves to illuminate the sincerity of moral judgements.…”
According to unconditional motivational internalism, there is an a priori constraint on an agent's forming a sincere moral judgement, namely that she is, at least to some minimal extent, motivated to act as it dictates. In order to undermine this internalist position, proponents of motivational externalism typically appeal to the possibility of the amoralist-i.e. an individual who makes sincere moral judgements, but who is completely unmoved to act accordingly. This strategy is known as the challenge of amoralism. Against this strategy, I will argue that in order to represent a genuine case of amoralism, and a credible counterexample to unconditional motivational internalism, an agent would have to simultaneously satisfy an epistemically inconsistent set of conditions. Thus, the conclusion I will attempt to defend in this paper is that the challenge of amoralism does not succeed in posing a legitimate threat to unconditional motivational internalism.
“…Presumably, if an individual deserves the charge of insincerity, then he should be able to guarantee that his statements are fully sincere. But it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to have knowledge of the contents of our beliefs, and so we may not always know what we believe in a way that would allow us to ensure that our statements accurately reflect beliefs that we, in fact, hold John Eriksson. puts this point as follows:We are not immediately aware of our own states of mind.…”
Section: The Significance Of Sincerity: Truth or Solidarity?mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A second problem with reducing the importance of sincerity to the importance of truth leaves out some of the more relationally motivated impulses that seem to animate our concern for sincerity in others. Eriksson echoes this line of thought when he notes that we “want words to reflect what is in the speaker's heart and mind; we often find the risk of being deceived (especially by those we love) petrifying; we think sincerity is fundamental for trust, which is considered essential to intimate relationships, human cooperative enterprises and so on” (2011, 213–14). A wife who wants to know whether her husband is being sincere when he says he loves her does not merely want access to a certain body of facts—not even facts about his mental states.…”
Section: The Significance Of Sincerity: Truth or Solidarity?mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For whether sincerity can provide what we want from it will depend on precisely how we conceive of the phenomenon. Rather than take a firm stand on any particular conception of sincerity, it seems better in this context to follow Eriksson's lead and assume that there is probably “more than one conception of sincerity in speech” (2011, 221). He thus lays out three distinct notions of sincerity that may interest different individuals in different contexts.…”
Section: Does Sincerity Promote Solidarity?mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Building on the problems latent in any attempt to correctly identify our own beliefs, Eriksson discusses a second conception of sincerity as “Presenting Oneself as one Takes Oneself to be.” On this view, what matters is not so much that one expresses a belief or emotion that one actually has, but rather that one expresses a belief or emotion that one thinks one has. A speech act is therefore sincere according to this conception “if and only if the speaker believes that he is in the state of mind that he believes the speech act functions to express” (2011, 225).…”
Section: Does Sincerity Promote Solidarity?mentioning
Two challenges have lately been posed to the importance of sincerity for our public discourse. On the one hand, it has been suggested that because sincerity is so difficult to identify, a preoccupation with the inner lives of others distracts us from the substance of what people say. On the other hand, some worry that making sincere statements can sometimes undermine the very deliberation that advocates of sincerity are so concerned to protect. In light of these challenges, I attempt to analyze our interest in sincerity in terms of a concern for solidarity with our fellow citizens. I then argue that focusing on the sincerity of various assertions is not a good way to promote social cohesion and that this concern is better addressed by looking at the commitment that others have to the process of democratic deliberation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
