Moore’s Paradox

Abstract

Moore‘s Paradox is another important part of the debates over the norms of assertion.1 It is generally uncontroversial that assertions such as, “It‘s raining, but I don‘t believe that it‘s raining,” are, as Moore put it, “absurd.” Call such assertions, and their attendant absurdity, Moorean. When it comes to evaluating competing proposals regarding the norms of assertion, it is widely held that adequately explaining the absurdity of Moorean assertions is a virtue. It has also been alleged by advocates of various norms of assertion — in particular, by advocates of the Knowledge Norm — that their view is especially well-positioned to explain Moorean absurdity. In many cases, Moore‘s Paradox has been a central battleground between competing proposals for the central norm of assertion. In this chapter, I argue that several competing norms of assertion can well explain Moorean absurdity, in which case none gains a comparative advantage. Moreover, we don’t even need to appeal to any particular norm of assertion in order to explain the unassertibility of Moorean sentences. Consequently, the capacity of a norm to explain Moorean absurdity is better thought of as an adequacy condition for a proposed norm of assertion. That is, any candidate norm must be at least consistent with what explains the unassertibility of Moorean sentences.