Why expressivists about value should love minimalism about truth

Abstract

Does expressivism about value depend on views about the nature of truth and truth-assessability beyond those that we glean from a minimalist account of truth and truth-assessability? More precisely, if minimalism tells us all there is to know about truth and truth-assessability, does it follow that there is no room left for the expressivist's distinctive claim that evaluations are not truth-assessable? So two minimalists, Crispin Wright [24] and Paul Horwich [10], have recently argued. But it seems to me that they are very much mistaken. Expressivists who make this distinctive claim should love minimalism about truth, because minimalism shows us just how few assumptions about the nature truth and truth-assessability are required to get going the problem with evaluations to which this distinctive claim is, according to the expressivists, the solution. Don't misunderstand me. I am not a fan of the expressivist's solution. But I do think that expressivism is one of several solutions we might give to a problem with evaluations that expressivists, among others, rightly bring to our attention. I have elsewhere called this the 'moral problem' ([21], [23]). Unfortunately for minimalists, however, though that problem does indeed require certain assumptions about the nature of truth and truth-assessability, the assumptions required are just those that the minimalist makes as well.