Expressing Value in Language

Introduction

Evaluative adjectives—words like ‘good’, ‘ugly’, ‘tasty’ and ‘elegant’—have interpretations that appear to depend on the context. If you describe a knife, a bear or an act of charity as ‘good’, you do not seem to be saying that it has some fixed property of goodness. Rather, the context in which you are speaking affects the interpretation of ‘good’.

Importance of Evaluative Adjectives

Evaluative adjectives are closely linked to concepts of central importance in philosophy, such as moral goodness, beauty, and value. Hence, their apparent context-dependence has troubling consequences for many philosophical debates.

1. For example, an act of charity could count as ‘good’ when we are talking about it in one context and as ‘not good’ when we are talking about it in another context, due to different interpretations of ‘good’.
2. This startling conclusion is difficult to reconcile with most ethical theories.

Challenges in Analysis

While philosophers and linguists have shown increasing interest in evaluative adjectives, a full analysis has remained out of reach for several reasons:

1. Philosophical and linguistic investigations often proceed in isolation from each other.
2. The scope of analyses can be overly specific, by virtue of focusing on a single case study, or overly general, by focusing on features that supposedly unify all evaluative adjectives.
3. The predictions that emerge from different analyses are rarely subjected to empirical assessment.

Project Goals

The project aims to give an account of the meaning of the word ‘good’ and other evaluative adjectives, along with the nature of goodness and other forms of value.

Integrated Analysis

It will be the first fully integrated analysis by incorporating:

• Philosophical and linguistic perspectives
• Generalisations about evaluative adjectives
• Particular case studies
• Empirical results

Novelty and Impact

The novelty of the project lies in this integrative and interdisciplinary aspect. The results will resolve central and long-standing issues in both philosophy and linguistics.