Thick Concepts and Variability

Väyrynen, Pekka

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Thick Concepts and Variability

Pekka Väyrynen

January 2011, Volume 11, No. 1, pp. 1-17

Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0011.001

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Abstract

Some philosophers hold that so-called "thick" terms and concepts in ethics (such as 'cruel,' 'selfish,' 'courageous,' and 'generous') are contextually variable with respect to the valence (positive or negative) of the evaluations that they may be used to convey. Some of these philosophers use this variability claim to argue that thick terms and concepts are not inherently evaluative in meaning; rather their use conveys evaluations as a broadly pragmatic matter. I argue that one sort of putative examples of contextual variability in evaluative valence that are found in the literature fail to support the variability claim and that another sort of putative examples are open to a wide range of explanations that have different implications for the relationship between thick terms and concepts and evaluation. I conclude that considerations of contextual variability fail to settle whether thick terms and concepts are inherently evaluative in meaning. In closing I suggest a more promising line of research.

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Variability in direction of evaluation is often invoked in debates between “separabilists” and “inseparabilists” which occupy much of the literature. This debate concerns whether thick terms and concepts are some kind of irreducible fusions of evaluation and description or whether these two aspects can be separated or “disentangled” in some way. Broadly pragmatic views on the relationship between thick terms and concepts and evaluation suggest that some kind of separability will be possible, since they treat evaluation and description as bearing different relations to thick terms and concepts. Thus it is no accident that the Variability Argument is meant to apply against the sorts of inseparabilist views which one typically finds in the literature. Presumably the thought is that it would be difficult to explain how thick terms and concepts could be contextually variable in evaluative valence if evaluation and description were inseparable.

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