Normative Language in Context*

This paper begins to develop an improved contextualist account of normative language, focusing in particular on normative readings of modal verbs— so-called deontic modals. The proposed account draws on a more general framework for implementing a contextualist semantics and pragmatics, which I call Discourse Contextualism (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the distinctive discourse properties and embedding behavior of normative language from a particular contextualist interpretation of an independently motivated formal semantics, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. In using normative language interlocutors can exploit theirmutual grammatical andworld knowledge, and general pragmatic reasoning skills, to manage an evolving system of norms. Discourse Contextualism elucidates distinctive roles of normative language in discourse and deliberation, and provides a perspicuous framework for further philosophical theorizing about the nature of normativity, normative language, and normative judgment. Delineating these issues can help refine our understanding of the space of overall theories andmotivatemore fruitful ways the dialecticsmay proceed. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a more comprehensive theory of normativity and normative discourse and practice. *Thanks to audiences at the 2015 Chapel Hill Metaethics Workshop, the Eidyn Conference on Normativity and Modality at the University of Edinburgh, and the Seminar in Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford for helpful discussion.