Descriptivism (Noun)
Meaning 1
(linguistics) a doctrine supporting or promoting descriptive linguistics.
Classification
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents.
Hypernyms
Meaning 2
(ethics) a doctrine holding that moral statements have a truth value.
Classification
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents.
Examples
- The philosophy of descriptivism maintains that moral claims are fact-stating claims and should be assessed accordingly in terms of truth value.
- Her position of moral descriptivism entailed that our utterances and expressions could directly map onto states of the world in relation to their veracity.
- For an ethicist endorsing moral descriptivism, discerning truth-claims of any proposition begins and ends in finding statements reflective of observed external objective realities.
- Research has indicated that proponents of objective moral descriptivism bolster their arguments for factual moral truth by suggesting that common sense and reasoning attest to that veracity.
- Ethicists who advocate for descriptivism, assume that it is within our epistemic capacity to discern the empirical evidence supporting moral truths, thus ascribing substantial metaphysical status to moral properties.