Reasons and Justifiability

This chapter sketches a metasemantic model that promises to vindicate a broadly rationalist version of normative realism. It introduces a metasemantic principle that ties reference determination to what is justifiable from the perspective of the conceptually competent subject. The chapter explains how this metasemantic principle can help vindicate something close to the traditional rationalist claim that normative truths can be known a priori. It then shows how an anti-individualist version of this metasemantic principle can handle the problem of radical disagreement among competent speakers. The last part of the paper explains how our metasemantic model can help vindicate the traditional rationalist thesis that moral requirements entail valid reasons for action.