Inference-Licensing Property In Schroder's Argument

The interference-licensing property of valid arguments is the property that if one accepts the premises then they also are bound to accept the conclusion (Schroder, 110). This is inherent in any argument. For instance, lying is wrong, and if lying is wrong then a liar will be punished; I must accept the conclusion that a liar will be punished. This inference-licensing property poses a problem for the expressivist theories. Expressivist theories, more or less, are theories that say that moral belief is just expressing a mental state. Schroder sums it up as “Stealing is wrong : I disapprove of stealing :: Grass is green : I believe that grass is green” (72). To make it clearer, let’s take Cian Dorr’s argument. P1. If lying is wrong, the souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife P2. Lying is wrong. C. The souls of liars will be punished in the afterlife (Dorr, 97)
For expressivist, P1 and P2 are mental states and if both mental states are accepted C must also be accepted because of the inference-licensing property. This case seems ok for the expressivist on its face expect it will not be because of the wishful thinking problem. But let’s take another modus pones argument from Dorr. P1. If needles …show more content…
The first argument presented in this paper is an example of wishful thinking. It does not necessarily give us a reason to infer the conclusion. The wishful thinking problem is different from the inference-licensing property in two ways. The first way is that the inference-licensing property applies to all valid arguments. If one accepts the premise then one must also accept the conclusion. The second way is wishful thinking targets only mind to world mental states. While both are different in how they target the expressivist view, both do target