Chapter 2 - Languages, Concepts, and Pluralism

Summary

WHAT EXACTLY DOES IT MEAN to say that speakers of one language have a different concept of rights than speakers of another? If their concepts are different, can they still communicate with one another? Is it even true that all speakers of a given language share the same concepts – especially of loaded terms like “rights”? To pursue the issues at the heart of this book, we need answers to these questions. First, we need a framework for talking about concepts that is precise enough to bear philosophical weight but not so technical as to be impenetrable to non-specialists. With that in hand, we can turn to the question of pluralism: that is, the claim that there is more than one legitimate morality. Doing justice to claims like those of Liu Huaqiu requires that we think carefully about what moral pluralism is, and about what its implications might be.

To do this, I proceed as follows. Section 2.1 aims to motivate the analytical framework within which I will discuss concepts, a framework that draws on the recent work of Robert Brandom. One of the chief goals of the section is to defend the idea that there are always conceptual differences between us, even if we speak the same language, but this need not stand in the way of successful communication.