“Normative” ethical theories

[The Grand Nudger]

Quasi realist expressivism is more expansive. It does away with the difficulties of trying to assert subjectivist facts while rejecting objectivist facts by doing away with cognitivist metaethics entirely. This has the benefit of allowing us to answer first order questions without needing to address second order questions..and, at least according to proponents, employ non novel language to describe our dispositional or attitudinal states towards normative goal disagreements. It acknowledges there is no or may be no "best", and that even our personal "best" is a moving target and not a fact of ourselves.

Blackburns secondary is linguistics, btw, and this colors his view of the purpose of moral statements. They, like all other forms of communication, are primarily about facilitating human cooperation by providing necessary detail* about potential participants. In that, it doesn't really matter why you will or won't x - but it's sure good to know that half your crew wont x before you try to do x. Conversely, how many hands you can actually get on x without the added effort of coercive action. Coercive action being the primary societal use of non-novel normative expressions....rightly or wrongly -in fact-.

*(though not necessarily factual detail..remember, subjectivism is also false in a noncognitivist view - a person can believe they will or won't x and be less than wrong about that either way...ever done anything you thought you could never do, ever electively fail to do something you believed you should or must?)