Deflationism, Creeping Minimalism, and Explanations of Content

Metaethics, like many areas of philosophy, has for some time now been experiencing a trend toward deflationary conceptions of truth. This is owing both to a general skepticism about the prospects of any substantial account of truth and also to the “accommodationist” strategies of metaethical expressivists. But I'm skeptical of this trend toward deflationism. The main source of my skepticism, and what I explore in this paper, is the simple fact that deflationism has consequences—consequences that are far-reaching, controversial, and often underappreciated. I first draw out a number of consequences of deflationism, and then show how certain metaethical positions, despite their explicit acceptance of deflationism, run afoul of these consequences. The consequences of deflationism I have in mind are all consequences to the effect that deflationism is incompatible with one way or another of explaining content. The positions in metaethics I have in mind are all proposed solutions to a certain metaethical problem known as the problem of creeping minimalism. So in the end my claim will be that various proposed solutions to the problem of creeping minimalism both subscribe to deflationism and yet at the same time appeal to explanations of content that are demonstrably incompatible with deflationism.