Meaning, Understanding and Action

Abstract

The criteria for a learner’s understanding the words of a language include acting appropriately. In the case of Anscombean modals (e.g., ‘You have to φ’), these actions include whatever is specified in the modal statement (e.g., φ-ing). Teaching language means instilling not just abilities, but inclinations, to do certain things. With non-learners there is a default presumption of linguistic competence, and this explains how an adult can be said to understand ‘You have to φ’ while being generally disinclined to respond appropriately, i.e., by φ-ing. (Dishonesty.) It’s possible for it to become normal for the members of some societal group to fail to respond appropriately to modal statements; such a situation may be one of conceptual and practical confusion, with the sort of corresponding bad faith alleged by Anscombe in connection with the ‘moral ought’. Since understanding modal statements is manifested in forms of voluntary action, the internalist view that one only has reason to obey a rule if doing so is conducive to the satisfaction of one’s desires turns out to be incoherent.