This chapter introduces metaethical expressivism, explains its main sources of interest over earlier noncognitivist theories, and illustrates how it has been applied to many topics across all different areas of philosophy. The progress which proponents such as Allan Gibbard and Simon Blackburn have made in developing expressivist theories is contrasted sharply with five major problems which remain unsolved, starting with an adequate account of what ‘express’ means. The concept of an argument from ‘license for optimism’ is introduced, and contrasted with the project of actually constructing an expressivist semantic theory. Finally, the chapter announces the main conclusions of the book and lays out its organization.
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