Charles Pigden

contemporaryAnalytic Philosophy

Charles Pigden is a New Zealand analytic philosopher based at the University of Otago, known for his work in metaethics and the philosophy of moral language. He has contributed significantly to debates surrounding Hume's is-ought gap, expressivism, and the logic of moral discourse. He is also noted for his epistemological defense of conspiracy theories as a legitimate form of rational belief.

Notable Achievements

Defended and developed Humean accounts of the is-ought distinction in metaethics

Argued for the epistemic respectability of conspiracy theories against blanket dismissals

Contributed to debates on expressivism and the logic of moral language, including problems with optatives in unasserted contexts

Edited influential volumes on Hume's moral philosophy

Applied formal logical analysis to the Frege-Geach problem and prescriptivist theories of ethics

Positions & Arguments(1)

Philosophy of Language

claim

Any theory that explains 'good' as an optative in unasserted contexts would render obviously valid arguments invalid by treating them as equivocal