Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The overall objective of this study is to undertake a critical evaluation of Joyce's proposal for a moral fictionalism. In order to meet this objective, the thesis is divided into two main parts, the first devoted to the reconstruction of Joyce's proposal and the second reserved, properly, their critical assessment. The theme of the first chapter is the theory of moral error, focusing primarily on the defense of the same taken by Joyce. The main objective that we have to address this issue is to indicate the problem to which Joyce solution proposes its moral fictionalism, which is the question of what to do with the moral discourse after the acceptance of the theory of moral error. The second chapter is devoted specifically to the reconstruction of Joyce's proposal for a moral fictionalism. The third chapter is a summary of the main criticisms of Joyce fictionalism. In the fourth chapter, finally, it is carried critical evaluation which is the objective of this thesis. The conclusion that is reached with such assessment, which is the argument of this thesis, is that the moral fictionalism proposed by Joyce does not seem to be able to meet two specific objectives for which it was proposed, namely, (1) retain a significant portion of the practical benefits of moral beliefs and (2) prevent the one who accepts the error theory can be accused of irrationality. With this, Joyce would not able to show that adherence to error theory would not have devastating consequences, not thus fulfilling the broader objective of its proposal for a moral fictionalism. Faced with this failure, the most appropriate attitude to the theoretical error that shares Joyce s concerns and objectives appears to be intended to support here, that position that the author calls "propagandism", which seems to be the most able to meet the objectives of its proposal. / O objetivo geral do presente estudo é proceder a uma avaliação crítica da proposta de Richard Joyce de um ficcionalismo moral. A fim de cumprir tal objetivo, o trabalho é dividido em duas partes principais, a primeira dedicada à reconstrução da proposta de Joyce e a segunda reservada, propriamente, à sua avaliação crítica. O tema do primeiro capítulo é a teoria do erro moral, focando-se, principalmente, na defesa da mesma empreendida por Joyce. O principal objetivo que se tem ao tratar desse tema é indicar o problema para cuja solução Joyce propõe seu ficcionalismo moral, o qual consiste na questão sobre o que fazer com o discurso moral após a aceitação da teoria do erro moral. O segundo capítulo é dedicado, especificamente, à reconstrução da proposta de Joyce de um ficcionalismo moral. No terceiro capítulo, é apresentado um resumo das principais críticas ao ficcionalismo de Joyce. No quarto capítulo, por fim, é procedida a avaliação crítica que constitui o objetivo deste estudo. A conclusão a que se chega com tal avaliação, que constitui a tese defendida neste trabalho, é que o ficcionalismo moral proposto por Joyce parece não ser capaz de cumprir os dois objetivos específicos para os quais ele foi proposto, a saber, (1) conservar uma porção significativa dos benefícios práticos das crenças morais e (2) evitar que aquele que aceita a teoria do erro possa ser acusado de irracionalidade. Com isso, Joyce acabaria não conseguindo mostrar que a adesão à teoria do erro não precisaria ter consequências devastadoras, não cumprindo, assim, o objetivo mais geral subjacente à sua proposta de um ficcionalismo moral. Diante de tal fracasso, a atitude mais adequada para o teórico do erro que partilha as preocupações e objetivos de Joyce parece ser, pretende-se sustentar aqui, aquele posicionamento que o autor chama de propagandismo , o qual parece ser o mais apto a cumprir os objetivos de sua proposta.

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This dissertation is about the nature of perspectival thoughts and the context-sensitivity of the language used to express them. It focuses on two kinds of perspectival thoughts: ‘subjective' evaluative thoughts about matters of personal taste, such as 'Beetroot is delicious' or 'Skydiving is fun', and first-personal or de se thoughts about oneself, such as 'I am hungry' or 'I have been fooled.' The dissertation defends of a novel form of relativism about truth - the idea that the truth of some (but not all) perspectival thought and talk is relative to the perspective of an evaluating subject or group. In Part I, I argue that the realm of ‘subjective' evaluative thought and talk whose truth is perspective-relative includes attributions of knowledge of the form 'S knows that p.' Following a brief introduction (chapter 1), chapter 2 presents a new, error-theoretic objection against relativism about knowledge attributions. The case for relativism regarding knowledge attributions rests on the claim that relativism is the only view that explains all of the empirical data from speakers' use of the word "know" without recourse to an error theory. In chapter 2, I show that the relativist can only account for sceptical paradoxes and ordinary epistemic closure puzzles if she attributes a problematic form of semantic blindness to speakers. However, in 3 I show that all major competitor theories - forms of invariantism and contextualism - are subject to equally serious error-theoretic objections. This raises the following fundamental question for empirical theorising about the meaning of natural language expressions: If error attributions are ubiquitous, by which criteria do we evaluate and compare the force of error-theoretic objections and the plausibility of error attributions? I provide a number of criteria and argue that they give us reason to think that relativism's error attributions are more plausible than those of its competitors. In Part II, I develop a novel unified account of the content and communication of perspectival thoughts. Many relativists regarding ‘subjective' thoughts and Lewisians about de se thoughts endorse a view of belief as self-location. In chapter 4, I argue that the self-location view of belief is in conflict with the received picture of linguistic communication, which understands communication as the transmission of information from speaker's head to hearer's head. I argue that understanding mental content and speech act content in terms of sequenced worlds allows a reconciliation of these views. On the view I advocate, content is modelled as a set of sequenced worlds - possible worlds ‘centred' on a group of individuals inhabiting the world at some time. Intuitively, a sequenced world is a way a group of people may be. I develop a Stalnakerian model of communication based on sequenced worlds content, and I provide a suitable semantics for personal pronouns and predicates of personal taste. In chapter 5, I show that one of the advantages of this model is its compatibility with both nonindexical contextualism and truth relativism about taste. I argue in chapters 5 and 6 that the empirical data from eavesdropping, retraction, and disagreement cases supports a relativist completion of the model, and I show in detail how to account for these phenomena on the sequenced worlds view.