Sidestepping the Frege-Geach Problem

Hybrid expressivists claim to solve the Frege-Geach problem by offloading the explanation of the logico-semantic properties of moral sentences onto the belief-components of hybrid states they express. We argue that this strategy is undermined by one of hybrid expressivism's own commitments: That the truth of the belief-component is neither necessary nor sufficient for the truth of the hybrid state it composes. We articulate a new approach. Instead of explaining head-on what it is for, say, a pair of moral sentences to be inconsistent, expressivists should 'sidestep' and explain what it is to think that a pair of moral sentences is inconsistent. To think so is to think they cannot both be true-a modal notion. Since expressivists have given accounts of such modals, we illustrate how sentences like '''lying is wrong'' and ''lying is not wrong'' are inconsistent' express sensible-and rationally compelling-states of mind.