A Dilemma for Expressive Arguments Against Markets

An expressive (or semiotic) argument holds that some social practice is objectionable because it has an objectionable meaning or is required in order to express something valuable. Such arguments have been particularly popular among anticommodificationists. Yet expressive arguments against markets face a dilemma, which we can initially put in terms of a familiar Gricean distinction between two uses of ‘meaning’. Can the dilemma be avoided by a third use of ‘meaning’ to characterize the performative dimension of action? The performative account provides a promising conception of expressive arguments in ethics, but it does not vindicate their use in anticommodificationist claims.