Rationalising Framing Effects: At Least One Task for Empirically Informed Philosophy

Human judgements are affected by the words in which information is presented —or ‘framed’. According to the standard gloss, ‘framing effects’ reveal counter-normative reasoning, unduly affected by positive/negative language. One challenge to this view suggests that number expressions in alternative framing conditions are interpreted as denoting lower-bounded (minimum) quantities. However, it is unclear whether the resulting explanation is a rationalising one. I argue that a number expression should only be interpreted lower-boundedly if this is what it actually means. I survey how number expressions might be assigned lower-bounded meanings, due to their conventional semantics or pragmatic enrichment in context. I argue that deciding between these possibilities requires foundational philosophical input.