Matters of taste, personal and otherwise

This dissertation consists of three essays having to do with discourse about "matters of taste" broadly construed, ranging from talk about what is "funny" or "tasty" to what is "beautiful." Over the course of the three essays, my aim is first to simplify the debate surrounding discourse about matters of taste as a subject matter for empirical linguistic analysis and second to steer the discussion about discourse about matters of taste away from the empirical and towards the normative. I argue that it is a mistake to approach the issue of discourse about matters of taste primarily from an empirical linguistic perspective for the reason that the tools that an empirical linguists has at her disposal have very limited potential in terms of helping us to clarify our understanding of matters of taste or the discourse surrounding them. Instead, I conclude, if we are to advance our understanding of this subject matter, we do best to engage in the sorts of normative debates that are familiar from the field of metaethics.