Modal Metaphysics Made Easy, Not Shallow

I critically assess Amy Thomasson’s modal normativism. According to modal normativism, modal statements are just object-level statements of semantic rules. My critical assessment has an epistemological and a meta-metaphysical part. As for the epistemological part, Thomasson argues that only normativism can provide a successful modal epistemology. Yet the price is to limit the subject matter of modal claims so as to preclude substantial ones. As for the meta-metaphysical part, the decisive advantage of normativism is that it can account for the incompleteness of the modal profiles of objects like artworks. Yet again the price is that substantial metaphysical inquiry is precluded from the outset. I propose alternatives which preserve the advantage of modal normativism without precluding substantial metaphysical inquiry.