“Claims are evidence” is ambiguous.

There is a difference between the consideration of a claim that isn’t being uttered by any one and one that is. Here’s a “claim”:

Murder is wrong.

Who is saying this? Nobody. Insofar as this is a “claim,” it isn’t evidence of anything. However, suppose a moral philosopher were to sincerely state:

Murder is wrong.

This, too, is a claim. But in this case, the fact that a person has made (and believes) this claim could serve as evidence for the claim.

Note how I equivocated in that sentence. I said that this, too, is a claim, and then I said this claim could serve as evidence for “the claim.” The latter use of “claim” refers to claims in the prior, abstract sense.

Unasserted claims aren’t evidence of anything. Only asserted claims are. People talking about whether claims are evidence aren’t even bothering to clarify this simple disambiguation.

Ambiguity and lack of clarity cause so many problems, and for all it pats itself on the back for disambiguation and clarity, analytic philosophy still doesn’t seem to instill as much appreciation for the foibles of language into its practitioners as it should.