Celine O.

Alava
ABE

Reaction Paper on Cognitivism versus Non-cognitivism

Ethics by field of interest can be divided into descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and
meta-ethics (Klimsza, 2014). Meta-ethics seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties,
statements, attitudes, and judgments. There are two theories of meta-ethics: the cognitivist and
the non-cognitivist. Cognitivism holds that evaluative moral sentences express propositions
while non-cognitivism holds that ethical sentences are neither true nor false because they do not
express genuine propositions (Meta-ethics, 2018). We need to discuss these theories to classify
mental states as beliefs and non-beliefs (Suikkanen, 2010). Cognitivism needs to be learned to
know what reality would be like for it to contain moral truths and how we could come to know
such truths (Thomas, 2018). I believe that the cognitivist theory is right. Before I support my
claim, we need to know first what is cognitivism and what is non-cognitivism.

Cognitivism is the thesis that the function of moral sentences is to describe a domain of
moral facts existing independently of our subjective thoughts and feelings, and that moral
statements can accordingly be thought of as objectively true or false. Cognitivists typically try to
support their position by seeking out analogies between moral discourse, on the one hand, and
scientific and everyday factual discourse, on the other. Cognitivism is opposed by various forms
of non-cognitivism, all of which have in common the denial of the cognitivist claim that the
function of moral sentences is to state or describe facts (The Editors of Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 2011).

Propositions are what meaningful declarative sentences, but not interrogative or

imperative sentences, are supposed to express. Different sentences, in different languages, can
express the same proposition: "snow is white" and "Schnee ist weiß" (in German) both express
the proposition that snow is white. A common belief among philosophers who use this jargon is
that propositions, properly speaking, are what are true or false, what bear truth values
(Cognitivism (ethics), 2018).

To get a better idea of what it means to express a proposition, compare this to something
that does not express a proposition. Suppose someone minding a convenience store sees a thief
pick up a candy bar and run. The storekeeper manages to exclaim, "Hey!" In this case, "Hey!"
does not express a proposition. Among the things that the exclamation does not express are,
"that's a thief there"; "thieving is wrong"; "please stop that thief"; or "that thief really annoys
me." The storekeeper isn't saying anything that can be true or false. So it is not a proposition that
the storekeeper is expressing. Perhaps it is an emotional state that is being expressed. The
storekeeper is surprised and angered, and expresses those feelings by saying, "Hey (Cognitivism
(ethics), 2018)!"

Ethical cognitivists hold that ethical sentences do express propositions: that it can be true
or false, for example, that Mary is a good person, or that stealing and lying are always wrong.
Cognitivists believe that these sentences do not just express feelings, as though we were saying,
"Hey!" or "Yay for Mary!"; they actually express propositions that can be true or false. A
cognitivist or a realist would say that ethical sentences themselves are either true or false.
Conversely, if one believes that sentences like "Mary is a good person" cannot be either true or
false, then one is a non-cognitivist (Cognitivism (ethics), 2018).

On the other hand, what opposes cognitivism is non-cognitivism. It is the meta-ethical

view or family of views that moral utterances lack truth-value and do not assert propositions.
Therefore, if moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true,
non-cognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible, and moral truths are not the kind of
truths that can be known (Mastin, n.d.).

A proposition in epistemology is, roughly speaking, an assertion or a declarative sentence

as opposed to an interrogative, exclamatory or imperative sentence. Thus, an ethical statement
which is a valid proposition, for instance, "Mary is a good person," is able to bear truth values,
and one can say of it "that is true" or "that is false". Two people may disagree on its truth or
falsity, but it has at least the capacity for truth (Mastin, n.d.).

Non-cognitivism is largely supported by the Argument from Queerness: that ethical

properties, if they existed, would be different from any other thing in the universe, since they
have no observable effect on the world, and there is no way of discerning and no actual evidence
for the existence of ethical properties. It focuses on the function of normative statements in
practice, arguing that they are more likely to merely express approval or disapproval, or to exhort
or persuade in a prescriptive way, than to make definitive assertions of truth or falseness. Non-
Cognitivists argue that the burden of evidence is on cognitivists who want to show that in
addition to expressing disapproval, for example, the claim "Killing is wrong" is also true
(Mastin, n.d.).

Knowing the meaning of the two theories, we can now discuss why I favor cognitivism
over non-cognitivism. There are two reasons why we should support cognitivism. One is that
morality has the authority. If there is no objective moral truth, does it follow that ‘anything
goes’? If morality is a reflection of our emotions or attitudes, what authority does morality have
over us? Why should we be moral? Where’s the obligation? What is so important about
particular emotions? “I can do whatever I like, as long as I don’t get caught.” ‘Morality’ becomes
no more obligatory than a matter of taste (Lacewing, n.d.).

Non-cognitivists can argue that this is either an unfair simplification of their theories or a
straightforward misunderstanding. Living as though there are no moral values is itself a choice or
expression of feeling, and one that moral people will disapprove of morally. The theory that
moral values are a reflection of our feelings does not imply that we should stop having moral
feelings. We should disapprove of anyone who advocates that morality doesn’t matter or is just a
matter of taste (Lacewing, n.d.).

Can we really justify interfering with how other people behave – when they behave
‘immorally’ – just because their actions don’t accord with my feelings or choices? This seems
very petty. “This is not the reason I am interfering,” claims the non-cognitivist. “It is not because
it offends me, but because they are being racist or cruel or cowardly or whatever (Lacewing,
n.d.).”
 The difficulty here is that one taking racist discrimination as a good reason to prevent an
action is itself an expression of his or her feelings or the standards on which he or she makes
prescriptions. For the cognitivist, by contrast, that this is a good reason to interfere is a fact about
reasons. The cognitivist claims to have the backing of reality (Lacewing, n.d.).

Morality according to Jan Narveson is normative, which means it tells us what we ought
to do. Now, this in itself isn’t all that interesting. There are lots of systems out there that tell us
what to do. Etiquette or Nazism for that matter give us rules that are supposed to guide our
behavior too. What makes morality special, on Narveson’s view, is that the rules of morality give
us reasons to act. Indeed, morality gives us reasons necessarily. We can shrug off the demands of
etiquette and certainly Nazism secure in the knowledge that our status as rational agents is not
the least bit threatened by our doing so. After all, just because these systems say we ought to do
something doesn’t mean we really have a reason to do so. But morality is different. Once we
conclude that some behavior is required by morality, we have already concluded that it is
something we have reason to do, in the same way that once we have concluded that something is
a bachelor, we have already concluded that it is male (Zwolinski, 2007).

The second point to note about Narveson’s account of morality has to do with the nature
of the reason-giving norms given to us by morality. It is that these norms are general, in the sense
of applying to everyone in the society, and not to select individuals. Thus, if morality contains a
rule prohibiting the killing of innocents, this norm forbids everyone, not just a certain sub-set of
society, from killing innocents. Of course, to say that morality is general is not to say that it takes
no account of the particular details of the circumstances. Morality might prohibit the killing of
innocents in most circumstances, but allow it when it is necessary to save the lives of a greater
number of innocents, for example. But if this is the case it is not a counterexample to the
generality thesis. Rather, it is simply a reminder that the real moral rule is more complicated than
simply “do not kill innocents.” And this real moral rule, whatever it is, will meet the condition of
generality, for whatever exceptions it carves out from the general prohibition will be exceptions
that anyone is eligible for, should they find themselves in the right circumstances. Everyone is
required not to kill innocents, unless they can save a greater number by doing so. Unless this
generality condition is met, according to Narveson, we have simply failed to meet a basic
criterion for a moral principle (Zwolinski, 2007).

The last aspect of Narveson’s theory reflects a sort of thoroughgoing individualism. In

the political realm this individualism is most obviously reflected in Narveson’s libertarianism.
Each person as being individual holds certain rights, it is only as being individuals that we hold
rights, and it is the purpose of the state to protect these individual rights—that’s all. But there is
another, even deeper, way in which Narveson’s political thought is individualistic, reflected in
his understanding of what it is for a political theory to be “liberal” in the broad sense. What this
means, according to Narveson, is that the theory must justify principles, policies, and institutions,
to any person affected by them, by showing that person they are for his or her good as seen by
that person. In other words, it is a condition on the legitimacy of political principles, policies, and
institutions that they serve the good of each and every person that they affect. This is the source
of their authority over us. It is not that they are stamped by the approval of Divine Authority, or
that they maximize aggregate welfare, or manifest The Absolute. These are all fine things, to be
sure, but in order for a political institution to be justified to a person, it must serve his or her
good—and if one does not care about Divine Authority, or aggregate welfare, or whatever, then
the fact that political institutions are related to these things does nothing to legitimize their
authority (Zwolinski, 2007).

The third important aspect of Narveson’s moral theory then is that morality works in
basically the same way. Just as it is a condition on the legitimacy of some purported political
principle that it serve the interests of all of those that it affects, so is it a condition on the
legitimacy of moral principles that they advance the interests of those to whom they are meant to
apply. Moral facts, in other words, are not like rocks. Their existence is not something which is
completely independent of their relationship to us—our thoughts and interests. Indeed, any moral
theory which held that moral facts were independent in this way would be, in Narveson’s words,
“utterly pointless (Zwolinski, 2007).”

This aspect of Narveson’s theory is reflected most clearly in his contractarianism. The
basic idea of contractarian theory, of course, is that whatever is the subject of the contract, it
must be justified to each person based on his own interests, since the contract is only binding on
those who “sign” it, and persons are assumed not to sign something that is not in their interests.
This individualism, indeed, is often taken to be part of the appeal of contractarianism. After all,
it’s hard to see how one could do a better job at justifying something than by showing that it is in
the interests of each and every person who is subject to it (Zwolinski, 2007).

Most contractarian theories, however, evade the issue a bit on this part of the theory.
Upon closer examination it is revealed that the signatories of the contracts are not actual persons
at all, but persons whose individual characteristics have been stripped away in the name of
idealization to the point where they are scarcely recognizable as persons at all. On Narveson’s
account, however, the persons to whom morality must be justified are actual persons, with all of
their personal preferences, histories, powers and vulnerabilities, material and social endowments,
and so forth. This fact is of crucial importance for Narveson’s theory, and connects with the first
feature of Narveson’s theory of morality—the fact that it necessarily gives us reasons for action.
For if morality were not so justified to each of us, then what reason would we have to care what
morality asked us to do? An adequate moral theory must provide individuals—real individuals,
not made-up idealized ones—with reasons to care about its precepts, and this requires connecting
the demands of morality in some way to the agent’s interests (Zwolinski, 2007).

In these theories of Jan Narveson, we see the authority of morality. This is what
cognitivism holds, that morality is not just about the preferences of people; it has truth it in.
Because morality holds the truth, moral statements can either be true or false. For example, the
statement “It is wrong to kill” is true. It is not just an expression of feelings as what non-
cognitivists believe.

What I think of morality before reading about the ideas of Narveson is that it is a thing
that the conscience of a person dictates because the morality of a person is his or her own. Now,
I know it is more than that. It covers the society as a whole. It thinks on the common good. I
learned that it even gives us reasons why we should do a certain moral act.
 The second reason why we should agree to cognitivism is that there is moral progress. If
there is no moral reality, then our moral views cannot become better or worse. Obviously, they
have changed. For instance, people used to believe that slavery was morally acceptable and now
they do not. But how can we say that this is progress if there is no objective moral truth? There
are two responses non-cognitivists can give (Lacewing, n.d.).

First, they can claim that there can be very real improvements in people’s moral views if
they become more rational. This can happen in several different ways. One is people may come
to know certain facts that they didn’t know before. In the case of slavery, people believed many
things about slaves that were not true. One popular false belief was that they were stupid. Moral
progress here means basing one’s morality on the facts, not mistakes (Lacewing, n.d.).
According to Sir Alfred Jules Ayer, all ethical disputes are about facts regarding the proper
application of a value system to a specific case, not about the value systems themselves, because
any dispute about values can only be resolved by judging that one value system is superior to
another, and this judgment itself presupposes a value system (Emotivism, 2017).

Another way is people can become more consistent, more willing to universalize their
principles. For example, Peter Singer argues that if we were consistent in our feelings about
preventing suffering, we would not eat meat. If he is right, then vegetarianism would be moral
progress (Lacewing, n.d.). Richard Mervyn Hare had a view of the universalizability of moral
judgements articulated in his books “Language of Morals” and “Freedom and Reason.” He
suggests that universalizability is a characteristic which is common to all judgements which
carry descriptive meaning. It follows that any judgement which has descriptive meaning must be
universalizable, because the descriptive meaning-rules which determine this meaning are
universal rules. The designation of a judgement as universalizable means for Hare only that it
logically commits the speaker to making a similar judgement about anything which is exactly
like the subject of the original judgement or like it in the relevant aspects. He understands
singular descriptive judgements to be universalizable because they commit the speaker to the
further proposition that anything exactly like the subject of the first judgement, or like it in the
relevant respects, possesses the property attributed to it in the original judgement (Lemasters,
n.d.).

A third way is people can become more coherent in their moral judgements. Many of us
have moral feelings that come into conflict with each other, for example, over lying. Moral
progress here would be a matter of working out the implications of our views, and changing what
needed changing to make them coherent with each other (Lacewing, n.d.).

Because people are ignorant, do not always think logically, and have not resolved the
conflicts between their different feelings and conventions, there is plenty of room for moral
progress. But moral progress just means becoming more rational in our moral thinking, not
becoming more ‘correct’ in our moral judgements (Lacewing, n.d.).

The second response that non-cognitivists can give is this: if we disapprove of past moral
codes and approve of our own moral code, then we will say that we have made moral progress.
Society has moved from moral principles that were bad, that is, principles we disapprove of, to
moral principles that are good, that is, principles we approve of. That is what moral progress is
(Lacewing, n.d.).

This response means that moral progress is relative to a particular moral point of view. If
one disagrees with this, he or she might claim that today’s moral principles are much worse than
those 200 years ago and so we have not made moral progress. But this is now just the familiar
problem of how to make sense of moral disagreement, not a special problem about moral
progress (Lacewing, n.d.).

Before reading about how moral progress objects non-cognitivism, I thought this progress
is about how we change to be better morally. It is not being more correct as I thought. It is about
being wiser in our moral thinking.

To sum up, I agree with cognitivism, which is the theory that holds that moral statements
describe a domain of moral facts existing independently of our thoughts and feelings and that
moral statements are truth-apt, because of two reasons. The first is that morality has authority
and the second is that there is moral progress. I have learned that morality not only considers a
person’s thoughts but what the society thinks is right. I also learned that moral progress is not
being more correct but being more rational. Indeed, morality has truth in it so we should see that
beliefs are cognitivistic.

References

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