Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism in
Contemporary Metaethics.
An Outline
Ethics Division, Faculty of Letters,
Keio University
Wolfgang Ertl
Moral Cognitivism (“C” henceforth)
and
Non-cognitivism
(“NC”
henceforth”) are opposing positions
taken in the debate on moral judgments
and what they are about. Both C and
NC are concerned with the mental side
of what we might wish to call the “mind
and world framework” in ethics. They
belong to metaethics as opposed to
normative ethics and metaethics, in turn,
can be characterised briefly by the type
of questions it is asking. In metaethics
we do not ask what we should do and
why but we ask questions about these
questions. In what follows I shall try to
give an overview of the controversy
between C and NC by closely following
the lead of mainly Alexander Miller
(2003) and of Mark van Roojen (2004).
Miller’s (2003: 8) “flowchart” of
metaethical theories is a particularly
helpful guide through this vast topic.
C can be defined by the following two
claims: ”(i) moral judgments express
beliefs and (ii) they are truth apt, i.e.
they have or at least can have a truth
value, true or false”. Being truth apt
means these beliefs have truth
conditions. Truth conditions are
important for understanding the
meaning of a sentence. Understanding a
proposition is knowing what would be
the case, if it was true. As we shall see
below, the key questions to be answered
are: is there anything which can make
these beliefs corresponding to moral
judgments true, and if there is, what
exactly is it; in short, what are the truth
makers of moral judgments? NC is
simply the denial of C.
We can distinguish a strong and a weak
form of cognitivism. According to
strong cognitivism, the truth value of
moral judgments is decided by mind
independent reality, or to be more
precise, by something which is
constitutively indepedent of human
opinion. Its truth maker, in other words,
is “out there”. According to weak C, the
truth value of moral judgments is not
decided by opinion independent reality
These considerations lead us to realism
and
antirealism.
Realism
and
antirealism are concerned with the
world side of the mind and world
framework. For the realist there are
opinion independent moral properties
and facts, which can make moral
judgments true and false. The antirealist
denies this. Realist positions often go
along with cognitivist positions, they
often subscribe to strong cognitivism
and to the claim that some moral
judgments are true. Realism can of
course be combined with skepticism, in
particular if one concedes the possibility
of there being irresolvable moral
dilemmas. And there are strong
cognitivists for whom moral judgments
are always false. They subscribe to the
so-called ”error theory” which shall be
discussed
below.
Finally,
weak
cognitivists usually are antirealists.
There are basically two main variants of
realism, namely non-naturalism and
naturalism. For non-naturalism moral
properties and facts are entirely
different from natural properties and
facts. The main contenders of
non-naturalism are Moore (1903) and,
more recently, John McDowell (1998).
Moore’s position will be discussed in
more detail below. For naturalism, in
contrast, moral properties and facts are
natural properties and facts.
Within naturalism the following three
variants can be distinguished: 1) Non
eliminative reductionism, 2) analytic
functionalism and 3) Cornell Realism.
1) Non eliminative reductionsm (e.g.
Railton 1986) is modelled on natural
science insofar as it proceeds by
revising the definitions of our everyday
terms. The following example may
suffice to clarify this position. Take the
term “morally good”; how could we
provide a ‘scientific’ definition of it?
The non eliminative reductionists
suggest a two-step approach. First, they
try to find an account of ”good” in the
non-moral sense and they claim that a
good way of defining “good” in this
sense is “what the ideal self wants the
real self to want”. From there we get to
the moral sense of “good” by
considering the non moral good of all
persons involved and by counting the
interests of each person equally.
2) Analytic functionalism, developed by
Jackson and Pettit (1995) is modelled
on the idea of conceptual analysis. It
tries to treat moral terms in close
parallel to colour terms. Just as it may
be possible to define colour terms
without using other colour terms simply
by means of their unique position in the
structure of the conceptual realm of
colour terms, the same may be true for
moral terms.
3) Cornell realism, associated with
Sturgeon (1988), Boyd (1988), Brink
(1989) and Sayre-McCord (1988),
though non reductive, is also modelled
on natural science; it subscribes to
positions in science which hold the view
that certain emergent properties are
ontologically independent and also vital
for good scientific explanations. The
scientific analogy of temperature is
often used to elucidate what is at issue
here (there may, however, be better
examples of emergent properties such
as chemical properties). Temperature
can provide useful explanations for
certain events in the world, although
temperature (as the average kinetic
energy of the particles in a substance)
does not play any causal role in the
world; rather it is the individual
particles which do the causal work. The
type of explanation provided in terms of
properties such as temperature is called
“program explanation”, the type
provided in terms of individual
molecules being causally efficacious is
called “process explanation”. Obviously,
program explanation may be richer and
more
informative
than
process
explanation; and according to the
Cornell realists moral terms (and their
corresponding properties) can provide
explanations of events in the world in a
similar manner as program explanation.
Thus, the key idea is that there is a
difference between causal efficacy and
explanatory relevance. Accordingly, we
may take Cornell realism as an answer
to the challenge that moral properties
and facts cannot be explanatorily
relevant unless reduced to natural
properties. However, a
problem
occurs regarding the inference from
explanatory relevance to ontological
independence. An instrumentalist will
object that at least as far as properties
such as temperature are concerned, we
should merely consider them as useful
constructions, and not as independently
existing entities. A similar point could
easily be raised in the case of moral
properties and facts.
In our discussion so far we have seen
that the realists and strong cognitivists
have obviously been attracted to the
correspondence theory of truth. The
correspondence theory of truth claims
that ”p” is true iff p; this account of
truth seems obvious enough, but there
are a number of problems: it
presupposes that being true is a property
similar to, for example, being a
mammal; but the explanations as to why
a certain proposition is true will be very
different
in
different
contexts,
suggesting that there is nothing all true
propositions have in common except
being called “true”. Hence, it is possible
that ”truth” is domain specific.
Depending on the specific realm we are
talking about, there may be different
conceptions of truth.
If this is so, however, even the
non-existence of opinion independent
moral properties would not allow us to
infer that we commit systematic errors
when making moral judgments. Hence,
ethical judgments may have their own
specific notion of truth; just like
mathematical judgments may have
theirs.
The importance of the correspondence
theory of truth can be seen when we
consider the debate between a peculiar
variant of strong cognitivism, namely
the error theory which we will deal with
in detail further below, and weak
cognitivism. If the correspondence
theory is true and cognitivism is correct
and if we can show that there are no
moral properties and facts, we have to
concede that all moral judgments are
wrong and this is precisely what the
error theory says. If, however, the
correspondence theory is wrong, moral
judgments can be true even if there are
no moral properties and facts.
An example of a weak cognitivist
theory may illustrate this point. The
idea is that moral concepts are judgment
dependent just like colour concepts
(since
according
to
the
best
contemporary theories of physics there
are no colours in the world). This is also
called a ”best opinion” account of moral
concepts. The immediate problem is to
determine
what
makes
an
opinion ”best”? If we wish to have a
judgment dependent account of a
predicate we must not use criteria which
themselves depend on the extension of
this
very
predicate
(this
is
called
”independence
condition”).
Complying with the independence
condition, however, may be impossible
for moral predicates. Consider the
following example: when somebody
judges whether somebody else is
insensitive, the one who judges should
not be insensitive if his judgment is
supposed to be any good, let alone best.
Let us leave these issues behind now
and turn to NC and its variants instead.
The most important variants of NC are
1) expressivism, 2) quasi-realism and 3)
norm expressivism. According to 1)
expressivism what we express in moral
judgements are just emotions signalling
approval or disapproval. In a somewhat
derogatory manner this account of
moral judgments is sometimes called
the “boo-hurrah theory”.
2) Quasi-realism, developed by Simon
Blackburn (e.g. 1993) suggests that the
realist sounding moral discourse is a
(legitimate) means to help us in the
pursuit of our non-moral purposes (in
short, it is part of our survival
strategies). Quasi-realism is in a sense
the mirror image of Cornell realism as
far as its stance on ontological
implications is concerned.
3) Norm-expressivism, developed by
Allan Gibbard (1990), says that what
we express in a moral judgment is the
acceptance of a norm. Thus, this theory
may be called decisionist, since
rationality is defined relative to the
norms selected. Norm expressivism is
attractive since it can provide a solution
to a problem which plagues NC
accounts, namely the Frege-Geach
problem: It seems as if moral judgments
behave like ”ordinary” judgments
expressing beliefs in important contexts,
e.g. in inferences. Take the follwing
example: If lying is prohibited and
uttering proposition P now would
amount to lying, then it is prohibited to
utter proposition P now. Emotions do
not seem to be the right kind of things
to figure in such inferences. An
inference is valid, if there is no possible
world in which the premises are true but
the conclusion is false. Gibbard’s idea is
to specify possible worlds according to
the norms valid in them. Then it is open
for him to say that once we agree to a
norm, we commit ourselves to all the
logical consequences of this norm.
After this general overview we may
now look at classic, influential
argumentative strategies which are still
hotly debated in current metaethical
discussions. Arguably the most famous
of these is (1) the so-called “Classic
Open Question Argument” (COQA)
developed by George Edward Moore in
1903. It is meant to establish
non-naturalism
and
thus
strong
cognitivism. Similarly influential has
been Mackie’s (1977) ”queerness
argument” designed to establish an error
theory based on ontological and
epistemic considerations. (3) Alfred
Ayer (1936) combined the COQA with
verificationism thus trying to draw a
conclusion entirely different from what
Moore had in mind. Ayer wished to
establish
emotivism
and
hence
non-cognitivism by means of this
combination.
I shall now briefly discuss these three
strategies. (1) The basic idea underlying
the COQA is simple enough: any
attempt to define ”good” in terms of
natural or metaphysical predicates fails,
because regarding the alleged definiens
a competent speaker can always
ask ”but is it really good?”. Hence,
according to Moore, these attempts of a
definition commit the ”naturalistic
fallacy”. There are two classic
objections against the COQA: a)
According to Frankena (1938), Moore
commits the fallacy of petitio principii
here, that is to say he presupposes what
the argument is supposed to prove,
namely the truth of non-naturalism. b)
Others have maintained that Moore’s
argument presupposed the paradox of
analysis: this paradox says that in order
to be able to analyse a term we need to
know its meaning already, and
conversely, if an analysis discovers
something new and interesting, it cannot
be correct. But according to these critics
the alleged paradox is probably not a
paradox at all. There can after all be
interesting and informative cases of
analysis, they say. The distinction
between
implicit
and
explicit
knowledge might actually support this
view. I may have a concept of
something insofar that I am able to use
the respective term correctly, but I may
not be able to state the rules which
govern its use. It is analysis which make
these rules explicit.
There is a further, more fundamental
issue regarding the COQA. This
argument is based on a theory of
meaning which may be wrong. And
arguably, if moral terms behave like
natural kind terms and if Kripke
semantics is right, the argument may
not work after all, because according to
Kripke (1972), it is reference which
fixes meaning. To take the standard
example: what ”gold” means is
determined by what gold really is,
namely a metal of the atomic number 79
and it is the business of science to find
this out. But even if the semantics
Moore uses is correct, the argument
does certainly not work for synthetic
forms of naturalism anyway, i.e. those
forms of naturalism which try to
determine what the good is by means of,
for example, an empirical enquiry.
Defenders of Moore have attempted to
improve the argument by adding the
premise of internalism, according to
which making a moral judgment and
being motivated to action is necessarily
connected. The question is then,
whether a competent speaker can
imagine somebody, possibly herself,
making a judgment containing a
predicate in terms of which ”good” is
supposed to be defined and nevertheless
not being motivated to act accordingly.
For lack of space, this issue cannot be
pursued here in more detail.
2) At any rate, the issue of internalism
has played a key role in Mackie’s
queerness argument: Our moral
discourse, Mackie says, seems to
presuppose the existence of objectively
prescriptive facts or properties. They
need
to
have
the
feature
of ”to-be-done-ness” built into them,
because making a moral judgment
amounts to being motivated and our
way of talking suggests that we
somehow read ”to-be-done-ness” off
from the moral properties and facts.
Internalism and realism do not seem to
be
compatible,
though.
Since
internalism is true according to Mackie,
such properties and facts seem to
be ”queer”: they do not seem to fit into
the fabric of the world; they would have
to be totally different from ordinary
things. Moreover, even if they existed,
we could never track or grasp such
properties and facts, because we do not
seem to have the appropriate mental
faculty for reading off their motivating
force according to Mackie. Mackie
concludes that we are systematically
wrong in our moral discourse. All moral
judgments are wrong, because the
properties and facts whose existence
they presuppose, do not in fact exist.
(That is to say, all moral judgments are
like judgments presupposing the
existence of, say, phlogiston). As
mentioned above, Mackie’s argument
presupposes the correctness of the
correspondence theory of truth.
3) Ayer claimed that Moore was right
about non-naturalism, but Ayer also
maintained that this result actually
undermines Moore’s cognitivism, and
that this follows from the verifiability
principle. The verifiability principle
says that for judgments to be
meaningful they must either be
analytical or verifiable by empirical
observation. Now Ayer says that since
(interesting) moral judgments are not
analytical and, as the COQA shows,
concern nothing natural, they cannot be
verified. Hence, for Ayer, moral
judgments are meaningless and this
means that they are not truth apt.
Ayer’s critics point to a number of
problems arising for the verifiability
principle. Applied to itself, it appears to
be meaningless itself, which does not
look like a good start for the theory.
Furthermore, it is not at all easy to
determine what ”verifiable” means, in
particular, because there are a number
of obviously meaningful propositions
such as propositions concerning the past
and general propositions which cannot
be verified.
Yet, the view that we should not take
seriously any non-analytical claim
which is consistent with every possible
empirical evidence, is very popular, in
particular among scientifically minded
philosophers. Admittedly, this is a deep
issue, but for the moment the following
suggestion may suffice. There seems to
be a middle ground between mysticism
and verificationism. We should not fall
victim to the fallacy of instrument. Why
should we risk to be completely wrong
if we cannot be precisely right, as Onora
O’Neill once asked?
To conclude, a number of issues shall be
raised and discussed briefly as food for
further thought: 1) Does internalism
entail non-cognitivism? 2) Does
supervenience entail non-cognitivism?
3)
Does
non-cognitivism
entail
relativism? 4) Can the distinction
between
cognitivism
and
noncognitivism be upheld?
Does
internalism
entail
noncognitivism? Many non-cognitivists
thought it does. Non-cognitivism can in
fact explain internalism, but only if we
subscribe to a Humean model of
practical reason and motivation
according to which only emotions can
motivate us to action. This conception
of practical reason, in turn, is of course
highly contentious.
Does supervenience entail noncognitivism? A set of properties A
supervenes upon another set B just in
case no two things can differ with
respect to A-properties without also
differing with respect to their
B-properties. In slogan form, ”there
cannot be an A-difference without a
B-difference”. There is widespread
agreement that moral properties, just
like mental properties, supervene on
natural
properties.
Some
noncognitivists thought that only noncognitivism
can
explain
this
supervenience. The claim is that the
same non-moral property will trigger
similar approving or disapproving
reactions. However, if non-eliminative
naturalism is true, it can perfectly well
explain
supervenience,
because
according to this doctrine moral facts
and moral properties are themselves
natural properties and facts. Some
theorists claim that what needs
explanation is not just supervenience,
but how we can master moral concepts
without necessarily having knowledge
of the complicated laws governing
supervenience. Blackburn thinks that
his quasi-realism can provide the
explanation for this phenomenon. But
then the question arises, why we should
subscribe only to quasi-realism: all he
can say is that ”quasi” would be enough
to account for the way we talk morally,
which indicates that Blackburn uses
further criteria to undercut more robust
forms of realism.
Does non-cognitivism entail relativism?
Here the answer is simply ”No”.
Can the distinction between cognitivism
and non cognitivism be upheld? Apart
from the question about an adequate
theory of truth, this distinction is under
threat from at least 2 different
directions: (1) The correct account of
emotions will have serious implications
for this distinction, because if we
subscribe to a cognitivist theory of
emotion, emotivism, the apparent
proto-type of cognitivism, might not be
non-cognitivist after all. (2) At the end
of the day, this distinction may come
down to the distinction whether in
moral judgments I show my approval or
disapproval or I rather report my
approval or disapproval. But in both
cases, beliefs seem to be involved.
In sum, a rather simple and clear cut
distinction may yet again turn out to be
too crude to capture the crucial nuances
in a field of enquiry. Nevertheless, such
simplifications are the necessary
starting points for investigations which
finally uncover the interconnections,
presuppositions and implications of
positions we wish to hold.
References:
Ayer, Alfred J. (1946): Language, Truth and
Logic. 2nd edition. London.
Blackburn,
Simon (1993):
Essays
in
Quasi-Realism. Oxford.
Boyd, Richard (1988): ”How to Be a Moral
Realist”. In: Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (ed.):
Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca, New York, pp.
181-228.
Brink, David (1989): Moral Realism and the
Foundations of Ehics. Cambridge.
Frankena, William (1938): “The Naturalistic
Fallacy”. In: Mind 48, pp. 464-477.
Gibbard, Allan (1990): Wise Choices, Apt
Feelings. Oxford.
Jackson, Frank and Philip Pettit (1995): ”Moral
Functionalism and Moral Motivation”. In:
Philosophical Quarterly 45, pp. 20-40.
Kripke, Saul A. (1972): Naming and Necessity.
Cambridge (MA).
Mackie, John (1977): Ethics. Inventing Right
and Wrong. New York.
Miller, Alexander (2003): An Introduction to
Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge.
Moore, George E. (1903): Principia Ethica.
Cambridge.
Railton, Peter (1996): ”Moral Realism:
Prospects and Problems”. In: Sinnott-Armstrong,
W. and M. Timmons (eds.): Moral Knowledge.
New York, pp. 49-81.
Sayre-McCord, Geoffey (1988): ”Moral Theory
and Explanatory Impotence”. In: Geoffrey
Sayre-McCord (ed.): Essays on Moral Realism.
Ithaca, New York, pp. 256-281.
Sturgeon,
Nicholas
(1988):
”Moral
Explanations”. In: Geoffrey Sayre-McCord
(ed.): Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca, New
York, pp. 229-255.
van Roojen, Mark, "Moral Cognitivism vs.
Non-Cognitivism".
In:
The
Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2005
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2005/entr
ies/moral-cognitivism/>.