Cognitivism (ethics)
Encyclopedia
Cognitivism is the meta-ethical
view that ethical sentence
s express proposition
s and can therefore be true or false (they are truth-apt), which noncognitivists
deny. Cognitivism is so broad a thesis that it encompasses (among other views) moral realism
(which claims that ethical sentences express propositions about mind-independent facts of the world), moral subjectivism (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions about peoples' attitudes or opinions), and error theory (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, but that they are all false, whatever their nature).
) 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; they are truthbearers
). So if an ethical sentence does express a proposition, then the sentence expresses something that can be true or false.
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!"
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. Derivatively, 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
.
, but cognitivism can also agree with ethical irrealism
or anti-realism
. Aside from the subjectivist branch of cognitivism, some cognitive irrealist theories accept that ethical sentences can be objectively true or false, even if there exist
no natural, physical or in any way real
(or "world
ly") entities
or object
s to make them true or false. In a similar way as there is no real entity to make true the sentence "If it had rained yesterday, the floor would have been wet" or any other counterfactual
sentence (unless modal realism
is correct).
Crispin Wright
, John Skorupski
and some others defend normative cognitivist irrealism. Wright asserts the extreme implausibility of both J. L. Mackie
's error-theory and non-cognitivism
(including S. Blackburn
's quasi-realism
) in view of both everyday and sophisticated moral speech and argument. The same point is often expressed as the Frege-Geach Objection. Skorupski distinguishes between receptive awareness, which is not possible in normative
matters, and non-receptive awareness (including dialogical knowledge), which is possible in normative matters.
Hilary Putnam
's book Ethics without ontology (Harvard, 2004) argues for a similar view, that ethical (and for that matter mathematical
) sentences can be true and objective
without there being
any objects to make them so.
Cognitivism points to the semantic
difference between imperative
sentence
s and declarative sentences in normative subjects. Or to the different meanings and purposes of some superficially declarative sentences. For instance, if a teacher allows one of her students to go out by saying "You may go out", this sentence is neither true or false. It gives a permission. But, in most situations, if one of the students asks one of his classmates whether she thinks that he may go out and she answers "Of course you may go out", this sentence is either true or false. It does not give a permission, it states that there is a permission.
Another argument for ethical cognitivism stands on the close resemblance between ethics and other normative matters, such as game
s. As much as morality
, games consist of norms (or rules), but it would be hard to accept that it be not true that the chess
player who checkmates the other one wins the game. If statements about game rules can be true or false, why not ethical statements? One answer is that we may want ethical statements to be categorically true, while we only need statements about right action to be contingent on the acceptance of the rules of a particular game - that is, the choice to play the game according to a given set of rules.
Meta-ethics
In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics. Ethical...
view that ethical sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
s express proposition
Proposition
In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence...
s and can therefore be true or false (they are truth-apt), which noncognitivists
Non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false...
deny. Cognitivism is so broad a thesis that it encompasses (among other views) moral realism
Moral realism
Moral realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion....
(which claims that ethical sentences express propositions about mind-independent facts of the world), moral subjectivism (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions about peoples' attitudes or opinions), and error theory (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, but that they are all false, whatever their nature).
Overview
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 GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
) both express the proposition that snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
is white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
. A common belief among philosophers who use this jargon is that propositions, properly speaking, are what are true or false (what bear truth values; they are truthbearers
Correspondence theory of truth
The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, and whether it accurately describes that world...
). So if an ethical sentence does express a proposition, then the sentence expresses something that can be true or false.
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
Convenience store
A convenience store, corner store, corner shop, commonly called a bodega in Spanish-speaking areas of the United States, is a small store or shop in a built up area that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, toiletries, alcoholic and soft drinks, and may also offer money order and...
sees a thief pick up a candy bar
Candy bar
A chocolate bar is a confection in bar form comprising some or all of the following components: cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, milk. The relative presence or absence of these components form the subclasses of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. In addition to these main...
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!"
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. Derivatively, 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
Non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false...
.
Refinement and arguments
Cognitivism encompasses all forms of moral realismMoral realism
Moral realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion....
, but cognitivism can also agree with ethical irrealism
Irrealism (philosophy)
Irrealism is a philosophical position first advanced by Nelson Goodman in "Ways of Worldmaking", encompassing epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics.-Nelson Goodman's irrealism:...
or anti-realism
Anti-realism
In analytic philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of an objective reality of entities of a certain type or the denial that verification-transcendent statements about a type of entity are either true or false...
. Aside from the subjectivist branch of cognitivism, some cognitive irrealist theories accept that ethical sentences can be objectively true or false, even if there exist
Existence
In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...
no natural, physical or in any way real
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
(or "world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
ly") entities
Entity
An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, although it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate.An entity could be viewed as a set...
or object
Object (philosophy)
An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
s to make them true or false. In a similar way as there is no real entity to make true the sentence "If it had rained yesterday, the floor would have been wet" or any other counterfactual
Counterfactual conditional
A counterfactual conditional, subjunctive conditional, or remote conditional, abbreviated , is a conditional statement indicating what would be the case if its antecedent were true...
sentence (unless modal realism
Modal realism
Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Kellogg Lewis, that all possible worlds are as real as the actual world. It is based on the following tenets: possible worlds exist; possible worlds are not different in kind from the actual world; possible worlds are irreducible entities; the...
is correct).
Crispin Wright
Crispin Wright
Crispin Wright is a British philosopher, who has written on neo-Fregean philosophy of mathematics, Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and on issues related to truth, realism, cognitivism, skepticism, knowledge, and objectivity....
, John Skorupski
John Skorupski
John Skorupski is a philosopher whose main interests are epistemology, ethics and moral philosophy, political philosophy, and the history of 19th and 20th century philosophy...
and some others defend normative cognitivist irrealism. Wright asserts the extreme implausibility of both J. L. Mackie
J. L. Mackie
John Leslie Mackie was an Australian philosopher, originally from Sydney. He made significant contributions to the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, and is perhaps best known for his views on meta-ethics, especially his defence of moral skepticism.He authored six...
's error-theory and non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false...
(including S. Blackburn
Simon Blackburn
Simon Blackburn is a British academic philosopher known for his work in quasi-realism and his efforts to popularise philosophy. He recently retired as professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, but remains a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North...
's quasi-realism
Quasi-realism
Quasi-realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences do not express propositions.# Instead, ethical sentences project emotional attitudes as though they were real properties....
) in view of both everyday and sophisticated moral speech and argument. The same point is often expressed as the Frege-Geach Objection. Skorupski distinguishes between receptive awareness, which is not possible in normative
Norm (philosophy)
Norms are concepts of practical import, oriented to effecting an action, rather than conceptual abstractions that describe, explain, and express. Normative sentences imply “ought-to” types of statements and assertions, in distinction to sentences that provide “is” types of statements and assertions...
matters, and non-receptive awareness (including dialogical knowledge), which is possible in normative matters.
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist, who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science...
's book Ethics without ontology (Harvard, 2004) argues for a similar view, that ethical (and for that matter mathematical
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
) sentences can be true and objective
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
without there being
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
any objects to make them so.
Cognitivism points to the semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
difference between imperative
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
s and declarative sentences in normative subjects. Or to the different meanings and purposes of some superficially declarative sentences. For instance, if a teacher allows one of her students to go out by saying "You may go out", this sentence is neither true or false. It gives a permission. But, in most situations, if one of the students asks one of his classmates whether she thinks that he may go out and she answers "Of course you may go out", this sentence is either true or false. It does not give a permission, it states that there is a permission.
Another argument for ethical cognitivism stands on the close resemblance between ethics and other normative matters, such as game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s. As much as morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, games consist of norms (or rules), but it would be hard to accept that it be not true that the chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player who checkmates the other one wins the game. If statements about game rules can be true or false, why not ethical statements? One answer is that we may want ethical statements to be categorically true, while we only need statements about right action to be contingent on the acceptance of the rules of a particular game - that is, the choice to play the game according to a given set of rules.