Noncognitivism Flashcards
What does it mean to say that moral thoughts are not about anything?
moral sentences are neither true/false
moral thoughts are not beliefs, and are not representational
roughly, we are saying that they do not dscribe any state of affairs or way things they are
but, this isn’t to say that they aren’t meaningful
What is the difference between describing and expressing an attitude?
Expressing: Arg! Boo! Ouch! Wahh! Do your homework!
describing: I feel sad because I stubbed my toe.
What are some of the strengths of noncognitivism?
naturalistic
-something you can discover via the methods of science
-human beings are natural creatures, and all there is to non-cognitivism are human attitudes
resolving the core questions
-metaphysical questions
-questions about rationality and motivation
-epistemological questions
-semantic questions: how do we speak about morality when we have never been acquainted with it
advantages over relativism:
-cultural relativism: murder is wrong = muy -culture disapproves of murder
-subjectivism: murder is wrong = I disapprove of murder
-emotivism: murder is wrong = murder :(
How is it able to skirt the core questions?
There are only metaphysical questions if there are metaphysical things, if something can’t be true/false there just are no things to talk about
What is emotivism?
moral statements express emotion
moral states are emojis
murder = murder :(, boo murder
What do emotivists like Ayer think moral terms mean?
murder is wrong = wrong is an expression that has meaning, meaning: boo
“wrongness” = boo, a hostile term of expression
Ayer’s specifically theorizes that wrong means boo
What is prescriptivism?
commands, non-cognitive because they don’t describe anything
i.e.,: maximize happiness!
What is expressivism?
moral statements express other more sophisticated mental states
Frege-Geach objection.
non-cognitivism struggles with complex moral expressions
