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Cognitivism is themeta-ethical view that ethicalsentences expresspropositions and can therefore betrue or false (they are truth-apt), whichnoncognitivists deny.[1] 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),ethical subjectivism (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions about peoples' attitudes or opinions), anderror theory (which claims that ethical sentences express propositions, but that they are all false, whatever their nature).
Propositions are what meaningfuldeclarative sentences (but not interrogative or imperative sentences) are supposed toexpress. Different sentences, in different languages, can express the same proposition: "snow is white" and "Schnee ist weiß" (inGerman) both express the proposition thatsnowiswhite. A common belief among philosophers who use this jargon is that propositions, properly speaking, are what are true or false (what beartruth values; they aretruthbearers).
To get a better idea of what it means to express a proposition, compare this to something thatdoes not express a proposition. Suppose someone minding aconvenience store sees a thief pick up acandy 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 aproposition that the storekeeper is expressing. Perhaps it is anemotional state that is being expressed. The storekeeper is surprised and angered, and expresses those feelings by saying, "Hey!"
Ethical cognitivists hold that ethical sentencesdo 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 anon-cognitivist.
Ethical subjectivism is themeta-ethical view which claims that:
This makes ethical subjectivism a form of cognitivism. Ethical subjectivism stands in opposition tomoral realism, which claims that moral propositions refer to objective facts, independent of human opinion; toerror theory, which denies that any moral propositions are true in any sense; and tonon-cognitivism, which denies that moral sentences express propositions at all.
The most common forms of ethical subjectivism are also forms ofmoral relativism, with moral standards held to be relative to each culture or society (cf.cultural relativism), or even to every individual. The latter view, as put forward byProtagoras, holds that there are as many distinct scales of good and evil as there are subjects in the world.[3] However, there are alsouniversalist forms of subjectivism such asideal observer theory (which claims that moral propositions are about what attitudes a hypothetical ideal observer would hold) anddivine command theory (which claims that moral propositions are about what attitudes God holds).
Cognitivism encompasses all forms ofmoral realism, but cognitivism can also agree with ethicalirrealism oranti-realism. Aside from thesubjectivist branch of cognitivism, some cognitive irrealist theories accept that ethical sentences can be objectively true or false, even if thereexist no natural, physical or in any wayreal (or "worldly")entities orobjects to make them true or false.
There are a number of ways of construing how a proposition can be objectively true without corresponding to the world:
Crispin Wright,John Skorupski and some others defend normative cognitivist irrealism. Wright asserts the extreme implausibility of bothJ. L. Mackie's error-theory andnon-cognitivism (includingS. Blackburn'squasi-realism) in view of both everyday and sophisticated moral speech and argument. The same point is often expressed as theFrege-Geach Objection. Skorupski distinguishes between receptive awareness, which is not possible innormative matters, and non-receptive awareness (including dialogical knowledge), which is possible in normative matters.
Hilary Putnam's bookEthics without Ontology (Harvard, 2004) argues for a similar view, that ethical (and for that mattermathematical) sentences can be true andobjective withoutthere being any objects to make them so.
Cognitivism points to thesemantic difference betweenimperativesentences anddeclarative 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 nor false. Itgives 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 notgive a permission, it states thatthere is a permission.
Another argument for ethical cognitivism stands on the close resemblance between ethics and other normative matters, such asgames. As much asmorality, games consist of norms (orrules), but it would be hard to accept that it be not true that thechessplayer 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 becategorically true, while we only need statements about right action to becontingent 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.
