Saturday, March 25, 2006
Cognitivism or non-cognitivism?
I'm allied with the non-cognitivist utilitarian camp of Hare/Singer/Frey but I'm not totally convinced of my loyalty on this one. Since I believe value can be boiled down to desire-satisfaction, there would seem to be a fact of the matter about whether someone's desire is being satisfied. Hence the statements "x is good" or "x is right" might seem to be analyzable as beliefs rather than desires (or emotive utterances) themselves. On the other hand, I find myself unpersuaded by any argument for cognitivism that I've come across. I'd be curious to hear where people stand. Can anyone offer a spirited argument for or against cognitivism?
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I lean heavily towards the cognivist side, although I've once or twice wondered whether each is really a redescription of the other. Still, a question thats often made me lean towards cognitivism is this:
ReplyDeleteSince the surface structure of language leans strongly in favour of cognitivism (we say "That is a good thing to do", not "Yay! Good thing!"), that seems to make cognitivism the default. But every argument I've heard for non-cognitivism (which usually take the form of "how can a factual proposition give you motivation or reason to act?) seems to me to favour an error theory over non-cognitivism. If the surface structure of language points to cognitivism, and cognitivism isn't possible, what reason to we have to assume non-cognitivism over an error theory?
I guess thats a burden-of-proof argument rather than anything stronger, but I've sometimes found it convincing.
Alex
My view of this matter is probably superficial. I haven't done the requisite reading on this topic to get a good grasp of the subject matter. Neverthless, here's my take as it stands:
ReplyDeleteWe might distinguish between two types of moral utterances. On the one hand, we express our own "belief" or attitude when we respond to a question akin to "is this the right thing to do?" Alternatively, we might express what we take to be the relevant moral community's opinion on the matter. So, for instance, you might ask me whether or not going to church on Sundays is the right thing to do. Since I'm not a church goer, I might respond "no" on the grounds that I don't believe in God, and so don't think much of going to church on Sundays. Then again, I might, given that we are, say, amongst a deeply religious crowd respond by saying something like "most people here seem to think so."
The latter seems cognitivist to me, while the former may be non-cognitivist. In the former, I merely express my attitudes on the basis of a belief system that doesn't include God. In the latter case, however, I make an assesment of the relevant moral community and respond according to what I think is considered true amongst that community. It may be that that community's beliefs are non-cognitivist, but that's a step removed from what I'm doing, which is assessing what that community actually believes. The claim that the relevant moral community has a particular moral attitude admits of truth or falsity, and so looks to me to be cognitivist, even if the attitudes so described are ultimately non-cognitivist.
At any rate, here's a question to help me be less than naive about this subject. Is the question about the expression of first-order attitudes (as in, "I affirm/believe going to church on Sundays is right") only? Or is it all right to look at second-order expressions of first-order attitudes (like, "It is true that Christians believe going to church on Sundays is the right thing to do")?
"Expressivism isn’t as popular today as it once was, but I think Simon Blackburn is a contemporary expressivist. I think the real problem for this view is that we actually dispute the rightness or goodness of something. And further, we’re often convinced by these arguments. If at bottom we’re just saying Yah! And Boo! Then we shouldn’t be arguing over rightness and goodness."
ReplyDeleteI think expressivism still has a number of adherants (Blackburn, Gibbard, Singer etc.). I think Blackburn has a response to your criticism, and its the response that led to my comment above that I sometimes wonder how distinct they are. I think he says that we can have complex expressions of emotion, so that I can feel B!{Thinking that murder is wrong|Thinking that Jeff was murdered|Thinking that Jeff's murder was good} (where "B!" is "Boo!" and "|" seperate propositions that my attitude is about). With this in place, he can offer a way in which argument can take place. People can realise that they hold B! attitudes about other attitudes they have, and then try to sort out the views they hold. I guess he'd further state that others can, through argument, make me more aware of some of the attitudes that I already hold, causing some kind of argumentative progress.
Its quite an interesting solution, but I say, I wonder just how much ground they've given to the cognitivist in employing it.
Another problem, of course, is how it is that they identify the attitude in question as "moral" - what makes B!{Garlic} non-moral, and B!{Murder} moral? I think its hard for them to identify a non-circular criterion for this.
"Is the question about" the expression of first-order attitudes (as in, "I affirm/believe going to church on Sundays is right") only? Or is it all right to look at second-order expressions of first-order attitudes (like, "It is true that Christians believe going to church on Sundays is the right thing to do")?"
I'm not too familiar with prescriptivism, but regarding expressivism, I would've thought only first-order propositions. It looks as though the second order statement is truth apt, because we're stating that its true that Christians believe X.
Having said that, I think some - no doubt controversial - people (Steven Barker) try to argue for a kind of global expressivism, where nothing you state is truth-apt, and its all expression of emotion (e.g. including things like "I see a chair"). Having said that, I don't know his position all that well so I may be characturing him here.
Alex