Welcome to our next session in the study of ethics. In the previous lesson, we examined moral realism and the potent challenge it faces from the argument from disagreement. We saw how realists attempt to defend the idea of objective moral facts. Today, we journey to the other major continent on our metaethical map: non-cognitivism. This is the family of views united by the radical claim that moral statements are not in the business of stating facts at all.
Our learning outcome for this lesson is to analyze two of the most influential non-cognitivist theories: emotivism and prescriptivism. We will investigate how these theories propose to understand moral language not as descriptive, but as performing other functions, such as expressing feelings or issuing commands. This shift in function has profound implications for the nature of moral reasoning, a topic we will explore through the arguments and counter-arguments that have shaped this debate.
Let's orient ourselves with a map of the territory. The flowchart below shows that once we deny moral sentences are descriptive, we enter the realm of expressivism, which then branches into these key theories.
1. The Non-Cognitivist Stance
Before we dive into specific theories, let's clarify the foundational claims of non-cognitivism. As we've touched upon, cognitivism holds that moral statements express beliefs and are therefore "truth-apt" (capable of being true or false). Non-cognitivism is the denial of this.
To get a clear initial overview of what this denial entails, let's watch a brief introduction.
The video "Noncognitivism" by Daniel Bonevac provides a clear and concise introduction to the central idea and summarizes it well.
Please watch the opening segment from the introduction to understand the basic non-cognitivist move. Then, you can watch the short summary at the end to reinforce the main points.
As the video explains, the non-cognitivist position rests on two central negative theses. For a more formal definition of these, let's consult a key academic resource.
Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism
This entry from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) offers precise definitions of the core concepts.
Please read the introductory paragraphs and then Section 1, "A More Detailed General Description". Pay close attention to the two negative theses and the contrast with cognitivist subjectivism.
To summarize the key points from the SEP article:
- Semantic Nonfactualism: Moral sentences do not express propositions and lack substantial truth conditions. That is, they aren't the kind of sentences that can be robustly true or false.
- Psychological Non-cognitivism: The mental states expressed by moral utterances are not beliefs, but non-cognitive attitudes like desires, approval, or disapproval.
The article's distinction between non-cognitivism and cognitivist subjectivism is crucial. A subjectivist might say, "When I utter 'X is good,' I am stating the true fact that I approve of X." The non-cognitivist says, "When I utter 'X is good,' I am not stating a fact at all; I am expressing my approval, much like cheering 'Hurrah for X!'" The first is a report about an attitude; the second is a direct expression of it.
2. Emotivism: Morality as Expression
The earliest and most straightforward form of non-cognitivism is emotivism. Championed by philosophers like A.J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson in the early 20th century, emotivism proposes that moral language functions to express emotion and influence the behavior of others.
The "Noncognitivism" video offers a very simple and memorable characterization of emotivism.
Watch the short segment on emotivism.
The simple "boo/hurrah" analysis captures the core idea. On this view, the statement "Stealing is wrong" is semantically equivalent to saying "Stealing—boo!" while banging the table. It expresses a negative feeling and aims to engender a similar feeling in the listener.
For a more detailed account, especially of C.L. Stevenson's more nuanced version, let's turn to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Non-Cognitivism in Ethics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This article explains Stevenson's development of emotivism, which goes beyond the simple "boo/hurrah" idea.
Please read the section titled C. L. Stevenson and the role of persuasion.
Stevenson introduced the idea that moral terms have a "quasi-imperative force" and are instruments of persuasion used to "readjust human interest." This is a more sophisticated account than Ayer's simple expressive theory. However, it led to a significant problem that would motivate the next major development in non-cognitivism. If moral language is fundamentally about expressing feelings and persuading others, what room is left for moral reasoning? If you and I "disagree" about a moral issue, are we doing anything more than trying to out-shout each other? This worry—that emotivism reduces ethics to irrational persuasion—led R.M. Hare to develop a more logically structured theory.
3. Prescriptivism: Morality as Universal Command
R.M. Hare, a major figure in 20th-century ethics, sought to create a non-cognitivist theory that could account for the rational nature of moral argument. His theory, universal prescriptivism, agrees that moral judgments are not descriptive, but argues they are not mere expressions of emotion. Instead, they are prescriptions, or commands, with a special logical structure.
We are fortunate to have a recording of Hare himself debating his theory. This provides a direct look at the genesis of these ideas.
Moral Philosophy (R.M. Hare & Anthony Kenny)
This video, "Moral Philosophy," features a discussion between R.M. Hare and Anthony Kenny, two prominent Oxford philosophers. It's a superb example of philosophical dialectic.
First, watch the introduction, which explains why Hare felt a need to move beyond emotivism. Next, watch the crucial segment from Hare's explanation, where he outlines the two key logical properties of "ought" statements: prescriptivity and universalizability. Finally, watch from Kenny's summary, where he clarifies Hare's distinctions, providing a sharp, formal taxonomy.
As Hare and Kenny lay out, the theory has a formal elegance that will likely appeal to your background in physics and mathematics. The core ideas are:
- Prescriptivity: Moral judgments guide action. To sincerely assent to "I ought to do X" is to commit to doing X, all else being equal. Moral judgments are like imperatives ("Do X!"), not descriptions ("It is a fact that X is right").
- Universalizability: Moral judgments contain an implicit universal quantifier. If I judge that a specific act is wrong, I am committed to judging that any relevantly similar act, performed by any relevantly similar person in a relevantly similar situation, is also wrong. This applies to me, to you, and to everyone.
This combination is powerful. It is the property of universalizability that reintroduces rationality into moral discourse. While an emotivist debate might devolve into "Boo!" vs. "Hurrah!", a prescriptivist debate becomes a test of logical consistency.
If you claim, "It is wrong for others to steal from me, but it is not wrong for me to steal from them," a prescriptivist can challenge you on logical grounds. You are violating the principle of universalizability by failing to apply the same prescription in relevantly similar cases. You are being inconsistent. This allows for genuine moral argument without resorting to the claim that there are objective moral facts to be described.
To formalize this, Hare even proposed a logical syntax for sentences, distinguishing between the phrastic (the descriptive component, e.g., "closing the door") and the neustic (the mood-indicator, e.g., indicative "is happening" vs. imperative "do it!"). He argued that formal logic applies to the phrastic component, regardless of the neustic.
4. The Frege-Geach Problem: A Formal Challenge
Despite the ingenuity of theories like prescriptivism, all non-cognitivist accounts face a formidable formal objection known as the Frege-Geach problem, or the "embedding problem." You'll appreciate the logical nature of this challenge.
The problem is this: non-cognitivist theories seem to work reasonably well for simple, assertive moral sentences like "Lying is wrong."
- Emotivism: "Lying, boo!"
- Prescriptivism: "Let no one lie!"
However, moral language is frequently "embedded" in more complex logical contexts, such as:
- Conditionals: "If lying is wrong, then telling your brother to lie is wrong."
- Negations: "It is not the case that lying is wrong."
- Belief Attributions: "He believes that lying is wrong."
In these contexts, the moral clause does not seem to be performing its non-cognitive function. In the conditional statement, the speaker is not booing lying or commanding anyone not to lie. They are simply considering a hypothesis.
The Frege-Geach problem argues that if "lying is wrong" just means "Lying, boo!", then the conditional statement becomes something like: "If (Lying, boo!), then (telling your brother to lie, boo!)." This is not just a strange thought; it is ungrammatical gibberish. The rules of logic (like modus ponens) operate on propositions—things that can have truth-values. If moral sentences lack truth-values, it is unclear how they can function in logical inferences.
The "Noncognitivism" video provides an excellent, clear explanation of this classic problem.
Please watch the segment on the Frege-Geach problem.
The Frege-Geach problem is a deep and persistent challenge. It suggests that non-cognitivism fails to explain the logical syntax and semantic behavior of the very language it seeks to analyze. Much of the work in modern non-cognitivism, such as the "quasi-realism" of Simon Blackburn and the "norm-expressivism" of Allan Gibbard, is a highly sophisticated attempt to solve this very problem—to show how a language that expresses non-cognitive states can mimic the logical structure of a fact-stating language. This is an area where philosophy meets formal semantics and the philosophy of language, demonstrating the interconnectedness of these fields.
Conclusion
Today we have crossed the divide into non-cognitivist territory, analyzing its two most foundational theories. We have seen how they attempt to make sense of moral discourse without appealing to objective facts, and the serious challenges they face in doing so.
- Key Takeaways:
- Non-cognitivism is the metaethical position that moral statements are not truth-apt; they express non-cognitive states rather than beliefs about facts.
- Emotivism holds that moral judgments are expressions of emotion (the "boo/hurrah" theory), which serve to voice feelings and influence others. It struggles to account for moral reasoning.
- Universal Prescriptivism (R.M. Hare) holds that moral judgments are universalizable commands. This logical feature allows for rational moral debate based on consistency, avoiding the irrationalism of simple emotivism.
- All non-cognitivist theories face the Frege-Geach problem, which questions their ability to explain how moral terms function in embedded logical contexts (like conditionals), since these contexts seem to require truth-apt propositions.
These theories represent a radical departure from the realist view we studied previously. They ask us to see our moral language not as a flawed mirror of a moral reality, but as a different kind of tool altogether.
Preview of the Next Lesson:
The motivation for non-cognitivism—the idea that you can't get a moral conclusion from purely factual statements—is rooted in one of philosophy's most famous principles. In our next lesson, we will examine this principle directly: the is-ought gap. We will analyze David Hume's classic formulation of the problem and explore its profound implications for ethics and reasoning.