Cognitivism (ethics)

In ethics, cognitivism is the view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false (they are truth-apt). See also non-cognitivism.

General idea
Propositions are, roughly, what meaningful declarative sentences are supposed to express (but not interrogative or imperative sentences). Different sentences, in different languages, can (it is often thought) express the same proposition: "snow is white" and "Schnee ist weiss" (in German) both express the proposition that snow is white. A common assumption 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"; "that thief is getting away"; or "that thief really annoys me." The storekeeper isn't saying anything at all, really, at least nothing 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!"

An ethical naturalist and other ethical cognitivists might hold that it can be true or false that Mary is a good person; it can be true or false that stealing and lying are always wrong. On the other hand, if one believes that the sentence, "Mary is a good person." cannot be either true or false, then one is not a cognitivist.

It is an essential part of ethical naturalism that ethical sentences do express propositions. They are not just feelings, as though we were saying, "Hey!" or "Yay for Mary!" They are actually expressing propositions that can be true or false. Derivatively, a cognitivist or a realist would say that ethical sentences themselves are either true or false.

Refinement and arguments
But cognitivism does also agree with ethical irrealism or anti-realism. Ethical naturalism (or ethical realism) and ethical cognitivism are different metaethical theories. Cognitive irrealist theories accept that ethical sentences can be true or false, even if there exist no natural, physical or in any way real (or «worldly») entities or objects 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 (except for those who accept modal realism).

Crispin Wright, John Skorupski and some others defend normative cognitivist irrealism. Wright asserts the extreme implausibility of either J. L. Mackie's error-theory and expressivism (including S. Blackburn's quasi-realism) in view of everyday or sophisticated moral talk and argument. The same point is often expressed as the Frege-Geach problem. 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 recent book Ethics without ontology (Harvard, 2004) argues for a similar view, that ethical (and for that matter mathematical) sentences can be true without there being any objects to make them so.

Cognitivism points to the semantic difference between imperative sentences 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 games. As much as morality, games consist of norms (or rules), but it would be hard to accept that it be not true that the chessplayer 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.