Talk:Non-cognitivism

Where's Hume?
What is the relationship between the is/ought distinction and non-cognitivism? They both come to the same conclusion, although one takes the semantic road the other the psychological. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.149.76.127 (talk) 01:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Arguments against not as sophisticated as they could be?
I'm not entirely convinced that the article as it stands gives a fair shake to the Frege-Geach problem. The last paragraph in the arguments against section seems to treat it, but I think a stronger formulation is that we would consider someone who fails to follow a moral modus ponens to be making a logical error, which of course is only applicable if moral statements are truth-evaluable. I'm no expert, so I'm not going to edit the page myself, but I think this is a clearer and stronger formulation of the problem than the one in the article right now. Any thoughts?
 * You seem to know the Frege-Greach problem better than I, so you probably should edit the page yourself. Be bold. --Ian Maxwell 17:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge with cognitivism
This article obviously needs to be merged with cognitivism (ethics). As Aristotle once wrote, opposites are subject to the same science. Velho 00:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. It is a large enough branch of moral pilosophy to merit an article of its own. It is a position that exists more than just as a contrary to cognitivism, and in an encyclopedia where obscure characters from a science fiction show get their own page, it is warranted that a branch of philosophy gets its own. Furthermore, as cog and non-cog get fleshed out in time, it would be too long and unwiedly for them to be in only one article.

I second that disagreement. I think self-centered non-cognitivists would argue that cognitivism should be merged into non-cognitivism, instead. It just so happens that these two (vastly different) viewpoints share a word in title. But we don't see a push to merge Anti-realism into Realism. Or, in Philosophy of mind to merge Functionalism (philosophy of mind) with Physicalism. (Wow, btw, that Physicalism page is in a pretty sorry state right now) --Pixelmonkey 06:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merging, other opposites have separate articles, especially if their opposition is not the main reason for one or the other to exist, or if each article reaches a sufficient length. See even derivations of cognitivism: Ethical naturalism and Ethical non-naturalism. Since not a single user has agreed with the proposal to merge while the flags have been up more than half a year, I'm removing the flags 'proposed to merge' from both articles. SomeHuman 2006-08-01 00:08 (UTC)

Rebuilt
Okay, I've pretty much rebuilt this article to contain the same information with less fluff and opinion. Hope it's sufficiently clean. It could probably use a section on the history of non-cognitivism as an idea, though I'm not the one to write it. --Ian Maxwell 04:40, 2004 Nov 26 (UTC)

I don't like "John is good."
With regards to the "One argument against non-cognitivism is that it ignores the fact that there is some feature of a concept that causes people to form emotional or prescriptive reactions in the first place." The example of "John is a good person" is not what I'd call a moral proposition because it refers to a person's state as opposed to an action.

Instead, what about continuing the "killing is wrong"? Perhaps something like:

For example, if a person says, "Killing is wrong," there is some feature of killing that inspired that reaction. We might suggest, for example, an innate human drive for survival, coupled with identification, caused that reaction.

... Here, I get lost, because by suggesting a human drive, I think I'm still suggesting an emotional reaction. Of course, seing as non-cognitivism appears to be the closest thing to what I believe, I can't disprove it, because it is right. :-)

--Jason Felice
 * Interesting point. But I am similarly having trouble rephrasing this with a direct moral proposition. Actually, this article was originally a rather opinionated piece by someone who used this specific argument against it. You may have found a hole in it, but it remains that it is "an argument given against non-cognitivism." --Ian Maxwell 04:59, 2005 Jun 11 (UTC)

"Yeah, non-cognitivism"? Not really.
I may remove the argument that saying "Non-cognitivism is correct" is self-contradictory. In fact, it is not an ethical statement at all, nor even a normative one, but a proposition regarding ethics. "Correct" does not mean ethical but true. (I was also considering leaving it and including an explanation as to why it doesn't work, but it would look unfair to list the arguments against non-cognitivism only to refute them immediately afterward.) --Ian Maxwell 04:59, 2005 Jun 11 (UTC)

It's not much of an argument. I say take it out. Pjrich 7 July 2005 00:01 (UTC)

Isn't 'truth-value' something which non-cognitivists would disavow? If correct=true, then non-cognitivists would presumably not take the statement that "Non-cognitivism is correct" seriously. Am I missing something? --Heyitspeter 00:28, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Non-cognitivists believe that ethical utterances are not truth-apt. This doesn't imply that no utterances are truth-apt. The statement "Ethical utterances are not truth-apt" is not itself an ethical utterance, and (if one believes metaphysical statements are meaningful) may indeed be a genuine proposition. --Ian Maxwell (talk) 16:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Non-cognitivism apart from emotivism, et al
Hi, Ian Maxwell. I think you did an excellent job with this short article, and, considering that I don't know much about the subject, you may want to take my objections with a grain of salt. But, from what I understand, non-cognitivism is merely the view that ethical propositions are not truth functional, whereas emotivism is the view that ethical propositions express subjective preferences. (Likewise, prescriptivism is the view that ethical propositions hide commands behind them, e.g. Giving to charity is morally right = Give to charity.)

If I'm not mistaken, the are only loosely logically related to one another. Taking "express subjective preferences" to mean expressing a proposition such as "I like giving to charity," would render ethical propositions truth functional. But, aside from that, you could be an emotivist and a moral realist, or you could be a moral realist and an prescriptivist, or you could be a non-cognitivist and not be an emotivist, etcetera. Hence, at the very least, emotivism shouldn't redirect to non-cognitivism. What do you think about this line of reasoning?

Finally, more of a matter of fact question... does the term non-cognitivism specifically pertain to ethical propositions? Somewhere down the line, I got the idea that it is a general term that, when in the context of a certain subject (in this case, ethics), refers to the view that propositions of that type (in this case, ethical propositions) are not truth functional. I'm probably wrong, again.

Thanks!

--Dr. Ebola I replaced your "X-ism" with "prescriptivism". I think that's what You meant. --Velho 19:22, 15 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, I have heard of a few ideas that could be called "emotive realism". However, I have only seen the term "emotivism" in the context of non-cognitive models of ethics. Of course, there's no reason you couldn't write a new article on emotivism specifically if you'd like. Also, I suppose one could have some other sort of non-cognitivism in theory, but I can't imagine what it would be. (Axiological non-cognitivism, maybe?) At any rate, I mostly see the term without the word ethical attached to the beginning, so I'm just repeating what I've seen. In any case, it's Wikipedia's article, not mine, so feel free to edit. --Ian Maxwell 16:39, 2005 August 16 (UTC)

-- Expression of subjective attitudes is what renders the ethical non truth functional. "...to mean expressing a proposition such as "I like giving to charity," would render ethical propositions truth functional." - Unfortunately not as "I like giving to charity" is not a proposition at all, for it would require that it models a certain state of affairs (as propositions do) and "like" cannot be modelled, for it is not an logical object that stands in relation to other logical objects. It can be thought of like a picture, for it can be drawn (modelled) someone giving money to a charitable organisation, but "like" cannot be pictured. You may wish to argue that we draw the subject with a smile of his face, but then this would just be a picture of a man with a smile on his face giving to charity, and still would not model "liking." Hopefully that answers that question.

"Finally, more of a matter of fact question... does the term non-cognitivism specifically pertain to ethical propositions?" - Good question and the answer is specifically yes, but because of the assumptions of the ability of the proposition, it also applies to aesthetics, metaphysics, laws of nature, and logic.


 * "I like giving to charity" is not a proposition at all -- wrong. -- 98.108.230.174 (talk) 19:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Nice to see that the article is fair and balanced... wait it isn't.
Attempts to translate these sentences in an emotivist framework seem to fail (e.g. "She does not realize, 'Boo on eating meat!'").

How about, say, "she does not agree with 'Boo on eating meat!'" ? Obviously in the context of moral non-cognitivism, a claim that some person does not "realize" some moral knowledge is tantamount to an observation that one does not "agree" with the speaker about it.

Can I get a copy of this article, without the straw men in it? --70.131.60.45 (talk) 09:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I added this particular line to the article. I was a non-cognitivist at the time. I'm sorry if you find the argument unconvincing; arguing against one's own opinion is difficult. --Ian Maxwell (talk) 04:27, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see how being for a position is a justification for universalizing your own failure to find a sensible translation -- which is necessarily OR. "She does not realize 'Eating meat is BAD!!!!!'" would be far superior to your expressed failure. -- 98.108.230.174 (talk) 19:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Another obvious translation is "She does not realize that eating meat deserves to be booed." -- 98.108.230.174 (talk) 19:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Wittgenstein and Criticisms
There is no reference at all to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in this article despite its huge non cognitivist influence. Although the logical postivists (Ayer et.al as mentioned) still have influence in philosophy, Wittgensteinian approaches are far more prevalent,

Furthermore, to agree with the comments above. Although some of the criticisms may be warranted, I do not see how "She thinks that eating meat is wrong," for example runs into problems. "She thinks "Boo on eating meat"" is a perfectly good translation. This applies to the other NC propositions. Furthermore, there are other problems here, as Tractarian philosophers would not consider "She thinks eating meat is wrong," is possible at all, due to the limitation of sense and reference of propositions.

The criticisms "eating meat is wrong is a false statement" which supposes that we have made a true statement, is to completely misunderstand the clarification. For we are not dealing at all with truth or falsity but a imposition of attitude to a certain fact (that some people eat meat.) In fact a Tractarian would argue that stating "eating meat is wrong is a false statement" is just as senseless as "eating meat is wrong."

Universal prescriptivism vs Emotivism
The article isn't clear on what the differences between these two are. Emotivism seems to be distinctly an individual's preference "Boo Murder" while universal prescriptivism is a command "don't murder". Is the only difference that in universal prescriptivism an individual asserts that everyone should abide by the command, whereas in emotivism an individuals simply expresses their own personal opinion on a moral point? Universal prescriptivism seems to be an extension of emotivism: "Boo murder, nobody should murder". Jeffrey.Rodriguez (talk) 05:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

R.M. Hare's View
The article hints that Hare was close to emotivism, but I believe this to be misleading. Hare considered value-judgments, such as "cruelty is wrong", to be in a different category from emotions. You could express this emotionally or without emotion. He also believed value-judgments to be in a different category from statements of fact. Nevertheless, value-judgments could be capable of conveying factual information. For example, if you say "this is a good apple", you are giving some information about the apple, such as it is not rotten, or full of worms. My authority for this is my memory of being his pupil, so I suppose it counts as OR. Seadowns (talk) 00:56, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Mark Schroeder and important books to incorporate
I'm surprised there has been no mention of Being For or Noncognitivism in Ethics by Mark Schroeder, who is considered by many to be a genius. Someone who does academic philosophy should add those. The former is a huge reductio of expressivism and considered a formidable book even by professional philosophers. The latter is more of an introduction to noncognitivism. Plus, some people on the talk page have mentioned the Frege-Geach Problem. That should be here too. I could theoretically add all of these things myself, but I'd rather leave it to the experts before my brain explodes. CensoredDog (talk) 11:16, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: PHIL 390 Contemporary Philosophy
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