PHIL 321 Written Exam

Cognitivism

The cognitivist holds that moral claims—our uses of moral language—express beliefs. Insofar as a moral claim expresses a belief it has representational (or cognitive) content. In virtue of this, beliefs are the sorts of things that can either be true or false. So, according to cognitivism, moral claims can be either true or false.

non-cognitivism

• Non-cognitivism is the denial of the preceding. The non-cognitivist holds that moral claims do not express the speaker’s beliefs and so are neither true nor false. For the non-cognitivist, moral claims express, roughly, a speaker’s approval or disapproval, which are things that are not “truth apt” (not evaluable in terms of truth or falsity).

• Non-cognitivism is not the view that “killing is wrong” means “I disapprove of killing.” This would be a form of subjectivist cognitivism because the truth of the first claim would depend on facts about my mental states. If I do disapprove of killing, the statement is true; if I do not, it is false.

naturalism

• A version of moral realism that says moral properties are—in one way or another—properties of the natural world.

non-naturalism

• Moral rights and wrongs are decided by some higher power

• DCT

  • “Something is morally right if and only if God commands it. Something is wrong if and only if God forbids it.” 

error theory

1) Moral judgments express beliefs about objective moral values. 

2) But there are no objective moral values.

3) So, all moral judgments are false. 

• The argument from relativity 

• The existence of moral disagreement is best explained by the absence of objective moral facts. 

  • The fact the we disagree so much proves that there is no objective moral claim

• The argument from queerness 

• Metaphysical component: once we see what a moral property would have to be like to count as a moral property, we see that such properties are too weird to be likely to exist. 

• Epistemic component: Epistemic access to something as weird as moral properties would require a weird form of moral intuition (that we don’t have reason to think exists).

The argument from relativity 

• The existence of moral disagreement is best explained by the absence of objective moral facts. 

  • The fact the we disagree so much proves that there is no objective moral claim

The argument from queerness

• The argument from queerness 

• Metaphysical component: once we see what a moral property would have to be like to count as a moral property, we see that such properties are too weird to be likely to exist. 

• Epistemic component: Epistemic access to something as weird as moral properties would require a weird form of moral intuition (that we don’t have reason to think exists).