Cognitivism vs Non-Cognitivism

Cognitivism	Non-Cognitivism
Statements are meaningful	Meaningless
Most refer to objective moral truths	Moral language does not refer to objective moral truths
Statements capable of being true or false	Statements aren’t capable of being true or false
Mind → World direction to fit	World → Mind direction of fit
Describing world ← starting point	Attitudes to world (Start)
Problem: Knowing facts doesn’t motivate us	Problem: this may lead to nihilism

Cognitivism

Claims that ethical language expresses ethical beliefs* about how the world is that can be true or false.

Belief’ is treated as a ‘propositional belief’ that describes how the world is (which can be correct or incorrect). This is distinct from opinion which describes a person’s viewpoints.

If I believe that murder is wrong, then I believe that the sentence “Murder is wrong” is true.
So ethical language aims to describe the world and therefore can be true or false.
Cognitivists believe we can use reasoning or evidence to discover whether an ethical claim is true or false.

Non-cognitivism

Claims that ethical language does not try to describe the world and cannot be true or false.

“Murder is wrong” does not express a belief but some other, non-cognitive mental state, perhaps a certain attitude or feeling / emotion.
This means that ethical statements cannot be verified as true or false because they don’t express propositional beliefs about how the world is, they merely describe feelings or attitudes

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