Is morality cognitive, or non-cognitive?
Here is the ultimate resource that goes over the subject and a variety of relevant philosophies. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/
I will summarize everything for you, in case you are too lazy to read all that (keep in mind the original source will be a lot more detailed, and misunderstanding of mine may have taken place, if any misunderstandings here have taken place, please correct me).
Morality - What is right or wrong, what we ought to do, and what we ought not to do.
Non-cogntiivism: Morality isn't truth apt, neither in any substantiation is it true or false. Morality rather, is expressions of what we approve of and disapprove of, and desires.
Cognitivism: the rejection of non-cognitivism, where morality is truth apt, and can be substantiated as true of false.
Two negative constitutive non-cognitivist claims - Two negative theses comprise the central non-cognitivist claims.
- semantic non-factualism: The claim that moral sentences do not express propositions that are qualified to be truth apt.
- psychological non-cognitivism: The claim that the state of mind when stating a moral sentence are not cognitive (the mental state itself whether the individual realizes it is not thinking of morality as a truth apt.
Subjective cognitivism (this is something I actually just learned) - that subjective morality does not equivacate to non-cognitivism, it is apparently possible to hold morality as truth apt, but yet subjective. In other words, if morality is subjective, whatever is morally TRUE is dependent on you.
emotivism - moral statements express emotions and feelings of something.
prescriptivism/universal prescriptivism - moral statements are analogous to moods, and apply to everyone.
quasi-realism - Moral statements being truth apt, there is reasoning to act as though morality is truth apt.
expressivim - moral statements simply express our approval and disapproval, immoral means "Boooo!!!" while moral means "Hurrraaahhh!!!"
Norm-expressivism/plan-expressivism - Moral judgements although non-cognitive can be judged on how rational they are. To call a moral judgement ration is acception of a system of norms that accept the moral judgement, to call a moral judgement irrational is to accept a system of norms that forbid it.
Borderline cases/hybrid theories
Hermenuetic fictionism - The langauge of morality does express truth apt, which aligns with error theory (the theory that our use of moral language is in error), however fictionalists disagree with error theorists, do not believe the propositions content, and the moral statement is used fictively.
Hybrid-expressivism - A combination of expressivism while holding the position that morality is non-cognitive with cognitive features. This can form in a lot of different ways.
Counter-arguments
Embedding problem - if morality is not truth apt then the lines of logic below cannot be true
P1: Torturing the cat is bad, thus getting your little brother to torture the cat is bad.
P2: torturing the cat is bad.
the line of logic is thought to be alluding to morality being truth based.
Logic of attitudes - that moral statements have logical relations to each other, thus alluding to moral truth apt.
Blackburns solution to this is that although morality isn't truth apt, our moral statements must make logical sense in relation to each other, otherwise we have clashing attitudes within our own mental state.
P1: torturing the cat is bad, thus getting your little brother to torture the cat is also bad
p2: torturing the cat is bad.
According to Blackburn's logic, if one feels that torturing the cat is bad, it would be inconsistent of them, and contradictory of their own attitudes to believe that getting your little brother to torture your cat is also bad.
In other words, in order for one to hold a disaproving attitude of torturing of the cat, one must also disaprove of someone else torturing the cat.
Minimalism - minimalism or deflationism about truth aptness can allow non-cognitivists to bypass the embedding problem and logical attitudes of morality.
piggybacking on the descriptive content in a hybrid theory - hybrid theorists explain the logical attitudes problem with claiming that moral judgements are not truth apt with their being "descriptive meaning" allows logical attitudes as their is belief content in moral statements that are "co-equal".
Wishful thinking objection - (I do not quite understand what this is saying, so if you have the capacity to explain please let me know.)
**not everything from the source has been included, if you want to analyze other information, please do refer to the source**
Cognitive, because...
Side Score: 5
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Non-cognitive, because...
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when one throws God out of the equation .. every question becomes .. well . . . very difficult to nail down .... all is subjective http://dadmansabode.com/forum/ Side: Cognitive, because...
If I am going to claim that morality is cognitive then I think I have to show that our morale intuitions correspond with some mind-independent facts. I believe that morality is reducible to some objective claims about the world, more specifically, I believe what we call morale is simply our best guess at what rational behavior is. Morality is therefore nothing but a set of behaviors that maximize self interest for everyone and the collective. This view has some initial appeal; we tend to call immoral behavior 'stupid', and people who act immorally we call 'dumb'. I don't know how to perform such a reduction in general, but there are some really interesting, though simplistic cases where there is an obvious connection between rationality and morality. Suppose that two persons are stuck on an island and that they have different skills and abilities. We have a morale intuition that it would be good to cultivate a cooperative relationship. We also have intuitions that it would be wrong for one to exploit the other, that it would be good if they tried to protect each other. These morale intuitions essentially revolve around the idea that it's good to ensure the survival of individual self and the collective. We can know quite rigorously using mathematics what would be rational in a scenario such as this. It's possible to make a rather simple model of this scenario, and using this model we can show that some actions are at the detriment to the individual performing them and vice versa. Specifically, it's at the detriment to the individual to act in such a way that cooperation is limited because the two persons have different skills and abilities (and there's often a beneficial synergistic effect associated with cooperation). The best strategy in this scenario is to ensure cooperation is cultivated. Many of our morale intuitions give good guesses of how we ought to go about cultivating cooperation. Some are quit obvious, do not kill the other person (in the vast majority of cases), do not cheat or exploit (too much). Some are more subtle; we have an intuition that it's good (alright at least) to have some dignity in the sense that we ought not to sacrifice ourselves (too much) for the betterment of the other. The golden rule, especially, makes a lot of sense in terms of rationality. The point I want to make is that a lot of morale intuitions can be understood in terms of rationality. If most of our morale intuitions can be understood rationally, then we may say that morality has a rational component. If morality has a rational component, then we have a case for saying that morality is reducible to something mind-independent, since the mathematical treatment of rationality is objective. In other words, what is rational is embedded into the fabric of our world, and therefore morality, to some degree, is as well. I don't believe that the entirety of what we think of morality can be understood in this way. Evolution has molded us to be biased towards behaviors that are rational but that doesn't mean that our biases are flawless. Even more crucially, evolution hasn't given us any biases towards some modern dilemmas. For instance, evolution couldn't possibly have shown us whether things like genetical engineering is moral, which means that we have to extrapolate from what we have, thus ensuring disagrement. What is rational can be very complicated and therefore, our morale biases might result in irrational behavior. This motivates me to say that morality is cognitive to the degree that morality is rational, it is non-cognitive to the degree that morality depends on irrational factors (such as confusion, the fact that evolution has inadequately molded us for some dilemmas, etc.) Side: Cognitive, because...
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I don't think its possible to place morality as absolute truth. In the sense, following that all morality is truth, then it is moral to wish to wipe out all of humanity and commit acts of vile nature. This is not the case. That is just one's cognized perception of the world around them. I tend to believe this through the lack of absolute consistency within morality. For example, most people will agree that murder is immoral and improper, thus killing another humn being is a malevolent act, but what about capital punishment? We are murdering another human being in the name of justice. This method of punishement is moral, but murder is immoral, thus we have an inconsistency that requires a cognitive process in order to determine the final verdict. This inconsistency shows that morality cannot serve as absolute truth. If morality is truth then which moral law shall we abide by? Let me provide another example, if we agree that robbery is immoral and deserves harsh punishment would you give harsh punishment to a man who steal from the rich to feed the poor and hungry? This arises inconsistency. Morality cannot serve as an absolute, but a relative, more subjective, concept. Side: Non-cognitive, because...
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Indeed I am obliged to agree, I feel as though the embedding problem is already covered and solved but not only that, but it has an issue of it's own, which you kind of highlight in your argument. P1: if torturing the cat is bad, then torturing the cat even if somehow saved all of humanity is also bad P2: torturing the cat is bad. Thing is, there is an exception to all moral statements if you find the right scenario, or unless you make your moral statement really specific. for example "torturing the cat is bad unless it prevents a greater evil somehow", making it almost impossible for sets of morals to stay consistent. You can have a generalization of your moral framework that tries to encompass your every moral decision however that is an incredible hard task to do. For example "Maximizing happiness, well-being, and health of sentient life collectively is moral, and the opposite of that is immoral" what about someone who wants to kill themselves? Then it's a bit more complicated than that, by preventing that person from killing them self, I am essentially prolonging their suffering, while simulataneously preserving their health, and well-being. Side: Non-cognitive, because...
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Precisely. Well said and begs for my agreement. Nearly every moral scenario provides a choice of a higher greater good. I remember once my teacher asked a student this: Let's assume you have one broken arm. Let's also assume that your mother and your best friend are hanging off of an unstable cliff. You cannot save them both and you only have the capability to save one of them. Which one will you save? This question here requires subjective though and cannot serve as an absolute truth. Let's assume that person A, B and C have had great family life, but lack in social life and have never built up a solid friendship. They will choose choice X and allow the best friend to fall to their death. Let's assume person D, E, and F have had terrible family lives ane often faced abuse from their mothers, but you have established a friendship with someone of who you greatly admire and are compatible with and they even allow you to undergo catharsis in order to make you feel better. These people will choose choice Y and allow the mother to fall the her death. Now Let's say person G has had a great family life and a great social life. What will they choose? Most likely their society will say "Family first" and thus society basically makes the choice for them. This highlights the lack of necessary consistency in order for morality to become absolute truth. Side: Non-cognitive, because...
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I think the biggest problem with the concept of morality is that its definition depends on a complex mixture of personal charecteristics. There have been a few studies that have shown that certain precepts of morality exist within our neurophysiology and are present in everybody, although some may be mitigated or non-functional in people with brain damage or disorders. Further, each of these can be determined to have evolutionary origins. These precepts, harm (or refusal to do so in most scenarios), in-group loyalty, recognition of authority, fairness and purity can all be shown to foster better social interactions within a group, and since we are a social species, this would be advantageous to our survival. It would be easy enough to therefore identify morality as objective and universal. But there is a problem with that. Even people who are not suffering from brain damage or disorders will feel these precepts with different intensities. In a follow-up study, they tested liberals and conservatives and found that liberals place more emphasis on fairness and harm than any of the others, whereas conservatives either feel all of these equally, or put fairness and harm much further down the list than the other three. Given the probably genetic correlation, it is possible that liberals and conservatives become liberals and conservatives based on how they naturally prioritize these precepts, instead of arranging these priorities to fit with their political preference. Although this makes sense evolutionarily (just like having our variances in height or how much hair we have and where) it breaks down the application to the point where it might as well be subjective since we all have unique arrangements of priorities. And all of this isn't accounting for religious indoctrination, cultural upbringing or people acting differently than the feel to stay out of trouble or impress people. Likewise, people like me don't trust "morality" that has no cognitive explanation, whereas many people have no problem accepting moral codes on the authority of leaders, ancestors or proposed deities. So, we have differing priorities, differing experiences, differing cognitive approaches, differing rules and laws we are subject to....its no wonder this is such fertile ground for philosophical debate. I read all the differing approaches in the descriptions and with each one I could see how people would feel that way. I could see how each one, even the mutually exclusive ones could be universally valid. But there is only one that describes me properly: "Norm-expressivism/plan-expressivism". The norms exist for a reason, and that reason may not be cognitive, or it may have been generations ago but the reasoning got lost over time. But that does not mean that you cannot apply cognition to them. "This is moral" "Why is it?" If you cannot answer the why, find a rationality to it regardless of its origin, than its morality is essentially useless. In that case its just a personal preference or a mood. But if it passes the rationality test, than it should provide us with benefit, should keep us pointed in a direction that benefits us or our group, make our tough decisions a little easier...and at the end of the day, is that not what morality is for? Side: Non-cognitive, because...
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Very insightful indeed, rather surprised from the responses I've gotten on here so far. Morality is incredibly conflicting for me, I have ideas of how I personally think people should and shouldn't act, but there is no clear basis that morality has been defined for us. Morality would be a lot more truth apt if morality was redefined with a basis, rather than the vague definition of "right and wrong" or what we ought to do or not ought to do. Problem with that is if morality is about what we should or shouldn't do, bad and good behavior, what basis is that behavior for? Morality by it's definition allows that to be rather open-ended, it never tells us what good and bad behavior is based on, but simply says it's the distinction of good and bad behavior, where good and bad, are judgements. But if it passes the rationality test, than it should provide us with benefit, should keep us pointed in a direction that benefits us or our group, make our tough decisions a little easier...and at the end of the day, is that not what morality is for? I am indeed obliged to agree, and I think that may be descriptive of me as well. What is rational though strongly depends on what your morality is trying to achieve, for example, if you want to discourage dishonesty, then it is rational for lying to be seen as immoral. I kind of think morality is our means of changing our social environment for the better of our species, that allows us to co-exist more efficiently, and happily, to survive better, and to help us thrive in our environment. It is our social environment's way of adapting for us, through us. Likewise, people like me don't trust "morality" that has no cognitive explanation, whereas many people have no problem accepting moral codes on the authority of leaders, ancestors or proposed deities. I agree, you and me might be hybrid theorists, or at least I might be, where I feel morality isn't cognitive but has cognitive features, and I am exactly like you, in where I need cognitive explanations for morals in order to accept them. Then again, I have a very little understanding of non-cognitive morality, so I feel as though I should study them more. In the end, though, my morals are simply what I approve of and disapprove of with personal reasons as to why I would. (where cognitive I believe would be the well known moral philosophies, like moral absolutism, moral relativism, moral realism, etc.) Side: Non-cognitive, because...
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Morality would be a lot more truth apt if morality was redefined with a basis, rather than the vague definition of "right and wrong" or what we ought to do or not ought to do. I fully agree. I'm not sure that establishing such a basis was really in line with human understanding until recently though. Morality was always viewed as being something non-physical, like emotions, personality, memory, a part of the soul. There wasn't much good reason to believe otherwise until neuroscience came along and it still so ingrained in our social consciousness and religions that many people just don't accept it as anything that can be explained. So it had to be enforced, usually by someone claiming to speak for a supernatural power. I just don't think anyone really thought they could establish a reason behind it. In my case, I simply rejected morality for that very reason until I learned more about the workings of our brain. Once I saw that it is part of our programming and presumably evolutionarily driven, I was able to link it survival of species. And survival of species is pretty much the one thing everything about our bodies is molded to do. That may be the ONE true moral imperative, and even that is simply the end result of chemistry rather than a cognitive function. Round about this time I saw a definition of morality on a youtube video that really helped all of this pull together for me: an action that benefits society or the surrounding environment as a whole when it is something you would rather not do and/or does not appear to benefit you directly is moral. Inversely, actions that you do wish to do or benefit you directly but harm society as a whole are immoral. Actions with no societal consequences, or benefit society only as a side-effect to fulfilling your desires are neither. More recently I came up with another basis that works for me: Utilizing freedom in conjunction with responsibility or helping another to obtain more freedom is moral. Using freedom without responsibility or restraining another person's freedom (unless it is clear they intend to act irresponsibly in a manner that harms another or restricts others freedom) is immoral. Either way, we get a basis, and that makes a lot more sense to me than relying on tradition or the supposed whims of supposed Gods. What is rational though strongly depends on what your morality is trying to achieve, for example, if you want to discourage dishonesty, then it is rational for lying to be seen as immoral. Yes. But then it gets more complicated. What if a lie would save someone's life? That's when we have to prioritize, and those priorities can be very personal and/or effected by our knowledge of the situation, which is never complete. Its such a pain in the ass. Why can't it be a nice simple math equation? I kind of think morality is our means of changing our social environment for the better of our species, that allows us to co-exist more efficiently, and happily, to survive better, and to help us thrive in our environment. It is our social environment's way of adapting for us, through us. I couldn't have said it better myself. I totally agree :) Side: Non-cognitive, because...
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