moral cognitivism

moral truth as a god independent transcendent truth
1. the analogy with mathematics
  1. mathematical knowledge is transcendental as it isn't a physical object and neither is it psychological (i.e a concept), it is an abstract object and is a similar body of knowledge as moral truth
2. platonic forms
  1. provides understanding for how values can be transcendental. plato argued that there were forms of moral knowledge (and therefore the perfect version of moral values) which exist outside the physical world and is where we derive our moral values from.
3. moral knowledge isn't available to everyone
  1. moral eleitism
    1. plato argued it is hard to gain knowledge of the forms and only a few people can do so, to do it you needed years of training and a love for philosophy. this view accepts that everybody has the capacity for moral knowledge but only a few can gain it.
  2. weakness of the will
    1. is when somebody knows the moral way to act but still acts immorally
    2. socrates argued that it is imposable, his belief is grounded in virtues as to do something you know is wrong is to act immorally. what is happening is not a weakness of the will but in fact a lack of understanding of what is really the best option to take, he argued that to be virtues is just t know what is really morally good or bad.
    3. aristotle thought that weakness of the will is possible, as to be virtues is not just to have knowledge but to hold it in the right way so that it has the right effect on one's emotions.
    4. Donald Davidson argued that weakness of the will is possible as what it happening is the person fails to fully understand that the consequences of one action outweigh those of another.
4. idea that morality is independent from the empirical world and is in some way superior to it. many philosophers have noticed the conflict we have between our 'higher' moral selves and our 'lower' emotional selves.
moral truth based on natural facts. this view is opposed to the view that they are transcendent
1. desirable and desired
  1. MILL: an action is good if it causes equal or greater happiness that another action. he argues that happiness = goodness, because questions about which ends to pursue are questions about is desirable, and what is desirable is what we desire, and what we desire is happiness.
  2. Aristotle argued that what we desire is to 'live well' or the 'good life' (eudaimonia) which is flurishing, he argued that psychological facts about our desires is what moral truths are grounded in.
2. open question argument
  1. G.E.Moore criticised theories grounded on natural facts with his open question argument
moral truth based on relational properties
1. secondary properties analogy. advances in science proved there are 'primary' qualities (which the object has) and 'secondary' qualities (how we perciev the object)
  1. hume argued that good and bad are secondary qualities and expressions of how we feel, so moral judgements are expressions of our feelings.
  2. John Mcdowell argued that secondary qualities are part of the object they just prevoke the emotion/feeling in us, this is subjective to humans but not us individually
2. hume argued with his 'is' 'ought' gap that we can't deduce moral properties from natural facts
3. reasons for actions. natural facts can't justify moral judgements as facts only support reasons, a reason only effects our morals when it is a relational property (i.e in relation to rational animals), eg. the fact 'suffering to animals' is a reason 'not to eat meat' but only in relation to us.
  1. moral reasons. as we now have moral reasons for our judgements we can understand moral judgements as 'one moral reason is stronger than the other'.
    1. aristotle argued that there is a better more flurishing way of life available to us (as discussed this is grounded in facts), facts are not related to us, they are true or false if we know them or not, but reasons are related to us but only indiviually. therefore moral judgements are not expressions of truth instead they are of what we care about.
possibility of agreement over moral truth
1. non-cognitivists argue that if there's disagreement over matters of fact we can appeal to more facts to settle the disagreement. but if there's disagreement over moral judgement and all the facts have been agreed then the disagreement is over values not the facts. as hume argued moral judgements don't pick out facts they just express emotions, which is why you can't reach agreement by just discussing the facts.
  1. the cognitivists can reply that if two people agree on the natural facts but disagree morally then there must be disagreement over the reasons. if the problem was people agreeing on moral facts and which facts are reasons then there would be no moral judgements. so if people disagree morally one of them is not seeing natural facts as reasons and is therefore wrong. if as plato argues and people need virtues and life experience to be moral the there is no wonder why people get things wrong in terms of morals.
    1. the non cognitivists can respond that it is implausable that moral disagreement is a result of lack of virtues or life experience, and the view that moral knowledge has to be obtained can lead to plato's eleitis view, and if only a few people are able to gain moral knowledge then the possibility for agreement is small. there are also other influences on people's moral beliefs other than reason, throughout history moral beliefs have changed.
how is knowledge of moral truth possible
1. if as McDowell argues that all moral properties are secondary qualities, and all secondary qualities require causal effect, what's the causal effect of moral properties?
  1. moral reasoning and insight are not purely interllectual and require something else. Plato and Aristotle argued that virtues needed to be aquired and trained to gain moral insight. this is a 'self-evident' view, and grasping moral principles is down to us and our ability to make moral judgemnets
    1. G.E.Moore argued that we gain moral knowledge through intuition, we make basic judgements about what is good e.g. pleasure, intuition is a self-evident judgement

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moral cognitivism

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	Created by samelesedy over 11 years ago