enquiriesalevelphilosophycouk c Michael Lacewing Cognitivism and moral realism What are we doing when we make moral judgments Cognitivism moral judgments eg Murder is wrong ID: 634480
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Slide1
Hume’s emotivism
Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
(c) Michael LacewingSlide2
Cognitivism
and moral realismWhat are we doing when we make moral judgments?
Cognitivism: moral judgments, e.g. ‘Murder is wrong’
Aim to describe how the world is
Can be true or falseExpress beliefs that the claim is trueRealism: there are moral propertiese.g. actions can have the property of being rightMoral judgments are true if they correctly describe the moral properties of an action, situation, person
(c) Michael LacewingSlide3
Hume’s
argument against cognitivism from motivationMoral judgements can motivate actions.
Assumed
Reason cannot motivate action.
Therefore, moral judgements are not judgements of reason.(Cognitivism claims that moral judgements express beliefs, and reason is the faculty for forming beliefs.)(c) Michael LacewingSlide4
Hume on reason
Why think reason can’t motivate?Judgments of reason are either relations of ideas or matters of fact, and either true or falseKnowing about the world can direct our desires, but it doesn’t make us want anything in the first place
We are motivated by emotions and desires, which are not true or
false
(c) Michael LacewingSlide5
One reply
Moral judgments do not motivate usWe must want to be morally good, tooTherefore, moral judgments could be judgments of reason
(c) Michael LacewingSlide6
Hume’s ‘is-ought’ gap
Judgments of what ought to be are not judgments of what isHow do we get from the fact that some action will cause pain to the claim that we shouldn’t do it?
‘
[
T]his ‘ought’ (or ‘ought not’) expresses some new relation or affirmation, it needs to be pointed out and explained; and a reason should be given for how this new relation can be—inconceivably!—a deduction from others that are entirely different from it’
(c) Michael LacewingSlide7
Hume’s ‘is-ought’ gap
If cognitivism is true, then moral judgments are truths, and these can be inferred from other truths using argumentsIn our moral arguments, we use claims about what is as premises to infer how we should act
This inference isn’t possible – there is a logical ‘gap’ between is and ought
So cognitivism isn’t true (moral judgments don’t make truth claims)
(c) Michael Lacewing