Cognitivism and non-cognitivism

According to David Hume moral philosophers follow either one of two routes:

“one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment” and “the other species of philosophers consider man in the light of a reasonable rather than an active being” (Hume 2002, 5–6). Those on the first route try “to represent the common sense in more beautiful and more engaging colors” (ibid, 7). Those on the second route are not content with common sense; they see new wisdom to be in the offing:

[…] there is still room to hope, that the industry, good fortune, or improved sagacity of succeeding generations may reach discoveries unknown to former ages [...] it seems impossible, that what has hitherto escaped so many wise and profound philosophers can be very obvious and easy (ibid, 12, 16).

This latter group is not intimidated by the lack of new findings in ethical thought through human history – we just have to dig deeper. After all, if the great wisdom has not been found by the wise and the profound, it just serves to show that the answer is neither obvious nor easy. What is obvious is the clash between emotion and reason: one approach emphasises common sense, the wisdom within reach of every man; the other emphasises the knowledge of the wise and profound, the wisdom beyond the reach of most men. The approach emphasising reason was exemplified by Immanuel Kant, a contemporary of David Hume. Likewise, the emphasis on emotion was exemplified by a contemporary of them, Adam Smith. Both Kant and Smith were, naturally, acquainted with the philosophy of Hume. Kant admitted his debt to Hume; Smith referred to his “close friend and mentor, David Hume”

as “an ingenious and agreeable philosopher” (Kant 2002, 354; Haakonssen 2002, vii; Smith 2002, 209). Kant and Smith shared a century and some beliefs, but they saw man’s cognitive capacities very differently. Their different approaches appear to live on in the central “battle between cognitivism and non-cognitivism” in present day metaethics (Miller 2003, 3). Miller describes the contestants:

[…] cognitivists, think that a moral judgement […] expresses a belief.

Beliefs can be true or false: they are truth-apt, or apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity. So cognitivists think that moral judgements are capable of being true or false. […] non-cognitivists think that moral judgements express non-cognitive states such as emotions or desires.

Desires and emotions are not truth-apt. So moral judgements are not capable of being true or false (ibid).

Miller presents a crucial battle between cognitivism and non-cognitivism.

As noted above concerning moral intuitions, there is neither grounds nor need to be dogmatic about moral properties or to try to prove either their existence or non-existence, just evaluate them critically (Sinnott-Armstrong 2006b, 45).

Although the concept of ‘moral truth’ as a truth of the world independent from us is inconsistent with the world depicted by our best available knowledge, it is beyond the scope of this study to try to prove the impossibility of moral truth; we can simply leave open the possibility that someday men actually perceive moral properties that are independent from human cognition (Greene 2014, 188). After all, “by good luck, the atomists hit on a hypothesis for which, more than two thousand years later, some evidence was found, but their belief, in their day, was none the less destitute of any solid foundation”

(Russell 1996, 74). Therefore, let us replace the ontological battle about what judgments are capable of being with an epistemological battle of what men are capable of doing. Thus epistemologically reframed, cognitivism claims that the truth and falsity of moral judgments is within the reach of human reason, and non-cognitivism denies this claim. Non-cognitivism need not deny the truth and falsity of moral judgments, only the ability of human reason to decide it on available means. In practice, ‘moral judgments express

non-cognitive states such as emotions or desires’, because that is the only level we are able to handle moral issues; this does not necessarily mean that moral judgments are not capable of being true or false, we just suspend judgment on that because it is beyond our means so far.

To clarify this epistemologically tuned distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism, let us look at Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

We can find two different views on the purposefulness of all living creatures, men included. Kant believes in fully adapted beings, which is an unnecessarily strong statement for our present evolutionary approach: “In the natural constitution of an organized being, that is, one constituted purposively for life, we assume as a principle that there will be found in it no instrument for some end other than what is also most appropriate to that end and best adapted to it” (Kant 2000, 8). Smith’s belief is more moderate and more in accordance with our present understanding of evolution as “continuous” but “not goal-oriented” (Zuk 2014, 57). It also contains both of the important aspects of survival, the survival of the individual and the survival of the species as consecutive generations: “Thus self-preservation, and the propagation of the species, are the great ends which Nature seems to have proposed in the formation of all animals” (Smith 2002, 90; we will return to this in 2.5 below).

Both Kant and Smith believe that instincts are our best means of survival – and that reason is of no use here. There is a difference of tone, though. Kant admits the abilities of instincts somewhat grudgingly, almost as a necessary evil, only appropriate for such menial tasks as preservation of life, welfare, or happiness – the territory of the above-mentioned ‘caring organization’.

Now in a being that has reason and a will, if the proper end of nature were its preservation, its welfare, in a word its happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. […] In a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into practical use and have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself a plan for happiness and for the means of attaining it. Nature would have taken upon itself the choice not only of ends but also of means and, with wise foresight, would have entrusted them both simply to instinct (Kant 2000, 8–9).

Kant sees the jobs that the instincts are best suited for as unworthy of the efforts of such a noble trait as reason. For Kant, human reason is destined for higher purposes, moral purposes to be specific: “[…] where nature has everywhere else gone to work purposively in distributing its capacities, the true vocation of reason must be to produce a will that is good, not perhaps as a means to other purposes, but good in itself, for which reason was absolutely necessary” (ibid, 10, emphasis in the original). For Kant the grapes taste sour, but for Smith the strength and swiftness of instincts in the vital matters of survival is a welcome deliverance from the slowness and uncertainty of reason.

Mankind are endowed with a desire of those ends, and an aversion of the contrary; with a love of life, and a dread of dissolution; with a desire of the continuance and perpetuity of the species, and with an aversion to the thoughts of its extinction. But though we are in this manner endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has not been intrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason, to find out the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts (Smith 2002, 90).

Despite quite similar perceptions of the ‘caring organization’ and reason, Kant and Smith differ remarkably in their appreciation of human reason. It carries on to Smith’s definition of praise and blame, but it is not visible on the surface. Smith goes on a long way as if he were Kant.

Whatever praise or blame can be due to any action, must belong either, first, to the intention or affection of the heart, from which it proceeds;

or, secondly, to the external action or movement of the body, which this affection gives occasion to; or, lastly, to the good or bad consequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from it (ibid, 108).

Smith thinks that actions can be evaluated by intention, external action or consequences, but believes that external action and consequences “cannot be the foundation of any praise or blame” (ibid, 109). Instead, praise or blame must be based only on intention. “To the intention or affection of the heart, therefore, to the propriety or impropriety, to the beneficence or hurtfulness of the design, all praise or blame, all approbation or disapprobation, of any kind, which can justly be bestowed upon any action, must ultimately belong” (ibid).

Smith and Kant thus share the appreciation of intention as a basis for praise and blame. They are on the same path, but Kant goes further, past the intention, all the way to the principle behind the will. According to Kant, “the purposes we may have for our actions, and their effects as ends and incentives of the will, can give actions no unconditional and moral worth [...] It can lie nowhere else than in the principle of the will without regard for the ends”

(Kant 2000, 13, emphasis in the original). On the role of intention Smith and Kant part ways. Instead of following Kant into the principle of the will behind the intention, Smith turns back and defines intention as the sole criterion for praise or blame in theory only. In practice, consequences are the criteria used, because “when we come to particular cases, the actual consequences which happen to proceed from any action, have a very great effect upon our sentiments concerning its merit or demerit” (Smith 2002, 109). Smith's view about our actual practices of praise and blame seems accurate and evolutionarily sound. What we see as the rightful basis for praise or blame in theory does not help us in practice. As is evident to anyone who has ever attempted serious introspection, we are hard-pressed to understand our own actual intentions – let alone other people’s intentions. When survival is at

stake, the actual consequences of other people’s actions are decisive; detecting those consequences is vital, while detecting their intentions is not. You do not want to pin your survival on an inept performer, no matter how fine her or his intentions. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Kant and Smith start from the same place and go a long way together but end up in totally different conclusions. Kant tries to “proceed analytically from common cognition to the determination of its supreme principle, and in turn synthetically from the examination of this principle and its sources back to the common cognition”, and to derive moral laws “from the universal concept of a rational being as such” – an imaginary, non-existent being (Kant 2000, 5, 23).

This rationalist route is as good as a dead end for those who are interested in real people, the immense variety of unique human individuals, “as opposed to imaginary, idealized, super-rational people without psyches” (Bell et al 1998, 9). Smith is also tempted by the rationalist route and acknowledges that in theory deeds should be evaluated by intention, but he accepts that limited human beings – actually and in fact – evaluate primarily by consequences.

This means acknowledging that certain judgments are beyond our means and we as real people have to make do with whatever is available to us.