Non-Cognitivism and Fundamental Moral Certitude: Reply To Eriksson and Francén Olinder

Abstract

Accommodating degrees of moral certitude, particularly fundamental moral certitude, presents a persistent challenge for ethical non-cognitivism. Recent attempts to resolve this issue rely on either a classification account or a projectivist account of moral judgment. Under the classification account, moral certitude is analyzed in terms of the degree of belief that necessarily accompanies moral attitudes governed by a classificatory standard. This framework fails because such beliefs track descriptive properties or an agent’s own classificatory criteria, thereby reducing moral certitude to empirical or psychological matters rather than genuine fundamental normative conviction; an agent can be entirely certain of what their standard prescribes while remaining uncertain whether that standard is fundamentally correct. The alternative projectivist account locates moral certitude in a fallible, metaethical belief that one’s non-cognitive attitudes represent objective facts. This proposal incorrectly implies that fundamental moral certitude requires explicit metaethical reflection, and it renders degrees of moral certainty impossible for committed non-cognitivists. Furthermore, tying moral certitude to credence in cognitivism yields the unacceptable implication that a non-cognitivist cannot maintain high confidence in obvious moral truths, such as the wrongness of torturing babies for fun. Consequently, non-cognitivist theories fail to supply a cognitive or desire-like attitude that plausibly captures the spectrum of fundamental moral certitude. – AI-generated abstract.