Moral cognitivism vs. Non-cognitivism

Abstract

Non-cognitivism is a variety of irrealism about ethics with a numberof influential variants. Non-cognitivists agree with error theoriststhat there are no moral properties or moral facts. But rather thanthinking that this makes moral statements false, non-cognitivistsclaim that moral statements are not in the business of predicatingproperties or making statements which could be true or false in anysubstantial sense. Roughly put, non-cognitivists think that moralstatements have no substantial truth conditions. Furthermore,according to non-cognitivists, when people utter moral sentences theyare not typically expressing states of mind which are beliefs or whichare cognitive in the way that beliefs are. Rather they are expressingnon-cognitive attitudes more similar to desires, approval ordisapproval.