Questions: Moral Cognitivism: Truth and Moral Claims

Question 1

J.L. Mackie's 'error theory' holds that all moral statements are false because there are no objective moral facts in the world. Is error theory a cognitivist or non-cognitivist position?

• A. Non-cognitivist, because it denies that moral statements accurately describe reality
• B. Cognitivist, because it treats moral statements as genuine propositions that can be true or false
• C. Neither — error theory rejects the cognitivism/non-cognitivism distinction entirely
• D. Realist, because it takes the content of moral claims seriously enough to evaluate them

Answer: (B)

Error theory is cognitivist — it agrees with cognitivism that moral sentences express genuine propositions (truth-apt claims). Where error theory diverges from moral realism is in holding that all those propositions are false, because there are no objective moral facts for them to describe. This illustrates that cognitivism is the weaker, more minimal commitment: it only says moral claims have truth values, leaving entirely open whether any of them are actually true.

Question 2

What most clearly distinguishes a moral disagreement from a disagreement about taste, according to the intuitive case for cognitivism?

• A. Moral disagreements involve stronger emotions and more personal investment
• B. In moral disagreements, people treat each other as mistaken about a fact and offer reasons to change minds; taste disagreements are recognized as having no objective fact at issue
• C. Moral disagreements can be resolved by evidence, while taste disagreements cannot be resolved at all
• D. Taste disagreements involve individual preferences, while moral disagreements involve cultural rules

Answer: (B)

The phenomenology of moral disagreement is the intuitive starting point for cognitivism. When two people disagree about capital punishment, they cite principles, appeal to consistency, and try to change each other's minds — they behave as if one of them is factually mistaken. Compare: if you prefer chocolate and I prefer vanilla, we don't argue; we recognize there is no objective fact at issue. Moral disagreement has the structure of a factual dispute in a way that taste disagreement doesn't. Cognitivism takes this seriously by treating moral sentences as genuine assertions.

Question 3

Accepting moral cognitivism is compatible with also believing that all moral statements are false — a position known as error theory.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Cognitivism only claims that moral sentences express propositions that can be true or false — it makes no claim about whether any of those propositions are actually true. Error theory accepts cognitivism's claim (moral sentences are truth-apt) while denying that any moral claims succeed in being true, because there are no objective moral facts in the world. This combination is perfectly coherent: you can believe moral statements have truth values while believing all those truth values are 'false.'

Question 4

Moral cognitivism and moral realism are the same view — both hold that moral claims express objective facts about the world independent of human attitudes.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is the most important distinction in metaethics at this level. Cognitivism is a claim about the *form* of moral judgments: they are propositions (truth-apt). Realism is a further claim about the *status* of those propositions: some are objectively true, independent of what anyone thinks or feels. You can be a cognitivist without being a realist — error theorists (like Mackie) and constructivists both accept cognitivism while rejecting realism in different ways. Cognitivism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for realism.

Question 5

Why is moral cognitivism described as a 'gatekeeper' concept for metaethics — what debates does accepting or rejecting it unlock or foreclose?

Model answer: If you accept cognitivism (moral claims are truth-apt), the debate moves to realism vs. anti-realism: are any of those propositions objectively true? This opens debates between moral realists (yes, independently of human minds), error theorists (they are all false), and constructivists (moral truths are constructed through reason or agreement). If you reject cognitivism — if moral sentences don't have truth values at all — the entire realism debate is moot: there is nothing to be objective about. Non-cognitivist positions (emotivism, prescriptivism) bypass the truth question entirely by denying moral sentences are assertions.

The gatekeeper role explains why cognitivism is typically the first major fork in metaethics. It is the minimal question: what kind of thing is a moral sentence? Every subsequent debate about moral objectivity, moral knowledge, and moral metaphysics presupposes an answer to this question. Getting it right lets you map the rest of the territory correctly.