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BY : Mesay Tewodros Kumsa
Hilcoe school of computer science
Moral and cicvic education
CC_124 SPrR2022
1724-1804
born in konisberg prussia
First modern philosophy professor
(early) influences/ studied Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Wolf
(1747)- "Thoughts on the True Estimate for a living Forces"
(1764) - "Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime"
(1747) the Methaphysics of Morals
Three ideas define the basic shape (cognitive architecture) of Kant's model and one its dominant method. They have all become part of the foundation of cognitive science.
1. The mind is a complex set of abilities (function)
2. The function crucial for mental knowledge-generating activity are patio-temporal processing of, and the application of concepts to, sensory inputs. Cognition requires concepts as well as percepts.
3. These functions are forms of what Kant called synthesis. Synthesis and the unity in consciousness required for synthesis are central to cognition.
These three ideas are fundamental to most thinking about cognition now. Kant's most important method. the transcendental method is also at the heart of contemporary cognitive science. To study the mind, Infer the conditions necessary for experience, Arguments having this structure are called transcendental arguments.
Translated into contemporary terms, the core of this method is inference to the best explanation. The method of postulating unobservable mental mechanisms in order to explain observed behavior.
A non cognitivist theory of ethics implies that ethical sentences are neither true nor false, that is they lack truth values. Non cognitivists think that moral statements have no substantial truth conditions. Furthermore according to non-cognitivists, when people utter moral sentences they are not typically expressing states of mind which are beliefs or which are cognitive in the way that beliefs are. rather they are expressing non-cognitive atitudes more similiar to desires approval or dissaproval
cognitivism is the denial of non cognitivism. thus it holds that moral statements do express beliefs and that they are apt for truth and falsity. But cognitivism needs not be a species of realism since a cognitivist can be an error theorist and think all moral statements wrong still moral realists are cognitivists in so far that they think moral statements are apt for robust truth and falsity and that many of them are in fact true.
states that prescriptions have a different nature than descriptive sentences. they have no truth values they are not describing anything. and they have a different illocutionary role. that is to say they do not express factual claims or beliefs and therefore are neither true nor false they belong to a different illocutionary force, the prescriptive mood.
these theories are opposed to cognitivists theories are not holding that ethical sentences are not objectively and consistently true or false. neither even per-supposing new entities platonic-like(in the way naturalistic theories do), and therefore they do not need to explain the way in which we can epistemic-ally access these theories. In other words, non cognitivism claims that the principal feature of normative sentences"their lacking of truth values" is a consequence of the illocutionary role of such sentences. In fact, these sentences are not bearing any cognitive meaning such as assertions or descriptions. but they are just used to utter prescriptions.
The problem of a logic of norms
The main challenge non-cognitivist theories face is about the possibility of a logic of norms. Cognitivists theories are not facing this dilemma as they claim there is no difference between normative and descriptive sentences; therefore the classic logic based on truth values is sufficient for normative reasoning.
Expressivism is a meta-ethical position which claims that moral judgements express attitudes rather than facts.
If you were to say that murder is wrong, you are not describing a moral aspect of reality, which in some way that could be true or false, but expressing an evaluative attitude towards murder
The Frege-Geach problem is used as the main "test" to understand rationality in non-cognitivist theories. The problem was posed in P.Geach's article"Assertion", but the discussion starts back from Geach's article "Imperative and deontic Logic". In particular, Geach used his own test to attack non-cognitivist claims. If we find a positive solution to the Frege-Geach problem we are a de facto giving significane to non-cognitivist moral reasoning. On the contrary, if no solution to the problem is provided, the only option left to moral reasoning is cognitivism or excluding ethics into the realm of rationality.
The problem is that sentences that express moral judgements can form part of semantically complex sentences in a way that an expressivist cannot easily explain
non cognitivism is a variety of irrealism about ethics with a number of influential variants. non cognitivists agree with error theorists that there are no moral properties or moral facts. But rather thinking that this makes moral statements false, non-cognitivists claim that moral statements are not in the business of predicating properties of making statements which could be true or false in any substantial sense. Roughly put, non-cognitivists think that moral statements have no substantial truth conditons. Furthermore according to non-cognitivists when people utter moral sentences they are not typically expressing states of mind which are beliefs of which are cognitive in the way that beliefs are. Rather they are expressing non-cognitive attitudes more similar to desires, approval or disapproval snd the opposite view is that of Non cognitivism, the view is that moral statements lack truth value and do not assert propositions.
Cognitivism is perhaps best defined as the denial of non-cognitivism. Cognitivists think that moral sentences are apt for truth or falsity, and that the state of mind of accepting a moral judgement is typically one of belief. They think that typically utterances of indicative sentences containing moral predicates express beliefs in the same way that other sentences with ordinary descriptive predicates typically do. There is some reason to be careful here since cognitivists may not need to employ the sense of 'express' that expressivists need to get their theory of the ground. Cognitivism is the view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therfore be true or false
At the beginning of the 20th century, G.E. Moore's open question argument convinced many philosophers that moral statements were not equivalent to statements made using non moral or descriptive terms. For any non-moral description of an action or object it seemed that competent speakers could without confusion doubt that the action or object was appropriately characterized using a moral term such as "good" or "right". The question of whether the action or object so described was good or right was always open, even to competent speakers. Furthermore, in the absence of any systematic theory to explain the possibility of synthetic as opposed to analytic identity claims, many were convinced thin this showed that moral properties could not be identified with any natural or supernatural properties. Thus moore and others concluded that moral properties such as goodness were irreducible sui generis properties not identical to natural properties. Moore(1903-15).
cognitivism and non cognitivism is basically two objectives with defining whats right or wrong that focuses on morality. With dealing Cognitivism there is a belief that there is a belief that there is a separation of right and wrong doing and as far as for non cognitivism there is a belief that there is no such thing. Non-Cognitivism focus on how conclusions are concluded by feeling and what we understand is right or what we feel to be right or wrong.
The history of Philosophy
philosophic logic
Theory of knowledge
professor of logic at Leeds university 1966-1981
philosophy of religion in cambridge
1971-1971