Finntronaut's Philosophy Fair
Ah, of course: how "for all practical purpose" might philosophers and ethicists draw the line between thoughts and feelings about murder...or abortion or gun control or human sexuality.NON-COGNITIVISM is a view contrary to cognitivism, where moral statements themselves are viewed to be neither right or wrong. That is to say that a statement such as “Murder is wrong.” would be tantamount to saying something like “Boo on murder!” or it could be a commandment not to murder, for example.
Whereas from my own frame of mind, thoughts and feelings -- intuitions? -- derived existentially from dasein, still leave us just spinning our wheels. It's not like any prominent philosopher historically has resolved that for us.
If the world's most renowned philosophers have pursued objective morality in a truly disciplined manner for millennia, how come they [like all the rest of us] still pop up all along the moral and political spectrum?
Doesn't that alone speak volumes regarding just how far removed deontology is from being "the right answer" in regard to conflicting goods?
All we can explore more in depth here with regard to both thoughts and feelings is the context itself. Does it warrant one set of reasons and emotions -- reactions -- rather than another? Can objective truths be confirmed and then passed on to all rational men and women? And, clearly, some will think and feel one way and others another simply because of where they factor into the actual situation itself. Abortion? Mary is pregnant, John is not. Homosexuality? Jane is gay, Joe is not.And of course, emotional utterances such as “Let’s go Rangers!” or commandments such as “Go brush your teeth!” are not propositions attempting to identify some kind of truth about this world. The purpose of the emotional utterances, such as “Boo murder!” or commandments such as “Stop pissing on the carpet!”, is something different rather than to identify a truth about the world.
Of course, our jobs as philosophers is to take all of that into account and attempt to, what, get as close to an optimal deontological assessment as possible?For this reason, I’m personally not a cognitivist, but rather a non-cognitivist, with the caveat that somebody could of course mean with moral statements that there are some natural moral properties floating in the atmosphere – or something silly like that – but let’s just say that 99% of the time, moral statements are used as non-cognitive utterances such as emotions or commandments.
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