Cognitive meta ethical theory is valid

Observation 1: I do not need to demonstrate the truth of any particular ethical system, or even that any system is capable of establishing itself as true. I need only to show that ethical statements can be true or false. This directly follows from the wording of the resolution and the definitions provided in R1. Observation 2: The common sense view is that ethical statements can be true or false. The overwhelming majority of humanity speaks and acts as if ethical statements contain true or false beliefs. This common understanding is fully capable of explaining how ethical statements are used in everyday language. This means that Con is defending an extremely counter-intuitive position and must overcome this hurdle to win the debate. Observation 3: Con must give an account of what ethical statements actually mean to win this debate. If ethical statements are not propositions, then what are they? 1a) Con offers only assertions with no supporting argument. His argument is essentially: P1: Moral statements can be propositions only if they have intrinsic value. P2: There are no intrinsic values. C: Moral statements cannot be propositions. Con offers no argument supporting P1; he only offers an argument supporting P2. It is not at all obvious that Moral statements must have intrinsic value to be propositions. In the absence of a defense of P1, his argument fails. 1b) There are intrinsic values. Meaning is an intrinsic value- it generates the motivation for its own value without reference to anything else. The value of meaning comes from the phenomenon of experiencing meaning itself. The experience of engaging in meaningful activity is the experience of finding value in that activity, whatever it is. Meaning makes an activity worth doing, including living, by virtue of meaning itself. We can point to the things which “cause” meaning or the things we “find” meaning in, but these are not the reason for meaning’s value. For example, an architect finds meaning in building beautiful buildings. He may describe many reasons why he finds this project meaningful- it is challenging, he is creating beauty- but these reasons do not describe why the meaningfulness of the project is valuable. The architect would not say that he values meaning because it is caused by overcoming challenges or creating beauty. Con’s argument about happiness does not apply to meaning. Meaning is not valuable because it “allows us to live,” meaning is valuable because it gives value to life. 1c) Con’s argument against intrinsic value proves that moral statements can be true or false. Consider the statement: “You have an obligation not to decrease the happiness of others” Con’s argument, if correct, demonstrates that happiness has no intrinsic value. If happiness has no intrinsic value, then there is no possible justification for the above statement. Thus the statement is false. 2a) Con’s argument again shows that ethical statements can be true or false. His argument is simply that we have no way to define good or bad. This is just a simple argument for moral relativism, which does not provide a case against ethical cognitivism. Consider the statement: “It is categorically bad to commit murder; there are no circumstances where murder is permissible.” Con’s argument is that good could be defined such that a sociopath’s desires would be “good.” If this were the case, the above statement would be false and the Resolution would be true. Furthermore, if we simply leave Con’s claim at “there are no satisfactory definitions of good or bad,” Con is still taking the position that it is NOT categorically bad to commit murder. 2b) Con simply asserts that there are no satisfactory definitions of good and bad. This may be his opinion, but millions of people have concepts of what “good” and “bad” mean and are satisfied with those concepts. What Con is actually arguing is that people disagree on what good and bad are. But disagreement on what is good or bad does not prove that there is no correct answer to the question “what is good?” People disagree on all sorts of things, from the age of the earth to capital punishment; disagreement is not evidence of lack of truth. Con has thus failed to demonstrate that no definition of good exists. He has only shown that there is disagreement on what the correct definition is. 3) Any position Con takes on the status of “good’ and “bad” will force him to take a position on substantive moral claims. This is because moral claims depend on justification for action and any position on the status of that justification entails a position on the status of the moral claim. By taking such a position, Con will be forced to support as true or false a competing moral claim. This is what I have briefly argued in 1c) and 2a). To win this debate, Con must give an account of ethical propositions which do not render at least one of the following set of ethical statements true or false: i) X is always wrong; there is a categorical moral justification to never do X. ii) X is always right; there is always a categorical moral justification to do X. iii) X is neither right nor wrong; there is no categorical moral justification to do X or not to do X. 4) In supporting non-cognitivism, Con must offer a response to my Observation 3 that solves the Embedding Problem. Whatever account Con gives for what ethical statements actually mean must function in the complex everyday usage of ethical statements. Failure of Con to offer a stable explanation of ethical statements that is able to account for the meaning of ethical statements in embedded contexts is a failure to prove the Resolution. I offer two examples, taken from SEP [1], for Con to explain: i) “I wonder if lying is wrong” and ii) (P1) If tormenting the cat is bad, getting your little brother to do it is bad (P2) Tormenting the cat is bad. Ergo, getting your little brother to torment the cat is bad. If the above are not using ethical statements as propositions, then what are they doing? Cognitivism can account for these examples, as it is easy to understand what i) means if the statement “lying is wrong” is a proposition which could be true or false. I contend that any non-cognitivist explanation will either fail to account for these examples in a satisfactory manner. [1] http://plato.stanford.edu...