Cognitive meta ethical theory is valid

Fairness: My opponent has radically shifted his advocacy in the final round of the debate. Throughout R3 he repeatedly says moral statements are “meaningless;” he underscored this point by comparing moral statements to unintelligible nonsense words. Then in the LAST ROUND he offers alternative explanations accounting for the intelligibility of moral statements, even though I pressed Con for an account of how moral statements function in language in my opening argument. I urge voters to hold Con to his original position, that moral statements are meaningless- a position which is totally untenable. At any rate I will be forced to make entirely new arguments in the final round as a response to Con’s entirely new arguments. Closing Argument: In the opening round of the debate I offered two essentially identical definitions of cognitivism. These definitions have been in-play and undisputed the entire debate. Pro’s job is to show that moral statements express beliefs and are truth-apt and Con’s job is to show that this is not the case. Fundamentally this debate comes down to which side better accounts for moral statements. I will summarize my case: As I have consistently pointed out, there are several facts that are pertinent to this Resolution: 1. Moral statements exist. 2. Moral statements are intelligible. 3. Moral statements are intelligible in complex and embedded contexts. These are facts about the world independent of any meta-ethical claim. Any claim which is unable to account for or contradicts these facts must be ruled untenable, just as we would rule out any other philosophical argument which contradicted facts about the world. My position easily accounts for these facts. If moral statements are propositions, then moral statements are no different than propositions such as “apples are red;” moral statements make truth claims and thus people can wonder about the truthfulness of moral statements and use moral statements in complex contexts. The cognitivist position is superior to the non-cognitivist position because only cognitivism can account for the use of moral statements in language. Con cannot account for the above facts. First Con said that moral statements were “meaningless. ” From his arguments it was clear that he meant this to denote unintelligibility. His arguments compared moral terms to nonsense words like “afrotion,” and claims “good and bad have no meaning. ” When I pointed out that moral statements ARE intelligible, Con switched is advocacy in the final round. But perhaps Con meant something else when he said “meaningless. ” Perhaps he meant that moral terms cannot be defined. But I pointed out in my R2 2b that millions of people have definitions of good and bad, so clearly moral terms are ABLE to be defined. But perhaps Con just meant that the definitions people provide are “unsatisfactory. ” If this is the case, Con has conceded the case: the statement “’X is good’ is an unsatisfactory definition of ‘good’” is a proposition! Claiming that a moral definition is unsatisfactory makes a truth claim about the nature of the term being defined. I pointed this out in my R3 2a: when Con explains why “desirability” cannot be a definition of “good,” Con is forced to make truth claims about “good. ” Con says: “I am saying that defining a sociopath's desires as good does not fit with the contectual [sic] ideas that relate to "good". ” The moral statement “Anything that fulfills my desires is good” is a statement which is falsified by Con’s argument. It is therefore a proposition. Moreover, the claim that all definitions of good are unsatisfactory falsifies claims i) and ii) from my R2 3). If there are no satisfactory definitions of good, then there are no moral justifications to do X. Con’s position therefore entails the falsification of moral claims, thus affirming cognitivism. Now let’s examine the last-minute alternatives Con offered in the final Round: First, Con isn’t even able to offer a clear explanation of what moral terms are. He says they are “connotative,” except not. I don’t really know what Con means by this, but from his argument Con seems to be saying that moral terms refer to groups of vaguely related ideas without an underlying unifying concept. This understanding is compatible with cognitivism- if “bad” has a connotative relationship with murder etc. , then the statement “murder is not bad” is false. This argument just underscores the fact that cognitivism is compatible with moral relativism. We can understand “bad” to mean “whatever doesn’t conform to societal norms. ” On this understanding, moral statements still have truth value, since in a given society “X is bad” is a truth-apt statement. Con’s historical explanation of moral terms is just an argument for moral subjectivism and moral subjectivism falls within the cognitivist camp. Con also brought up the idea of a scream being able to communicate but not being propositional. This is honestly the closest Con has come to offering a viable explanation of moral statements, but he doesn’t flesh the argument out enough for it to merit evaluation. At face value, moral statements seem to communicate more than screaming does- the statement “lying is wrong” communicates some idea while “lying is AHHH” does not. This explanation also does not account for complex embedded meaning. If moral statements are the equivalent of screaming, then how do people wonder about moral statements? The statement “I wonder if lying is wrong” is intelligible, but “I wonder if lying is AHHH” is not. Then later in the round Con goes back to saying “the meaning of the word "good" does not exist” and even says moral terms are “unintelligible” when analyzed. So does he think moral statements are unintelligible or not? Con has no stable advocacy. Finally, Con keeps returning to the idea of specificity, demanding that good have a “unifying” aspect and claiming that a Pro vote requires knowing “specifically” what good and bad mean. This is wrong. I have only a vague understanding of what string theory is, but I can make all sorts of propositions about it. If you only have vague ideas relating “bad” to murder, you can still make truth claims- e. g. “I believe murder is a bad action. ” Con’s argument is defeated by the example he provides: “Bananas, [etc] might be examples of colpoyts. Cumulus clouds are colpoyts. Now, if consistently enforced enough, the notion of bananas…will be communicated with the use of the word "colpoyt". I urge the floor to consider whether or not the latter sentence will therefore be a proposition. ” Following this narrative the statement “cumulus clouds are colpoyts” is a proposition. It is a statement that is either true or false based on the understood meaning of the word. While the understood meaning of “colpoyt” makes the truthiness of the proposition unclear, it is still a proposition. I could make another proposition, “bananas are colpoyts,” which we would know is true. We can form propositions about societally constructed categories. The stellar constellations are totally made up by humans, but the statement “Pisces is a constellation” is still a truth-apt statement and therefore a proposition. This demand for specificity is just another way of arguing that no “satisfactory” definition of good exists, which is an argument I addressed above. Con’s argument that there are no intrinsic values has no impact on the debate. Such an argument only proves that there is no justification for calling something good or bad. This falsifies moral claims; the claim “X is good” is falsified if there are no intrinsic values. Cognitivism is correct if good and bad do not exist, as this would make all claims that “X is good” false. Even Con has agreed that lack of objective morality is not a problem for cognitivism. When you think “I wonder if lying is wrong? ” are you inquiring about truth of the statement “lying is wrong” or are you performing some other non-cognitive action?