Noncognitivism and philosophy of language

In modern metaethics terms noncognitivism and emotivism indicate the position inaccordance with which the moral statements are deprived of empirical content (they do not describeany facts), and express the emotional reactions of people about certain situations. The spectrum ofthese reactions can be quite diverse: «condemnation», «fear», «fault», «approval», however, thesedifferences doesn't matter for noncognitivistic analysis of the moral statements. It is considered thatemotivism denies the cognitive component language of morality, because the emotions contrary to thefacts don't form belief. In connection with this become two logical conclusions: moral statements don'texpress belief» and «moral statements do not possess the truth». These two conclusions never wereaccepted up to the end in philosophical community and served as a source of paradoxes for theemotivism. Especially it concerns the first conclusion. This conclusion became the basis for a Frege-Geach problem and other difficulties associated with the similarity in the semantic structure of thedescriptive and moral statements. These difficulties can be avoided if we consider the noncognitivismnot only as a semantic doctrine that analyzes the nature of the meaning of moral statements, but in abroader historical and philosophical point of view, as a legal successor of utilitarianism and ethicalsubjectivism. Rejecting the cognitive component of the moral statements, noncognitivism specifies notin absence in them empirical content and cognitive capacity, and on their epistemic value. This thesismust be understood as a statement about the pragmatics of moral language. The absence of cognitivecomponent is the impossibility of use of the classical mechanism of the justification for moralstatements (in the first place, the true/false), not the lack of empirical content. It is a question ofsubjective interest which lies in the basis of moral statements, and subjective interest is quite empiricaland cognitive, though and not objective.

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