Noncognitivism May be a Downer

It occurred to me just now that being a noncognitivist is perhaps not as much fun as I had hoped.

A noncognitivist believes that moral statements have no truth value; 'killing people is bad,' means something along the lines of 'don't kill people, it makes me sad.' This is appealing for many reasons. Noncognitivism allows us to avoid the messy question of what kind of fact a moral fact is while explaining why we generally want things to happen when we judge them to be morally good. It wraps up the entirety of ethics into a convenient little package as delectable as a tiny blue box from Tiffany.

However, I am also a determinist, and those who still believe in free will sometimes ask me "Don't you find it depressing to believe that everything you think and do was predetermined from the beginning of time?" I usually respond by saying "I think and do certain things because I'm a smart, educated person with the same basic preferences as any decent person. There's nothing depressing about that. What's scary is the notion that my beliefs and actions are not caused by something, that everything I do is random and meaningless and unrelated in any but a coincidental manner to everything ever. How can you free willers live with yourselves?"

You can see my dilemma. I do certain things because I have certain preferences, and I have certain preferences, because... I can't say "Because I'm a rational person;" for the most part, preferences can't be characterized as rational or irrational. Nor can I say "Because I'm a good person," since the word 'good' already refers to my preferences.

There is a physical cause of my preferences, but noncognitivism can offer no reason for them. This is a little bit sad. If you ask a moral realist "Why do you want me to jump in that pond and rescue you from drowning?" he will say "Because it's the right thing to do." If you ask a noncognitivist, all he can say is "DO IT."

Putting aside for a moment the relative persuasiveness of these arguments, it makes me sad to not have reasons.

Of course, there are many things which are both sad and true, and my preference for being correct still overrides my preference for being happy. I therefore remain a noncognitivist. But I sincerely wish, dear readers, that I could tell you why.