Prospects for non-cognitivism

This essay offers a defence of the non-cognitivist approach to the interpre tation of moral judgments as disguised imperatives corresponding to social rules. It addresses the body of criticism that faced R.M.Hare, and that cur rently faces moral antirealists, on two levels, by providing a full semanti c analysis of evaluative judgments nd by arguing that anti-realism is compa tible with moral aspiration despite the non-existence of obligations as the externalist imagines them. A moral judgment consists of separate descripti ve and prescriptive components and is to be understood as a declarative sta tement prefaced by an 'ideality operator'. Moral beliefs are genuinely repr esentational, but their truth conditions can only be stated with reference to imaginary ideal worlds. Moral judgments are neither confirmed nor verifi ed but alternative moral positions are preferentially endorsed and adopted by individual agents on the basis of their perceived all-things-considered optimality. High aspiration moralities are normally very costly to agents i n terms of their prudential and aesthetic interests, but they are theoretic ally as eligible as the adoption of other, less demanding sets of rules.