Abstract

Normative judgments are practical: they bear a close connection to motivation. Noncognitivists often claim that they have a distinctive explanatory advantage accounting for this connection. After all, if normative judgments just are noncognitive, desire-like states, then it is no mystery why they bear an intimate connection to motivation: desire-like states motivate. In this paper, however, I argue that noncognitivism does not have this explanatory advantage after all. The problem is that noncognitivists cannot provide a characterization of the practicality of normative judgment that allows them to retain this advantage. Noncognitivists either posit a strong and controversial connection between normative judgment and motivation that cognitivists have no trouble rejecting, or they posit a weaker connection that cognitivists can explain just as well. Either way, noncognitivists cannot argue from the practicality of normative judgments to their claim that normative judgments are noncognitive, desire-like states. The practicality of normative judgments does not support noncognitivism.