Cognitivism Vs. Skepticism in Philosophy

by Farzin Mojtabai

Differing Views in Philosophy

The claim that people changing their minds about right and wrong overtime meaning there is nothing to figure out is not a logically valid inference. The fact that people change their minds simply demonstrates a constant desire to correct the wrong and move over to the right. The change in people&rsquos minds indicates identification of wrong by such a person engaged in a specific mentality and exhibits a striving towards a better way. If people really had everything figured out and there was nothing left to know about right and wrong than why would any change even transpire at all? There would be a clear understanding according to the skeptic king such an argument and change would not need to take place. If “x” changes his mind about right can not necessarily mean that right and wrong is simply an opinion and there is nothing to figure out, rather it can mean that opinions and feelings towards right and wrong vary among people and can change with time and knowledge.
A counter example to the skeptic view would be the sacrifice of humans in some ancient cultures to please the sun gods and ensure it’s proper rising. With modern science and knowledge of the concise orbit of the sun and it’s pattern it was realized that such sacrifice of human life serves no purpose. Before obtaining this knowledge of the sun’s orbit no culture could claim right or wrong, because not enough was made evident and proven, meaning some validity could be ascribed unto such a practice. However, after acquiring the correct knowledge of the sun, the practice was halted and many lives were ultimately spared. This clearly demonstrates that there is a great deal to know and clearly a right and wrong in certain situations, many times seeing change in people indicates and acknowledgement of the right and an end to the right.

A cognitivist is one who believes that there is a clear right and wrong to be figured out, however does not claim to always know what that right and wrong is. Just because there is right and wrong does not necessarily mean that it is known, rather we are striving to figure it out. When looking at the history of mankind, it is through experience, many times painful that one’s understanding evolves regarding right and wrong. It is through seeing pain and hardship of slavery and the holocaust that we identify slave labor and genocide and being wrong. Whether we act upon stopping all instances of wrong is one thing, but we still figured out they are wrong by the mental and physical abuse orchestrated upon people by other people. How could we even identify what slavery is if we didn’t see and experience it. Under the skeptic view knowledge is simply what someone thinks, where that assumption is off point. A cognitivist could claim people did not identify the wrong in such acts in slave labor early in human history because not enough of it had occurred to develop a
proper feeling that this action is wrong because it inflicts harm on people. The idea is to learn from history and formulate better and morally acceptable way of living based on the mistakes of the past. Early humans had nothing to judge their actions against. They also lacked the clear knowledge indicating these things were wrong, which the cognitivist knows is there, but simply needs to be discovered. For instance, human sacrifice as mentioned above came in many forms and many times, not with the intentions of harming but under misguided beliefs like the sun will rise or something. Once people were more privy to things like the sun rising or the lack of need to sacrifice all widowed women causing a dwindling population, they escaped their wrongful mentality. Or people could say the as long as it benefits certain people and gets things done that it is okay to use a certain population for slave labor, who are unfortunate or different. However as such customs grew and spread to various lands, more and more were suffering and more empathy was obviously taking place. People began to draw on experience and learn and change their ways.
Good reasons to study and form moral assessments about other cultures is to compare that against your own standards, to have a more objective view of your own cultural practices from a different perspective. How can you ever know whether your own society is morally in the right if that is all you know. Lack of knowledge can always lead to wrong practices and injustice. To witness other injustice from the view of an outsider and simply observe immorality gives one new look of their own culture, which they never had thought about before. One also can morally assess other cultures in order to attempt to correct moral wrongs perceived by them subsisting in that society. For instance the Sudan genocide where 400,000 people have been slaughtered and millions displaced can be assessed from a foreign perspective as morally reprehensible and can spur action to correct such injustice. Were it not for foreign intervention the Rwanda genocide could have still been occurring today. Above all associations we give to ourselves, we are first and foremast human beings, and to objectively assess others cultures can teach you and them a lot and advance a more universal right and wrong.
I think one might say we should never or should cautiously assess practices of another culture is fear that to critique another’s culture could antagonize that culture and give an impression that you are condescending towards their cultural practices. This cultural relativist idea that what is right is simply what is accepted by the culture as being right aims to slam the door shut on any moral intervention among cultures. The memory of years of colonialism leave people much more cautious when dealing with and interacting with foreign cultures. They fear that a traditional culture practice like trying out ones sword although appearing brutal, might be accepted and looking down on that culture for such actions is beyond our realm.