Great! I had a perfectly good example involving amoral judgements that almost ALL of my students could relate to – downloading music without paying for it.
When we get to ethics in my intro classes, I like to briefly discuss the following version of non-cognitivism.
NG1 – All moral judgements are merely expressions of a preference or a taste.
Enter my downloading music example. I ask my students if they think that downloading music without paying for it is wrong. Most say that it is wrong. I then ask one of the students (who said it was wrong) if they care one way or the other whether people in the class download music. They almost always say “No.” I ask them if it is one of their preferences that people download music, etc… They always say “No.”
This is a case of amoral judgement (Amoral judgment = A judgement that some X is wrong, but not having a preference one way or the other whether X happens).
The possibility of amoral judgments is a serious puzzle for non-cognitivist theories, and the widespread practice of downloading music for free gives us an excellent actual amoral judgment that almost all of my students seem to make.
Tonight at midnight Qtrax is going to mess that all up.
(I’m actually pretty happy about this. I’m more than willing to come up with a new example of amoral judgments that students can relate to, if the price is free music downloads)
UPDATE: Perhaps I spoke too soon!
Andy,
You will appreciate this more than anyone else.
http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/
Some serious use/mention problems.
Justin