4.1 The Embedding Problem
Non-cognitivism as presented to this point is incomplete. It gives us an account of the meanings of moral expressions in free standing predicative uses, and of the states of mind expressed when they are so used. But the identical expressions can be used in more complex sentences, sentences which embed such predications. Thus far we have not considered what the expressions might mean when so used. We say things such as the following:
[INDENT]It is true that lying is wrong.
Lying is not wrong.
I wonder whether lying is wrong.
I believe that lying is wrong.
Fred believes that lying is wrong.
Is lying wrong?
If lying is wrong he will be sure to do it.
If lying is wrong then so is misleading truth-telling.
[/INDENT]So, in addition to their analyses of unembedded predication, non-cognitivists owe us an account of the meanings of more complex sentences or judgments such as these. Leading contemporary non-cognitivists have all tried to provide accounts. As it turns out, the task is difficult and generates much controversy.
The task is difficult in virtue of two interrelated considerations (1). In many cases what the non-cognitivist says about the meanings of moral sentences used in simple predication cannot plausibly apply to the same sentences when embedded. For example, if a non-cognitivist says the meaning of 'Lying is wrong' is explained by the suggestion that it serves to express disfavor towards lying in the way that 'Boo lying!' might, that does not seem to be a good explanation of what the very same words are doing when they are used in many embedded contexts. For example if those words occur in the antecedent of a conditional, or when a person says, 'I wonder if lying is wrong' they may well not express such disapproval. Nor is there a convention which justifies competent listeners in an expectation that the speaker has such an attitude of disapproval towards lying. So more must be said to explain such embedded uses. And (2) whatever we say about the meanings of moral predications when embedded in various contexts, we would like it to make sense of the way these more complex expressions interact in inference and argument with more straightforward predicative uses of those expressions. The first consideration makes this harder to do. Normally we believe that the status of an argument as valid depends, at least in part, on the words not shifting in meaning as we move from premise to premise. But given that the noncognitivist account of the meaning of the expressions when unembedded does not straightforwardly extend to their embedded use, it is not obvious how this constraint will be met (Geach 1960, 223).
Consider the following example from Geach (1965, 463):
[INDENT](P1) If tormenting the cat is bad, getting your little brother to do it is bad
(P2) Tormenting the cat is bad.
Ergo, getting your little brother to torment the cat is bad.
[/INDENT]The argument is valid. But if the entire meaning of 'tormenting the cat is bad' in the second premise is well explained by saying that it is suited for use in expressing disapproval of tormenting the cat, then that meaning cannot be the same as the meaning it has in the first premise (which one might accept even if one approves of tormenting cats). This doesn't show that the expression is not being used emotively in the second premise; a descriptivist can agree to that. But it does indicate that more will need to be said to explain what is going on. For straightforwardly descriptive arguments of the same form, the explanation of why the argument is valid relies on the idea that the phrase in the antecedent has a constant meaning that it represents both unembedded and embedded. This is what Geach has called The Frege Point: "A thought may have just the same content whether you assent to its truth or not; a proposition may occur in discourse now asserted, now unasserted, and yet be recognizably the same proposition" (Geach 1965, 449). As Geach saw it, we need to think of predication as constant across embedded and unembedded occurrences of predicative moral sentences so as not to commit a fallacy of equivocation in making arguments.
Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)