Cognitivism and Prescriptivity

Arguing from a cognitivist position of strongmoral realism, this paper explains the prescriptiveaspect of moral reality by comparing the humanexperience of perception and response to materialobjects with our experience of perception and responseto moral prescriptivity. By drawing a distinctionbetween statements about facts and facts themselves,and by illustrating how the human experience ofmorality is one of many competing demands forattention, it also shows that moral realism is notdefeated by the existence of conflicting moral theoriesor the experience of moral disagreement or uncertainty.