Cognitivist Vs Non-cognitivist Explanations of the Belief- like and Desire-like Features of Evaluative Judgement

When an agent judges her performance of some action to be desirable she thereby conveys her assessment of the importance of acting in the way in question, an assessment in which she might have more or less confidence and for which she might have more or less justification (Brink 1989). To this extent an agent's evaluative judgements seem to express her beliefs. At the same time, an agent's assessment of the importance of acting in a certain way seems to correlate in a fairly robust way with her motivational potential, at least in so far as she is rational (Hare 1952). No desire to (say) do whatever she happens to value doing seems needed to lead a rational subject who judges it desirable to act in a certain way to be motivated to act in that way, and, indeed, to be more motivated to do that which judges more desirable and less motivated to do what she judges less desirable. To this extent, an agent's evaluative judgements seem to express her desires.