Reading Gibbard, I

"The analysis is non-cognitivistic in the narrow sense that, according to it, to call a thing rational is not to state a matter of fact, either truly or falsely. None of this leaves normative language defective or second-rate. The analysis explains why we need normative language, and as it takes shape, it ascribes to rationality many of the features on which theories of normative fact insist. In many ways, normative judgments mimic factual judgments, and indeed factual judgments themselves rest on norms--norms for belief. Normative discussion is much like factual discussion, I shall be claiming, and just as indispensable."

I really need to keep this in mind when thinking about expressivism. Because of the 60s I tend to think of non-cognitivism as looking down on ethics and other normative talk, but it's really not doing that in today's age. What is at stake--the only thing at stake--is whether one can say of normative statements that they're true or false.