What two are the main founders of Emotivism and whats it about?
A.J Ayer (1910-1989) and Charles L Stevenson (1908-1979)
Emotivism is a meta-ethical theory that explores the nature of moral values and terms. Morality is not an objective subject as words like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not empirical terms and cannot be verified. It is a type of ethical non cognitivism.
Influenced by Logical Positivism
Who was Emotivism largely influenced by?
And what do they say moral statemtns are?
Hume and Wittgenstein.
Hume argues that all language about the real, objective world is either synthetic or analytic
However, moral statements dont fit either the analytic or synthetic ‘prong’ and are thus ‘objectively’ meaningless. They still hold subjective meaning.
Since it fits neither category Hume argues that they must be an expression of emotion or sentiment.
How does Ayer interact with Humes analyis of lannguage
He agrees and adopts it as a part of emotivism-
only statements that are either analytic (true by definition) or synthetic (true by observations) are meaningful.
Moral facts have no factual basis because they have no empiric basis
What is the verification principle?
Ayer argues that all statements about reality need to be verified- shown to be true or false according to sense experience or observation. In other words the synthetic statements must be subject to the verification principle.
If a proposition is neither analytic nor can one say what one would do to verify it then it is LITERALLY MEANINGLESS (it has no literal meaning)
Whats the problem with the Verification principle?
It fails its own criteria as is neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable.
Ayer admitted to this and later amended that it was merely a proposal about how language should be used.
However some modern critics, like Karl Popper and Anthony Lew, argue that if its just a proposal it cant dismiss metaethics as meaningless and thus loses the strong authority Ayer wanted it to have.
What can be said to support Ayers theory beside verification principle?
Stevensons theory
Charles Stevenson says that we use moral language emotively
For example if we were to interpret the meaning of “you stole that bread”, it descriptively means ‘you took the bread that was the property of someone else, but emotively it means that I disapprove of that behaviour.
It then states that the central ethical terms like good or right only have emotive meanings.
What does Stevenson the purpose of moral judgements is?
To state facts. When we use terms like good and right, we express our approval; the whole point of ethics is to influence how we behave. therefore we use moral judgements to express our feelings and to influence the feelings and actions of other people.
Emotivism connects caring, approving, disapproving, with the very meaning of ethical words
whats an example of the verification priciple?
‘The door is teal’ can be verified through observing, however the statment ‘lying is wrong’ cannot be verified that way.
Take within Utilitarianism, it states that actions are good or bad according to the pleasure or pain produced. So “goodness” here is a natural property of an action because it can be measured by consequences.
How does Ayer counter this Utilitarian counter?
He staes that “It is not self-contradictory to say some pleasant things are not good, or that some bad things are desired”
therefore, if we can ask the open question “is it good?” after we have asked “is it pleasureable?”, then goodness or badness must mean something else other than the pain or pleasure produced
What book is Ayers most famed emotivist piece and what 3 challenegs did he have to face within it?
‘Language truth and logic’ (1936)
1) Utilitarians who consider ‘good’ and ‘pleasurable’ equivalent
2) Subjectivists who see ‘good’ as equivalent to ‘a feeling of approval’
3) Intuitionists
How does Ayer counter the intuitionist argument?
“unless it is possible to provide some criterion by which one may decide between conflicting intuitions, a mere appeal to intuition is worthless as a test of a proposition’s validity”
Essentially Ayer means that moral language cannot be seen as intuitive because intuitive meta-ethical ideas presuppose that moral agents have a universal, innate sense of ‘good’ or ‘bad’
How does Ayer counter the subjectivism argument?
“We reject the subjectivist view that to call an action right, or a thing good, is to say that it is generally approved of, because it is not self- contradictory to assert that some actions which are generally approved of are not right, or that some things which are generally approved of are not good.”
What does Ayer say about the logical properties of ethical statements?
The statement “stealing is wrong” doesnt propose an empirically provable proposition, there is no empirical test we can run hat would establish some fact to arbitrate between two people, one who felt stealing is wrong absolutely and one who deosnt.
Why arent ethical statements analysable?
Because they are pseudo concepts (meaning a concept that appears to have factual meaning but doesnt.
“It follows that any attempt to make our use of ethical concepts the basis of a metaphysical theory concerning the existence of a world of values, as distinct from the world of facts, involves a false analysis of these concepts.”
What sort of statement does Ayer say ethical statements are?
He argues that a moral statement is just the same as saying “stealing money!!” expressed with a tone of disapproval
What are the three functions of an ethical statement according to Ayer?
1) Expressing/evincing emotions
2) “They are calculated also to arouse feeling,
3) and so to stimulate action”
Ayer furthered his theory by arguing that ethical terms do not only serve to express feelings. They are calculated to also arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action.
Why isnt Ayer arguing for subjectivism?
This is because the statement “stealing is wrong” doesn’t express a proposition.
Ayer argues that ethical statements are simply forms of expression of feelings, not assertions about those feelings which we could, in principle have empirical arguments about.
What is Ayer’s broad view of ethical terms?
Ethical terms are no more than expressions of a moral agent’s individual feelings / emotions of approval and disapproval for a certain action. They do not attempt to define what a moral term means, they are just a moral agent’s emotionally response to an ethical situation.
What are two strengths of emotivism?
1) Viewing moral terms as expressions of emotion would explain the diversity of moral opinion that we see across cultures and within our own culture which succeeds where Intuitionists fail by arguing these differences by saying that there are different intuitive abilities at work which seems, which seems highly unlikely.
2) We definitely have emotions. We don’t have to posit non natural facts. Instead of empirical evidence for Intuitionism there are conflicting and unsubstantiated claims that intuitions come from God, the ‘gut’ or genetics.
What is one weakness of emotivism?
1) Moral argument is impossible-
Ayer accepts this and says “We hold that one really never does dispute about questions of value”,
but his argument for why this is, is that when we think we’re engaging in a moral dispute the argument is an illusion because there are no facts to dispute about
we think our argument is ethical but we’re really just cheerleading for our way of going on
What quote from Ayer supports his argument for moral arguments being impossible?
“in all such cases we find that the dispute is not really about questions of value but about questions of fact”. Ayer
What is a challenge to Ayers support for moral arguments being impossible?
We surely cant agree that there is no good or bad other than in our emotional responses
Surely moral disapproval is DIFFERENT to other types of disapproval
Like Saying FGM is wrong doesn’t mean the same thing as saying you don’t like spinach.
