non-cognitive approaches to meta-ethics

history of emotivism

• view that morals can be understood purely as emotional responses

• The theory can be traced back to the Logical Positivists – a group of philosophers who gave ethical language a scientific definition, ignoring the idea of real or natural values.

• The 18^th century Scottish philosopher David Hume had argued that ethics amounts only to ‘sentiments’ (feelings), and this idea was later taken up by the modern English philosopher, A.J. Ayer.

• According to Ayer’s Verification Principle, language is only meaningful if it can be verified (shown to be true) either analytically or synthetically. Ayer did not think that this applied to religious beliefs or moral ideas.

Ayer’s emotivism

• Moral judgements aren’t judgements of reason, but our feelings.

• We simply express our approval or disapproval, so that to say ‘lying is wrong’ is a bit like saying ‘boo to lying’.

• Ayer claimed, “in saying a certain type of action is right or wrong, I am not making any factual statement … I am merely expressing certain moral sentiments.”

• Ayer also accepted the fact-value distinction implied by Hume’s theory of motivation and is-ought gap

• Therefore, we are left with anti-realism: we cannot assert that there are either natural nor non-natural moral properties, so anti-realism is true

boo/ hurrah theory

• ayer emotivism

• Saying ‘X is wrong’ is just saying ‘boo to X’, or just saying X with a really disgusted tone of voice. When we call things good or bad, right or wrong, we are just having an emotional outburst. Saying ‘X is good’ is just saying ‘hurrah to X’.

• This fits with the reality of human psychology. When people engage in moral debates, it does seem that they are merely having an emotional conflict. That’s why moral debates are often described as ‘heated’.

Ayer’s verification principle

• builds upon hume’s fork

• the criteria of meaningful cognitive language.

• A statement is only meaningful if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable through experience.

• Firstly, ethical statements are not analytic. Analytic statements are true by definition and cannot be denied without contradiction. Ethical statements can be denied without contradiction. If I deny that ‘stealing is wrong’, there is no apparent contradiction. The concept of ‘stealing’ does not seem contradicted by ‘not wrong’.

• Secondly, ethical statements are not synthetic nor empirically verifiable. Moral properties like ‘goodness’ and ‘badness’ do not seem to exist in experience. They are not observable. In a supposedly ‘moral’ action, we could list the physical facts about it which we can experience. The so-called ‘good/badness’ of the action cannot be found amongst them.

• So, moral judgements are neither analytic nor synthetic (Hume), nor empirically verifiable (Ayer).

Hume’s fork

Hume’s fork aims to show that moral judgements cannot be judgements of reason (neither analytic or synthetic).

Hume’s fork claims that there are two types of judgements of reason:

1.     Synthetic judgements, only known a posteriori.

2.     Analytic judgements, only known a priori.

strengths of command in Ayer’s emotivism

• Not all emotive statements are equal. Moral statements arouse feelings, but with three different strengths of command.

• 1) implying a duty is the strongest form of statement.

• 2) Saying that one ‘ought’ to do something is less strong.

• 3)Finally, merely stating that something is good/bad is very weak.

• This is all emotion, but it functions with different intensity.

C.L. Stevenson’s emotivism

• Stevenson claimed that there are such things as real disagreements in attitudes, rather than just differing emotions.

• Stevenson did not just emphasise the persuasive side of ethics, but also the view that attitudes are based on beliefs.

• So, if I say that ‘capital punishment is wrong’, I have an attitude which is shaped by my prior beliefs. Disagreements are not just different emotions, but also issues of different underlying convictions – what life is, its value, etc.

• Stevenson’s views thus give more meaning to moral disagreement, whereas Ayer only sees these as conflicts of feelings.

• For the emotivist, all we can do is recognise the power to persuade that lies behind moral statements, but we should not be deceived into thinking they have actual factual value.

WEAKNESS OF emotivism

Neither Hume’s fork nor the verification principle themselves seem analytic as they can be denied without contradiction, but it’s hard to see how either could be inferred from experience. So, they fail their own test. Hume’s fork is not a judgement of reason. The verification principle is meaningless.

WEAKNESS: mackie’s criticism of emotivism

• Mackie accepts that emotivism is ‘part of the truth’ because of Hume’s psychology. Ethical language expresses non-cognitions that motivate us.

• Mackie’s contention is that ethical language also expresses cognitions, making it cognitive.

• When facing moral dilemmas, we don’t merely seek emotional satisfaction, nor to know whether a prescription about it is one we could rationally universally recommend. What we want to know is the objectively right answer about what we ought/should do.

• Mackie concludes that in addition to motivating non-cognitions, ethical language also expresses cognitive beliefs about objective moral properties.

• However, since Mackie thinks there are no objective moral properties, all ethical beliefs are false. If someone says “stealing is good”, that’s false because it’s not true that goodness exists. If someone says “stealing is bad”, that’s false because it’s not true that badness exists.

STRENGTHS of emotivism (ayer, general, stevenson)

• Ayer’s approach to ethics lacks the problem of speculative and metaphysical ideas – it is based on the observation of behaviour, rather than God or timeless forms. (criticism of aristotelian naturalism)

• It acknowledges the existence of moral diversity

• Stevenson is able to explain the complex meaning of ethical terms and gives some hope for resolving ethical disputes, because he emphasises underlying beliefs and definitions.

Mackie’s anti-realist arguments

• mackie is cognitivist but also anti-realist.

• Mackie’s anti-realist arguments are in a stronger position than Hume and Ayer’s because they do not rely on empiricist doctrines like the fork or verification principle.

• Mackie thinks that the linguistic approach to meta-ethics was flawed. Ayer’s verification principle and also Moore’s open question argument & naturalistic fallacy were overly focused on linguistic analysis of moral concepts. They wrongly thought linguistic analysis entitled them to draw metaphysical conclusions.

• Mackie instead makes the argument that objective values are actually ‘queer’ and thus incomprehensible → mackie’s queerness arguments

mackie’s queerness arguments

• anti-realist BUT cognitivist remember this!!

• Metaphysical queerness. 

  • there is a connection between moral judgments and motivation. If moral realism is true and moral judgements were reflect reality, there must be objective moral properties which motivate us.

  • Mackie sums this up as that ‘not-to-be-doneness’ would be somehow present in reality. It’s impossible to conceive of what that would involve. This is grounds for thinking there are no objective moral properties.

• Epistemological queerness. 

  • Even if there were objective moral properties, how could we know them? Moore’s answer that we just have a mysterious faculty of intuition is arguably not an answer because it doesn’t explain how that faculty works.

criticism of mackie’s queerness argument

• Mackie’s queerness arguments really only work against non-naturalism, not naturalism.

• If we could prove that goodness is pleasure or flourishing, then there would be nothing incomprehensible about moral properties existing, motivating us nor how we come to have knowledge of them. It’s not strange at all that we would be motivated to flourish.

• Mackie’s relativity argument claimed social conditioning was the best explanation of our moral views. Virtue ethicists again can respond that while this is often true, humans can cultivate virtues and rational autonomy to indirectly control their emotional reactions. So, we are not solely led by social conditioning or adherence to a form of life. Our moral views can sometimes result from rationally cultivated virtuous habits.

• Utilitarians can respond similarly regarding pleasure/happiness

prescriptivism

• anti-realist + non-cognitivist

• R.M Hare was not satisfied with Ayer’s reduction of ethical language completely to emotion.

• Hare thought that ethical language did indeed express emotion – but is also intrinsically prescriptive and implies what ought to be done

• moral statements command behaviour and guide actions because they prescribe attitudes

• Prescriptions are like imperatives that are orders and requests to be followed (kant core)

• For Hare, if someone says ‘stealing is wrong’ that just means ‘don’t steal’. → This is still non-cognitive because the statement can’t be true or false.

STRENGTH of prescriptivism: hare’s solution to moral disagreement

• Hare thought his approach helped to explain the role of reason, logic and disagreement in ethical language, which seem irreducible to emotion.

• When we make a prescription, however, we do need to use reason and logic to think about whether we would really accept it universally in all cases.

• Prescriptions can conflict with each other, causing what appears to be moral disagreement.

• Hare illustrated with the example of Nazis who thought killing Jews should be universally prescribed.

  • Imagine a Nazi found out they were Jewish. Most would not want to be killed.

  • But then, they do not really accept their own universal prescription. So, Nazis are irrational.

  • This doesn’t mean they are objectively wrong, but it does explain the role of reason, logic and disagreement in ethical language better than Ayer did.

WEAKNESS of prescriptivism: mackie

• L. J. Mackie criticised Hare’s approach and said that morals are not universal

• Individuals’ preferences differ so Hare’s approach does not work in practice

• “Do unto others as they would have them do unto you” doesn’t work if we want different things done to us!

Hume’s non-cognitive theory of motivation

• It aims to show that moral judgements (i.e., thinking “X is right/wrong”) cannot be caused by reason.

• Moral judgements involve motivation to action. Motivation must involve desire

• Moral judgements always come after and are joined with emotional approval or disapproval. We have positive or negative emotion towards an action and then judge it good or bad.

• Reason doesn’t control emotions, so it can’t create moral judgements. Hume claimed it was the other way around, that reason is “the slave of the passions”. Reason can only create beliefs about how to satisfy/achieve our desired ends.

• We have particular emotional associations and feelings due to our socially conditioned preferences and biases. Reason then provides ad hoc rationalisations for our prejudices. Our mind is more like a lawyer than a scientist.

• So, desire is the foundational motivator of moral judgements, not reason. Ethical language thus expresses non-cognitive desires.

WEAKNESS of humes theory of motivations

• Jonathan Haidt creates an illustration to show how Hume went too far calling reason a ‘slave’.

  • Emotions are like an elephant and reason is like its rider. The elephant will often just go wherever it likes, dragging the rider along with it. Nonetheless, over the long-term, the rider can control the general direction of the elephant. Similarly, a human’s reason can control their general behaviour despite their emotions, e.g. getting themselves to revise by planning rewards and rest breaks.

• When a person says “X is wrong”, they are partly expressing how they feel, and they feel that way partly due to social conditioning.

• However, Hume was wrong to leave his analysis there. People also have a degree of rational autonomy.

• We can rationally control and cultivate our emotional reactions and habits towards flourishing.

• Then, our moral judgements also expresses cognitions regarding flourishing or what a virtuous person would do.

STRENGTH/ DEFENCE of hume’s theory of motivation

• Haidt and virtue ethicists’ critique of Hume is unsuccessful because it fails to consider that our rational cultivation of our emotional reactions could itself be driven by desire.

• Hume could accept that reason can sometimes cultivate a control over our emotions.

• However, we can still question why reason chose to cultivate the emotional habits it did.

• The ultimate root must still be desire. During cultivation of virtue, we desire to control our desires.

• The foundational root of all human behaviour is still desire and therefore the fundamental states being expressed through ethical language are non-cognitions.