1F - Meta-Ethical Approaches - Emotivism

Explain how objective moral laws do not exist.

▪ Russel: "when we assert that this has 'value', we are giving expression to our emotions"

▪ For something to have value intrinsically, it is a matter of pure, non-cognitive subjectivity - not objectivity as Moore claimed
- E.g. 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'

▪ While Moore claimed that self-evident truths do not need justification, Russel claimed that to be 'self-evident' means that they cannot be deemed to be true or false

▪ Hume, Russel, Ayer: ethical propositions do not fit into either category of Hume's fork ∴ meaningless

How did A. J. Ayer view ethical statements?

• They are neither verifiable nor analytic

▪ He rejects intuitionism ∵ cannot verify, especially when there is no way to solve the debate about conflicting intuitions

▪ Any ethical element in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content; e.g. stealing: 'You acted wrongly in stealing that money' = the same as 'You stole that money' ∵ no further statement is being made

How is emotivism different from subjectivism?

▪ Subjectivism holds that values arise out of the attitudes a person has
- e.g. may feel that corporal punishment is bad, but is it our feelings that make an action 'bad'?

▪ For Ayer, emotions/attitudes towards issues do not affect the moral value of a proposition

How can ethical statements be persuasive?

▪ Ethical language goes beyond just an emotional response to moral situations
▪ Ayer: "ethical terms do not serve only to express feeling. They are calculated also to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action" ∴ are persuasive

Explain Ayer's view that ethical terms are expressions of personal approval (hurrah) or disapproval (boo).

▪ Ayer insisted that ethical propositions = simply emotive ∴ became known as the 'Hurrah'boo!' theory

▪ Making moral judgements = same as saying 'hurrah' or 'boo'
- 'stealing is bad' - express this emotion by 'boo to stealing'
- 'giving to charity is good' - express this emotion by 'hurrah to giving to charity'

▪ Lacewig: "they are simply our feelings of approval or disapproval"

Who coined the term 'Emotivism'? Why?

▪ C. L. Stevenson

▪ He felt that ethical language went beyond just an emotional response
- Ethical language = dynamic - power to command, express approval/disapproval, persuade, arouse sympathy; he referred to this "dynamic power" as its "casual property"

- The emotive meaning of a word is the tendency [...] to produce affective responses in people" [note: 'affective' is not misspelt]

- 'Good' = indefinable ∵ in any definition, the emotive element will be distorted

How does Stevenson argue that emotivism explains why people disagree about morality?

▪ Ethical debate = meaningful. He distinguished between propositions about 'belief' and propositions about 'attitude'
- Attitudes = statements that reflect the emotive use of ethical language in debate; reveals how the person feels/sees things
- Beliefs = facts that can be objectively verified; not about ethical convictions

▪ 'Abortion is the legal termination of a foetus' = belief

▪ 'Abortion is wrong' = attitude

▪ Ethical debate = meaningful ∵ people's attitudes = often based on beliefs
- Ethical debate = based upon justifiable beliefs - the purpose is to share attitudes on these beliefs

▪ People are using emotions to influence attitudes

▪ The disagreement = IN attitudes, not ABOUT attitudes
- Emotivism can explain why people disagree about morality without making debate meaningless

Give the challenge to emotivism from Warnock.

▪ It is too broad a theory for ethical language
▪ It is not precise enough ∵ does not differentiate between ethical / non-ethical use of emotive language

Give the challenge to emotivism that no basic moral principles can be established.

▪ Emotivism only values meta-ethics

▪ Ayer used meta-ethics to reduce ethical statements to mere sentiments that express no factual information

▪ Value judgements are not rational ∴ no rational agreement is possible on ethical matters

▪ Dismisses normative ethics, but then leaves moral agents in a guideless state of antinomianism

▪ Mel Thompson: "You cannot reduce morality to a set of cheers and boos"

▪ As morality is reduced to emotions with no rational basis, the concept of basic moral principles = unfounded ∴ do not exist
- Other extreme = no limit on moral principles that can be identified through emotions, but they are so conflicting that no sense of coherence can be found

Explain the challenge to emotivism that ethical debate becomes a pointless activity.

▪ If there are no basic moral principles, ethical debate becomes a pointless activity ∵ we cannot differentiate good from bad + right from wrong

▪ By reducing ethical debate to influencing others' attitudes/emotions, it becomes no more than an exercise in propaganda

▪ However, history has demonstrated that ethical debate involving emotions has led to clear decisions e.g. abolition of slavery, women receiving the vote

Explain the challenge to emotivism that there is no universal agreement that some actions are wrong.

▪ If ethical debate = about persuasion, it will never be able to establish universal agreement on actions considered as wrong - no sense of authority to appeal to
- However, could argue that most normative ethics are not universal in their nature

▪ If we accept Emotivism, we are not clearly differentiating between things we disapprove of
- MacIntyre: "unable to distinguish between my dislike of curries from my dislike of genocide"