Introduction to ethics
Emotivism is no longer a view of ethics that has many supporters. Like subjectivism it teaches that there are no objective moral facts, and that therefore murder is wrong can t be objectively true.
When an emotivist says murder is wrong it s like saying down with murder or murder, yecch! or just spatagonia outlet store 8523aying murder while pulling a horrified face, or making a thumbs down gesture at the same time as saying murder is wrong .
At first sight this seems such a bizarre idea that you might wonder if anyone had ever seriously thought it. One of the great philosophers of the 20th century certainly did:
The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, You acted wrongly in stealing that money, I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, You stole that money.
In adding that this action is wrong I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it. It is as if I had said, You stole that money, in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks.
The tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal meaning of the sentence. It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker.
A J Ayer, Critique of Ethics and Theology (Chapter 6 of Language Truth and Logic)
The reasons why some philosophers thought this are technical they thought that ethical statements could not be converted into statements that could be empirically tested, and thus failed the verifiability criterion of meaning which meant that they were meaningless.
Emotivism pays close attention to the way in which people use language and acknowledges that a moral judgement expresses the attitude that a person takes on a particular issue. It s like shouting hurray , or pulling a face and going ugh .
That s why this theory is called Emotivism, because it s based on the emotive effect of moral language. Instead of merely describing people s interests, they change or intensify patagonia outlet store 8522them. You are attpatagonia outlet store 8521empting, rather, to get him to disapprove of it. Your ethical judgment has a quaspatagonia clothes wholesalei imperative force which, operating through suggestion, and intensified by your tone of voice, readily permits you to begin to influence, to modify, his interests.
This version of emotivism gpatagonia outlet store 852ets round one of subjectivism s biggest problems. Consider this example:
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When one subjectivist says lying is bad, they re giving the information that they disapprove of lying. If another subjectivist says lying is good, they re giving the information that they approve of lying.
Since, according to the subjectivist view, both are reportipatagonia discount code mcafeeng their own personal feelings, there isn t actually anything that they disagree about.
But since people do sincerely disagree about moral issues, there must be more goipatagonia outlet store 8520ng on than pure subjectivism allows, and this is included in Emotivism:
When an Emotivist says lying is bad they re giving the instruction don t tell lies , while anpatagonia everlong review hp Emotivist who says lying is good is giving the instruction do tell lies and we can see that there is a clear disagreement between them.
Emotivism has become unpopular with ppatagonia everlong review with forresthilosophers because the theory that led the Emotivists to think that moral statements were meaningless has fallen from favour.
Less technically, if expressing moral judgements is really no more than expressing one s personal opinion there doesn t seem any uspatagonia guide jacket definitioneful basis for arguinpatagonia guide jacket featuresg about moral judgements.
In practical terms, Emotivism falls down because it isn t very satisfying. Even (most) philosophers think moral statements are more than just expressions of fpatagonia guide jacket your own bulletseeling.
And it s perfectly possible to imagine an ethical debate in which neither party has an emotion to express.patagonia guide pants dropping
Non philosophers also think there is more to ethics than just the expression of an attitude or an attempt to influence behaviour. They want a better explanation and foundation for shared standards of morality than Emotivism can provide.
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