Argues that emotivism is compatible with cases where we seem to lack motivation to act according to our moral opinions.

It is commonly assumed that the non-cognitivists of the first half of the twentieth century - the emotivists – were internalists about moral motivation. It is also commonly assumed that they were prompted to choose emotivism over other cognitivist positions in ethics because of their commitment to internalism. Finally, it is also commonly assumed that they used an internalist argument to argue for emotivism. -/- In this article I argue that the connection between emotivism and internalism is (...) far more tenuous than is commonly assumed. I focus on two of the most important and influential emotivists: A. J. Ayer and Charles L. Stevenson. While it is true that Stevenson was an internalist, Ayer refused to endorse internalism. Neither of them was originally prompted to choose emotivism over cognitivist positions in ethics by internalist considerations. Finally, Ayer never used an internalist argument to argue for emotivism; Stevenson did once borrow an internalist argument from another philosopher in order to argue for emotivism, but he later abandoned it. (shrink)

Emotivists hold that moral opinions are wishes and desires, and that the function of moral language is to “express” such states. But if moral opinions were but wishes or desires, why would we see certain opinions as inconsistent with, or following from other opinions? And why should our reasoning include complex opinions such as the opinion that a person ought to be blamed only if he has done something wrong? Indeed, why would we think that anything is conditional on his (...) doing something wrong unless “doing something wrong” signifies a real kind of action? -/- Many have believed, and seemingly on good grounds, that these questions lack good answers, and that emotivism is doomed for that very reason. What I will argue, however, is that once emotivism is recognized for what it is, namely an empirical theory about the psychological nature of moral opinions, and once we relate it to a general theory of human reasoning, moral reasoning and intuitions of inconsistency and consequence are only to be expected. Recent objections to earlier emotivist or “expressivist” accounts can thus be met, and the phenomena of inconsistency and consequence fully embraced by emotivists. (shrink)

I THE THEORY OF VALUE AND THE RISE OF ETHICAL EMOTIVISM i. The standard account Historical accounts of recent moral philosophy present the subject as going ...

Emotivism is the doctrine that ethical beliefs are nothing more than projections of emotion. In this concise study, it is shown that emotions themselves embody ethical beliefs and that, for that reason, emotivism implicitly presupposes the truth of a non-emotivism conception of ethical truth and therefore fails.

This is a brief overview of the view in metaethics called Emotivism.

The thesis of Emotivism, a species of non‐descriptivism, is that there is more to the meaning of moral statements than syntax and truth conditions; in particular, moral statements have an expressive, and a causative aspect. Drawing upon J. L. Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts, Hare argues that emotivists try to explain the meaning of moral statements, which they assimilate to imperatives, in terms of their perlocutionary effect. The difficulty with this is that, firstly, the emotivists hold a (...) false theory of imperatives, and secondly, perlocutionary effect cannot explain meaning. Furthermore, emotivists deny the possibility of rational moral argument, and therefore embrace irrationalism. Towards the end of this chapter, Hare identifies six essential features of moral language, and its logic, that must be recognized and accounted for by an adequate moral theory: Neutrality, Practicality, Incompatibility, Logicality, Arguability, and Conciliation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct Charles L. Stevenson’s metaethical view. Since his metaethical view is a form of emotivism, I will start by explaining what the core claims of emotivism are. I will then explore and comment on the specific claims of Stevenson’s proposal. Last, I will offer an overview of the objections that have traditionally been raised against emotivism.

By distinguishing between pragmatic and semantic aspects of emotivism, and by distinguishing between inflationary and deflationary conceptions of truth conditions, this paper defends emotivism against a series of objections. First, it is not the case (as Blackburn has argued) that emotivism must explain the appearance that moral sentences have truth conditions. Second, it is not the case (as Boghossian has argued) that emotivism presupposes that non-moral sentences have inflationary truth conditions. Finally, it is not the case (...) (as Geach and Blackburn have argued) that emotivism is inconsistent with the validity of certain simple arguments. (shrink)

Hume is believed by many to hold an emotivist thesis, according to which all expressions of moral judgements are expressions of moral sentiments. However, most specialist scholars of Hume either deny that this is Hume's position or believe that he has failed to argue convincingly for it. I argue that Hume is an emotivist, and that his true arguments for emotivism have been hitherto overlooked. Readers seeking to understand Hume's theory of moral judgements have traditionally looked to the first (...) section of Book 3 of his Treatise, which discusses the relation between morality and reason. I argue that there is evidence elsewhere which better supports Hume's emotivist thesis. Hume's arguments for emotivism focus more on the causes of moral sentiments than on their relation to reason or belief, and he argues that moral sentiments are such as to arise whenever we contemplate morally relevant objects. He also holds that the presence of moral sentiments precludes any possibility of moral belief, because moral beliefs could only be less vivid copies of moral sentiments, and these cannot simultaneously exist. Hume concludes that all moral judgements must be expressions of sentiments. (shrink)

This chapter both explains the origins of emotivism in C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, R. B. Braithwaite, Austin Duncan-Jones, A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson (along with the endorsement by Frank P. Ramsey, and the summary of C. D. Broad), and looks at MacIntyre's criticisms of emotivism as the inevitable result of Moore's attack on naturalistic ethics and his ushering in the fact/value, which was a historical product of the Enlightenment.

Emotivists like Ayer claim that moral sentences are devoid of cognitive meaning since they only evince attitudinal approval or disapproval of actions. In this paper, I explore two non-classical sem...

In chapter VI of Language, Truth, and Logic, A.J. Ayer argues that ethical statements are not literally significant. Unlike metaphysical statements, however, ethical statements are not nonsensical: even though they are not literally significant, Ayer thinks that they possess some other sort of significance. This raises the question: by what principle or criterion can we distinguish, among the class of statements that are not literally significant, between those which are genuinely meaningless and those which possess some other, non-literal form of (...) significance. I suggest that Ayer needs a generalised version of the verification principle in order to answer this question. However, when we formulate the generalised version, it turns out that ethical statements do not satisfy it, so that the emotivist is committed to viewing ethics, like metaphysics, as meaningless verbiage. (shrink)

This paper builds on the work of several exceptional scholars from the disciplines of philosophy, law, and history. My central aim is to introduce and explicate an idea closely related to (and derivative of) the concept of rights talk, a concept I call ‘constitutional emotivism’. By drawing upon scholars including Mary Ann Glendon, Jamal Greene, A.J. Ayer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, I aim to gather the conceptual threads that I trace through their work which together form the idea of constitutional (...) emotivism. In a sentence, constitutional emotivism is the conflation of moral disagreements with constitutional rights grievances. When this conflation occurs, rights conflicts that never needed to occur in the first place reinforce rights talk and its uncompromising nature. (shrink)

The paper investigates different ways to understand the claim that non-cognitivist theories of morality are incoherent. According to the claim, this is so because, on one theory of truth, non-cognitivists are not able to deny objective truth to moral judgments without taking a substantive normative position. I argue that emotivism is not self-defeating in this way. The charge of incoherence actually only amounts to a claim that emotivism is incompatible with deflationary truth, but this claim is based upon (...) a mistake. It relies upon a problematic understanding of both emotivism and the deflationary theory of truth. (shrink)

본 논문은 매킨타이어(Alasdair MacIntyre)가 제시한 정의주의(emotivism) 개념과 그에 따른 그의 관점들에 대해 살펴 보면서 문제점들을 검토해 보고자 하는 것이 목적이다. 즉 정의주의 자체를 옹호하기 위한 것이 아니라 정의주의에 대한 매킨타이어의 관점을 살펴보고자 하는 것이다. 그는 근대 이후의 서구를 정의주의가 지배해온 사회로 규정하면서 그 부정적인 면을 에서 부각시키면서 그 대안으로 목적론적 합리성을 기초로 하는 공동체적 사회의 바람직함을 역설하고 있다. 그가 동원하고 있는 아리스토텔레스적 목적론과 이를 통해 추구하는 공동체적 사회의 이상에 대해서는 상당한 정도의 공감을 얻어 왔다고 할 수 있다. 그러나 그의 (...) 저서의 전반적인 논의 과정을 면밀히 살펴보면 여러 가지 문제점들이 발견된다. 그 중 중요한 것만 몇 가지 열거하면 다음과 같다. 첫째 매킨타이어는 정의주의에 대한 정의(定義)를 모호하게 내리고 있는데다가 정의주의 이론을 대표하는 사람들의 범위도 지나치게 넓게 잡고 있다는 것이다. 이 때문에 무엇보다도 도덕에 있어서 소박하게 정서의 중요성을 말하는 사람들 까지도 정의주의자로 인식될 수 있는 여지를 제공하고 있다는 것이다. 두 번째로 매킨타이어가 기술하고 있는 내용을 통해서 보면 그가 제시하고 있는 정의주의적 자아 개념은 사실상 개인주의적 자아 개념과 별 차이가 없다는 것이다. 세 번째로 매킨타이어가 현대 사회를 정의주의가 지배하는 사회로 규정하는 가운데 정의주의의 사회적 구현의 주요 형태로 제시하고 있는 사회적 내용과 사회적 맥락 또한 모두 상당한 정도로 논의의 일관성을 결여하고 있을 뿐 아니라 설명에 있어서 혼선을 일으키고 있다는 점이다. 네 번째로 매킨타이어가 정의주의에 대한 대안으로 제시하고 있는 합리성 개념 또한 설득력이 부족하다는 점이다. 다섯 번째로 매킨타이어는 근대 이후 도덕의 분리․독립이 정의주의를 가져오게 된 주된 계기로 작용한 것으로 상정하고 있으나 필자가 판단하기에는 오히려 근대 이후 개인주의적인 종교적․철학적 사유가 매킨타이어가 말하는 정의주의적 사회로 이끄는 역할을 했다고 본다. 여섯 번째로 그는 근대 이후의 서구가 정의주의적 도덕문화가 주류를 이루는 것으로 보고 있으나 이 또한 지나치게 획일적이고 단선적인 규정이며 현대 사회의 다양성과 복잡성을 도외시하는 것으로 보인다. 일곱 번째로 매킨타이어는 정의주의에 대한 대안으로서 아리스토텔레스적 목적론을 자신의 합리성 개념과 결합시키려 하고 있으나 너무 합리성의 정당화에만 지나치게 초점을 맞추어 논의를 전개함에 따라 설득력있는 결론에 이르는데 한계를 드러내고 있다. 그러한 한계를 스스로 인식하게 되면서 새로운 돌파구를 마련하고자 나중에는 아리스토텔레스로부터 토마스 아퀴나스로 전환하게 되지만 이를 통해 오히려 그 자신의 합리성 개념이 더욱 손상되는 방향으로 나아가게 된 것으로 보인다. 매킨타이어가 현대사회의 문제점을 치유하고자 제시한 공동체론과 이를 위한 목적론적 사유양식은 오늘날의 지나친 개인주의적 병폐들을 개선하기 위한 훌륭한 대안 중 하나로서 많은 사람들에 의해 인정을 받고 있으나, 그는 이러한 이론을 정립하는 과정에서 비판의 표적을 잘못 선정하는 한편 또한 자신의 합리성 개념의 정당화에 지나치게 집착함으로써 논의의 전개에 있어서 여러 허점을 드러내고 있다고 할 수 있다. 그러나 그가 추구하는 공동체와 목적론적 이상은 계속 연구․발전시켜야 할 중요한 대상이라고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

The process of decision making is predictable and irrational according to Daniel Ariely and other economic behaviorists, historians, and philosophers such as Daniel Kahneman or Yuval Noah Harari. Decisions made anteriorly can be, but don’t have to be, present in the actions of a person. Stories and shared belief in myths, especially those that arise from a system of human norms and values and are based on a belief in a “supernatural” order (religion) are important. Because of this, mass cooperation (...) amongst strangers is possible. (shrink)

Emotivism has enjoined a revival of sorts over the past few decades, primarily driven by a Darwinian interpretation of the Humean metaethic. Evolutionary ethics, the metaethical view that at the heart of our moral sense lies a set of moral sentiments whose existence 'pre-dates' in evolutionary terms our species' ability to engage in more explicit, cognitive moral deliberations and discourse, whether in the discovery of deontological rules or in the crafting of social contracts, figures prominently in Robert Solomon's work (...) in justice theory and J. Baird Callicott's work in environmental ethics, to name just two efforts to revive emotivism. Though the idea that our moral sense is grounded in our evolved biology lies at the heart of the new ethical emotivism, there has been a curious lack of a truly evolutionary account of the origin of that biological predisposition in the work of Solomon, Callicott, and others involved in the revival. In particular, what is missing is an account of how we evolved our moral sense as an adaptation to the ecology in which our very early ancestors existed. The typical explanation is to treat it as selected for by the pressure to cooperate that bore upon our early ancestors; for example, the advantage that cooperative effort confers in bringing down big game or warding off competing groups. But this type of explanation, I hope to show, rather than providing an account of how our moral sense came to be, actually must presuppose the existence of a rudimentary moral sense. If so, then the origin of our moral sense must be accounted for as an adaptation to our pre-social, ecological environment. As a model for what such an explanation might look like I will use Jared Diamond's recent work in biogeography, Guns, Germs and Steel. (shrink)

According to the old tradition in ethical theory that Professor von Wright attempts to revive in his paper “Valuations,” value judgments are to be viewed as nothing but expressions of approving or disapproving emotional attitudes. The present paper argues against this view on the grounds that (i) to have an emotional attitude towards an object o does not merely mean to express our liking or disliking of it, but to make a genuine (i.e., true or false) judgment about o; and (...) that (ii) this judgment, and not the emotional attitude o arises in us, is what we are justified to properly call a “value judgement.”. (shrink)

This article provides a defense of a variety of MacIntyrean arguments against emotivism. In After Virtue MacIntyre explains that emotivism might be understood either as a theory about the meaning or about the function of moral language. He also argues that emotivism is false either way. I argue that MacIntyre is right about this by explaining and then answering the recent defenses of emotivism that have appeared in the literature. I conclude by reminding the reader that (...) according to MacIntyre his attacks on emotivism also serve as attacks on other subjectivist ethical theories, such as prescriptivism and existentialism. Thus, if he is right about this, then his critique of emotivism has more far ranging implications than one might initially suppose. (shrink)

In 1913 Russell gave up on the Moorean good. But since naturalism was not an option, that left two alternatives: the error theory and non-cognitivism. Despite a brief flirtation with the error theory Russell preferred the non-cognitivist option, developing a form of emotivism according to which to say that something is good is to express the desire that everyone should desire it. But why emotivism rather than the error theory? Because emotivism sorts better with Russell’s Fundamental Principle (...) that the “sentences we can understand must be composed of words with whose meaning we are acquainted.” I construct an argument for emotivism featuring the Fundamental Principle that closely parallels Ayer’s verificationist argument in Language, Truth, and Logic. I contend that Russell’s argument, like Ayer’s, is vulnerable to a Moorean critique. This suggests an important moral: revisionist theories of meaning such as verificationism and the Fundamental Principle are prima facie false. Any modus ponens from such a principle to a surprising semantic conclusion (such as emotivism) is trumped by a Moorean modus tollens from the negation of the surprising semantics to the negation of the revisionist principle. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the relation between democratic values and emotions. The author argues that democratic values and emotional judgments are inter-reducible: political agents use emotional judgments to reflexively evaluate normative paradigms of political life. In the first part of the paper, the author describes the state of emotions in contemporary political philosophy and identifies Charles Stevenson?s ethical conception of emotivism as the first comprehensive attempt to neutrally conceptualize emotions in moral and political thinking. The (...) second part of the paper explores the shortcomings of emotivism and finds an adequate alternative in Martha Nussbaum?s concept of emotional judgment as the one that contains beliefs and values about social objects. In the final part of the paper, the author identifies that moral and political disagreements emerge in democracies from ranking of the importance of political objects. The evaluation criteria for this type of ranking is derived from democratic values which are reducible to agents? emotional judgments. (shrink)

Na primeira parte, argumento que o descritivismo proposto por Moritz Schlick não compreende adequadamente a função dos juízos morais. Na segunda parte, argumento que o emotivismo não apresenta uma explicação adequada para o papel da razão na ética. Na terceira parte, argumento que o prescritivismo universal proposto por R. M. Hare avança na solução dos problemas do emotivismo, porque amplia o papel da razão na ética, e na solução dos problemas do descritivismo, porque compreende a função dos juízos morais na (...) linguagem ordinária. The first part of this article argues that descriptivism as proposed by Moritz Schlick does not correctly understand the function of moral judgements. The second part argues that emotivism does not provide an adequate explanation of the role of reason in ethics. Finally, the article shows how the universal prescriptivism proposed by R. M. Hare furthers the solution of the problems of emotivism, since it extends the role of reason in ethics and in the resolution of the problems of descriptivism, given that it understands the function of moral judgements in ordinary language. (shrink)