EMOTIVISM
LOGICAL POSITIVISM
Logical positivism embraced a scientific method for verifying knowledge – a process of verification –
which excluded the possibility of moral facts. This shows the influence of David Hume (1711-1776),
who believed that sentiment was the source of right and wrong. If you decide to help someone in
need, you do so because you have feelings, not because you have reason. Hume believed in a
common feeling for each other’s welfare. We all have a capacity for compassion, but it has nothing
to do with reason. You can’t go from a factual statement (an ‘is’) to a moral one (an ‘ought). Logical
positivism acknowledged that moral facts were not like scientific ones, but went on to conclude that
they were not facts at all.
If I make a statement, it is either true or false depending whether someone in principle could go and
check the facts to which I refer. If there is no possible evidence that can be given either for or against
that statement being true, then it is meaningless. This approach was summed up as: “The meaning
of a statement is its method of verification”. I.e. to say ‘X exists’ means ‘if you go and look, you will
see X’.
This view of language is found in the early work of Wittgenstein. His Tractatus (1921) was an
immensely influential book, which inspired a group of philosophers known as the Vienna Circle, and
it was there that logical positivism developed. Its influence was spread by the publication in 1936 of
Language, Truth and Logic by A. J. Ayer. Ayer claimed that there were only two kinds of
propositions:


Truths known by definition (e.g. maths and logic)
Truths known through sense experience (i.e. proved by external facts)
i.e. synthetic and analytic statements
Where do moral statements come in such a scheme? If they are known by definition then they are
mere tautologies, claiming nothing. OTOH, how can you point to facts that prove a moral statement?
That, too, is impossible – you cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. Hence, Ayer saw all moral
statements as meaningless.
This challenge dominated ethics from the 1930s until the 1960s.
Emotivism (ethical non-naturalism)
Logical positivists criticised moral statements because they said they were making factual claims.
A.J.AYER (1910-1989) – leading British exponent of emotivism
Ayer argued for a theory about the nature of ethical statements that became known as emotivism.
An emotivist view gets round the logical positivist rules about what is meaningful by claiming that
moral statements are not factual, but express the feelings of the person who makes them. If you like
something then you call it good; if you dislike it you call it bad. Such statements are like grunts,
screams or cheers, to arouse feelings or express pain. Hence, this is sometimes called the ‘hurrahboo’ theory. To say that lying is wrong is to say boo to lying. In so doing, we’re expressing a feeling
against lying. To say that charity work is good is to say hurrah to charity work, and nothing more.
We’re simply saying that we feel positive towards it.
Moral statements serve no real purpose, because they are an expression of feeling. Ayer did not
even think that ethical statements asserted views. They only express feelings, a bit like the one you
would get when you tread barefoot on a pin. To say that ‘the ouch I express when I tread on a pin is
true’ is meaningless. In the same way, moral statements are meaningless. They are not an argument
for someone’s belief, although Ayer thought that they were calculated to arouse feelings and
stimulate action.
Thus two people can consider the same facts and come to quite different moral conclusions. One
cannot say that one is right and the other wrong, because there are no facts that separate them, one
can only accept that each is using moral judgements to express his or her emotional response to that
set of facts.
People may reject Ayer’s theory – suggesting a whole variety of causes for their moral beliefs, which
they believe justify their view. I might say that murder is wrong because Jesus taught against it in the
NT and because it disrupts civilised society. Ayer explains this as an attempt to find other things that
appeal to my emotions.
C.L.STEVENSON (1908-1979)
Ayer’s approach was taken and developed by C. L. Stevenson in his Ethics and Language
(1945).While Ayer thought that arguments were people simply expressing their emotions towards
each other, Stevenson maintained there was actually a disagreement in attitudes.
Stevenson argued that moral judgements contain 2 elements:
a. An expression of an attitude based on a belief
b. A persuasive element which seeks to influence others
To say ‘this is good’ means ‘I approve of this, you should as well’. Moral statements are not just
expressions of emotion, but are the result of attitudes based on fundamental beliefs. If I say ‘capital
punishment is wrong’, it’s because I have an attitude opposed to capital punishment which is formed
by my fundamental beliefs about capital punishment – be they religious, moral or political. Ayer
thought that moral statements were emotive expressions. Stevenson maintained that a moral
disagreement tells us more about the people’s beliefs, rather than simply illustrating a ‘hurrah/boo’
emotive shouting match. Stevenson appreciated the strong roots that underlie people’s
disagreements more fully than Ayer.
Stevenson noted that many moral disagreements were not really moral disagreements at all. Two
doctors may disagree about which method to use to treat a patient, but they aren’t disagreeing
about the necessity of treating the patient. In such cases, the principle was agreed upon but the best
course of action was disputed. Real moral disagreements exist where people actually consider a
certain action or process to be right or wrong. If you maintain that it’s wrong for a wife to commit
adultery and I maintain that it’s right, then we disagree over the moral principle. In this situation,
where two opposite positions are held, it’s due to differing fundamental beliefs.
The other ingredient in a moral statement is the intention to influence the feelings of approval and
disapproval of others. If I say that euthanasia is wrong, my moral statement is seeking, in part, t
influence others to hold my attitude against euthanasia. I’m trying to persuade you to adopt my
view.
Stevenson’s development of emotivism gave more meaning to moral disagreements, which in Ayer’s
view were simply noisy shouting matches. However moral judgements didn’t imply any kind of
objective truth or fact. Stevenson ultimately considered moral statements as a result of subjective
opinions, beliefs or views.
EVALUATING EMOTIVISM
1. James Rachels criticised emotivism in his book The Elements of Moral Philosophy (1993). He
argues that Ayer and Stevenson are wrong to remove reason from moral judgements. He
criticises Ayer for drawing a parallel between the ‘ouch’ reaction to stubbing your toe and
the ‘that’s wrong’ reaction to reading about a murder in the paper.
If moral statements are simply a listing of how we feel, that does not seem to do justice to
the way in which moral statements are actually used. I may sense that, when I say of
something that it is right or good, I am doing more than simply describing my emotions at
the time. Rachels thinks that Ayer is wrong to make this association, and that there’s much
more to moral statements than simply an expression of feeling. Moral judgements appeal to
reasons, just as any judgement appeals to reasons. The statement ‘I like coffee’ needs no
reason. Moral judgements require reasons or else they are arbitrary.
2. G. J. Warnock says that to claim ‘murder is wrong’ is to make a factual statement which can
be discussed and debated. If this were not the case then, as emotions changed, so would
morality, causing an extreme form of relativism and subjectivism.
3. Language should not be simply about verifiability. Language is much richer and more
complex than scientific experiments or mathematical numbers.
4. Emotivism doesn’t have much of a following; in part, because it seems to reduce moral
discussions to at best expressions of opinion and at worst a shouting match. Vardy and
Grosch (1994) say that emotivism leaves moral debate as ‘just so much hot air and nothing
else’.
5. Emotivism reduces moral reactions about atrocities such as genocide, murder or rape to
subjective personal feelings. Whether I tell lies or the truth, whether I betray my friends or
remain loyal, my moral sense is an emotive feeling or personal belief. Ayer and Stevenson
have no place for reason in moral investigation. Nevertheless, people do express common
reactions to horrific crimes, which suggests the possibility of a reasonable basis for moral
behaviour.
6. How can we judge between two people’s moral opinions?
Despite these criticisms, Ayer and Stevenson made an important contribution to the discussion or
morality in the 20th century:
a. They took seriously the importance of language in ethical studies and forced philosophers to
consider the meaning of ethical statements. They accepted the importance of the scientific
approach to language.
b. Allowed the development of a complex and sophisticated discussion of moral language.
c. Stressed the importance of each person’s individual feelings.
d. They raised fundamental questions about normative systems of ethics, which must
adequately substantiate or justify the principles on which they are based.