Lecture 8, The Evaluation of Emotivism
Stevenson's Tests for a Metaethical Theory
One of the crucial questions a philosopher doing metaethics must consider is how to decide
between various metaethical alternatives. We need to decide what sorts of criteria, what sorts of tests,
should be used in making our choice. There is, however, disagreement about what tests a metaethic
must pass. (Needless to say, philosophers tend to like those tests that support their metaethical theories
and to shun those tests that do not.) Stevenson offers four tests that he thinks any moral theory must
pass and he argues that his emotivism does well by them. Each one of these tests has been taken up by
others and modified in various ways so their so their significance goes beyond their relevance to the
discussion of Stevenson and his emotivism. It is therefore natural to begin our evaluation of
emotivism with Stevenson's tests.
I begin with some general remarks about tests for metaethical views. Whenever we need to
choose between theories, in any area, whether or not in ethics and whether or not philosophy, we need
to appeal to the relevant facts. But what are the relevant facts that will help us choose between
metaethical theories? Mark Timmons provides a useful distinction.1i He speaks of two
“accommodation projects” for a metaethic He calls the first “the internal accommodation project.” To
be plausible, a metaethical view should comport with deeply embedded presumptions of ordinary moral
discourse and practice. It must accord with what we can think of as the facts of our moral experience,
whatever those may be. For example, we all have the experience of disagreeing with one another about
moral matters and trying to establish who is right. A metaethic must make sense of this practice.
Second, there is the “external accommodation project.” To be plausible, a metaethical view should
comport with plausible general views and assumptions from other relevant areas of inquiry. This
includes other areas of philosophy such as metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of language, the
philosophy of science, and also science itself. For example, Timmons himself embraces a kind of
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philosophical naturalism which says, roughly, that everything is part of the natural, physical world that
science investigates. As part of his external accommodation project, he therefore wants a metaethic
that can find a place for ethics in such a scientific picture of the world. On the other hand, were
someone to think there is good reason to believe in some sort of God, obviously their picture of
morality must accommodate that thesis and morality must find a place in a world with a supernatural,
and not just a natural, component. I do not want to get into a debate about whether God exists. Still, I
will adopt a modest version of the external accommodation project. I will consider it a point in favor of
a metaethic if it has relatively modest epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions, save where
there is good reason for stronger ones. In any event, many of our tests are clearly part of the internal
accommodation project, and much of our focus will be on that, though not all of it.
Many, though not all, of the metaethical tests that will be explained here fit a particular pattern.
They begin from supposed “facts,” say, about the nature of our moral experience. Often these facts
come from common sense, but they can come from elsewhere as well, for example, from science. The
idea is that any metaethic that conflicts with one of those facts must be rejected, or at least is, to that
extent, disconfirmed. Broadly speaking, the test have the following structure:
1. F is a fact about our moral lives and experiences.
2. Proposed metaethic M conflicts (or does not conflict) with F.
3. Hence, M is disconfirmed (or confirmed).
Obviously, a lot hangs on whether what we takes to be facts about our moral lives and experiences
really are facts. There is plenty of room for debate about that.
Moore’s Open Question Test
Stevenson adopts Moore's open question argument. Like Moore, he thinks it effectively refutes
most, if not all, forms of naturalism and definism. He also thinks his own emotivism passes the test. It
is worth reminding ourselves of what this argument says. It is a test for a proper definition of moral
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terms like “good.” It turns on the idea that any proposed definition of a term, whether or not a moral
term, must be analytic, that is, “true by definition.” But in general, competent speakers of a language
can tell if something is true by definition. We can see it is true just by knowing the meanings of the
words. Thus, “All bachelors are unmarried males” is analytic, something we can see is true just by
knowing the meanings of the words. As Moore puts it, the question, “Are all bachelors unmarried
males?” is not an open question. It is automatically closed by virtue of the meanings of the words. On
the other hand, “John is a bachelor” is not analytic. We cannot know it is true just by knowing the
meanings of the words. As Moore would put it, the sentence “Is John a bachelor?” is an open question,
if all we have to go on is the meanings of the words. The former is analytic, and the latter is synthetic.
Given this, we can form a test for the correctness of any proposed definition of a moral term.
We can test naturalistic definitions, that is, definitions like “Something is M, by definition, if and only
if it is N”, where “M” is a moral term and “N” is a natural term. Examples include, “Something is
good, by definition, if and only if it is conducive to pleasure,” “An act is right, by definition, if and
only if it is approved by me (the speaker),” “An act is right, by definition, if and only if approved by
the majority of people.” We can also test supernatural definitions such as “Something is good, by
definition, if and only if in accord with the will of God. The test proceeds as follows.
1. State Proposed Definition: Something is M, by definition, if and only if it is N.
2. Ask whether the following question is open or closed, that is, self answering: “This is an N, but
is it M?”
3. If the question is closed, it is a proper (or part of a proper) definition. If it is open, then it is not
a (or part of a) proper definition.
Here is a naturalistic definition that fails this test.
1. Proposed Definition: An act is right, by definition, if and only if the majority of people approve
of it.
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2. Is “The majority of people would approve of this act, but is it right?” an open or a closed
question?
3. It is open
4. Therefore, this is not a proper definition.
It seems clear that many purported definitions of moral terms fail to pass this test. Moore believes that
no definition, whether natural or supernatural, will pass it. Since his own non-naturalistic theory does
not include any definition of the basic moral term “good,” his theory automatically passes the test.
What of emotivism? Since the emotivist does not, strictly speaking, define moral terms,
naturalistically or otherwise, it cannot get the definition wrong and hence cannot fail the open question
test. All that emotivists give is a rough paraphrase of moral statements. For example, they would say
that “This is good” is roughly similar to “This, hurrah.”
The Possibility of Disagreement Test.
The key fact that we are concerned with in this test is the fact of moral disagreement. What I
mean by this is simple. When John says “abortion is right” and Sue says “abortion is wrong,” John and
Sue are disagreeing with one another. Sue’s judgment contradicts John’s. That seems to be as plain a
fact as any in the world. Any metaethical theory that says they are not disagreeing with one another is
to be rejected. That might seem straightforward, and this might seem like a rather odd test, but it turns
out, surprisingly, that on some metaethics, John and Sue are not disagreeing at all. These metaethics
must be rejected, according to this test. This happens with certain kinds of relativism and many have
argued that relativism is implausible specifically because it fails to pass this test.
The best way to get a grip on it is to apply it to particular examples of metaethical theories to
see which pass and which fail. The pattern to employ the test will typically be this.
1. State Proposed Definition: M is by definition N.
2. When John says something is right or good, and Sue says it is not right or good, they are
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disagreeing with one another.
3. Determine whether, on the proposed definition, John and Sue are disagreeing with each other.
4.
If so, the definition passes the test. If not, it fails the test.
Here is a proposed naturalistic definition of a moral term that fails the test.
1. Proposed definition: X is good, by definition, if and only if I (the speaker) approve of X.
2. When John says that increasing immigration is good and Sue says it is not, they are disagreeing
with one another.
3. On our proposed definition, John and Sue are, in effect, saying,
John: I, John, approve of the helping of the hungry.
Sue: I, Sue, do not approve of helping the hungry.
4. So, on the proposed definition, they are not disagreeing with one another. For, these sentences
have different subjects, John and Sue respectively, and both can be true. Hence the proposed
definition is faulty.
Here is a second example that passes the test.
1. Proposed Definition: An act is right if and only if approved of by the ideal observer.
2. When John says abortion is right and Sue says abortion is wrong, they are disagreeing with one
another.
3. On our proposed definition, John and Sue are, in effect, saying,
John: The ideal observer would approve of abortion
Sue: The ideal observer would not approve of abortion.
4. These two sentences do contradict each other. John and Sue are both talking about the same
thing, the ideal observer, and making conflicting judgments about this thing.
5. Hence, the proposed definition passes this test.
These two examples bring out a crucial feature of this test: it specifically rules out various
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kinds of relativism. It rules out relativistic views because relativism allows John to say “This act is
right” and Sue to say “This act (the same act) is wrong” without there being any disagreement between
them. They can both be correct in their judgments. The definition that flunked the test in my examples
was an explicitly relativistic definition. It turned “This is right” into “I approve of this,” and “This is
wrong” into “I disapprove of this.” Whether a moral judgment is correct or not therefore becomes
relative to the speaker. John and Sue looked like they were disagreeing with one another when they
spoke of abortion, but they were not, according to this definition. Thus, since it seems a plain fact that
they are disagreeing with one another, this definition fails the test. Which theories pass this test? First,
any metaethic, whether or not naturalistic, that says that there is a fact about whether an act is right or
wrong. Thus, the “ideal observer” theory given above, which is generally considered a kind of
naturalism, passes the test. Similarly, though Moore does not offer a definition of “good,” he thinks
there is an objective fact about whether something is good. On his view, when John says something is
good and Sue says it is not, they are disagreeing about this fact, about the nonnatural property of
goodness.
Though this test might seem straightforward, it is easy to misunderstand it and, in fact, to get it
exactly backwards. The confusion is this. Some people will say that when there is an objective fact
about right and wrong, as many naturalists and objectivist intuitionists believe, there is no room for
disagreement. If an act is right, it is right, so disagreement is ruled out. However, this not only misses
Stevenson’s point, but is completely wrongheaded. Objective facts are a large part of what we do
disagree about. There is a fact about whether O.J. Simpson killed his wife. We disagree about it.
There is a fact about whether Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. There was a time when we
disagreed about it. It is specifically the relativist who fails this test, not the realist. For the relativist
there is no plain fact and hence no plane fact to disagree about.
How does emotivism do on this test? Stevenson himself points out that he has a problem here.
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Since on his view, there is no moral truth or falsity, there is no room for disagreement at that level.
When I judge something right and you judge it wrong, there is no disagreement, if by that we mean a
disagreement about some matter of fact. So initially, it might look as if emotivism fails this test.
However, Stevenson responds that even though there is no moral truth or falsehood, there is room for
moral disagreement of a different sort. He distinguishes between two kinds of disagreement. The first
is the kind that we have already considered, what Stevenson calls “disagreement in belief.” When you
believe the facts are one way, and I believe they are another way, we disagree in belief. For example,
you believe Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program, I do not. I believe Iran has a nuclear
weapons program, and you do not. As there are no moral facts for Stevenson, there is no room for
disagreement in belief. The second kind of disagreement is “disagreement in attitude.” You have a
positive attitude toward peanut butter, and I have a negative attitude. This is as much a disagreement as
any disagreement in belief. You are pro and I am con. All our beliefs about peanut butter might be the
same, and yet we disagree in attitude. Stevenson says that his theory can allow for genuine
disagreement on moral matters even though there is no room for disagreement in belief. Moral
disagreement is, he says, disagreement in attitude.
Before leaving this test, a quick comment about its application to relativistic definitions.
Stevenson may have shot himself in the foot, or at least in the little toe, with his explanation as to how
his emotivism passes his test. The way he gets emotivism to pass his test is to say that there are
different kinds of disagreements. Even if there is no disagreement in moral belief on an emotivist
picture, there is disagreement in attitude. What he fails to notice is that the same move can allow
disagreement on certain relativistic definitions that he claimed failed this test. Consider a simple
relativistic naturalism which defines “Act A is right” as “I (the speaker) approve of A.” Stevenson
argued that this relativistic definition removes the possibility of disagreement since, if John says
cannibalism is right and Sue says it is wrong, they are talking about different things. John is, in effect,
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saying “I, John, approve of cannibalism” and Sue is, in effect, saying “I, Sue, disapprove of
cannibalism.” Their sentences have different subjects and no more contradict one another than were
they to say “I (John) have a blue house” and “I (Sue) have a green house.” Now Stevenson is right
about this, but as we now know, there are two kinds of disagreement. On the relativist definition just
given, there is a sense in which John and Sue are not disagreeing, but since they are describing their
own attitudes, it is also true that they disagree in their attitude about cannibalism. If emotivism can
appeal to disagreement in attitude to pass Stevenson’s test, so can this relativism. I am not suggesting
that all relativistic naturalisms have this move available to them, but many do.
The Magnetism Test
Stevenson thinks that it is a fact of our moral experience that there is a tight link between moral
belief and knowledge and motives for action. We can differ over just what this relation is, but one
thing is clear, we need an account of the relation between morality and motivation that seems plausible.
Any theory that cannot provide such an account is to be rejected. Stevenson assumes that the relation
between motives and moral belief or knowledge is very tight, a view today called “internalism,” or
“motive internalism” since, as we will see later, there are other kinds. This is the view that to sincerely
judge something is right or good entails that one has more motivation to seek the good or perform the
act than one otherwise would have.
Given this fact about the connection between sincere moral judgment and motivation, we can
construct the following test for a metaethic. Again, I put the test in terms of metaethics that provide
definitions of moral terms, though some metaethics, such as Stevenson’s own, do not.
1. To sincerely make a moral judgment is necessarily to have certain motivations.
2. Proposed Definition: An act is right, by definition, if and only if N.
3. On this definition, to assert an act is right is, in effect, to assert it is N.
4. Ask: can one sincerely believe an act is N without feeling any of the relevant motivations?
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5. If so, the definition is faulty. If not, the definition passes.
Here is an example that might fail this test.
1. To sincerely make a moral judgment is necessarily to have certain motivations.
2. Proposed Definition: An act is right, by definition, if and only if the ideal observer would
approve of it. Thus, on this definition, to assert an act is right is, in effect, to assert that an ideal
observer would approve of it.
3. Can one sincerely assert that an ideal observer would approve of an act and not have any of the
relevant motivations?
4. It would seem that one can, so this definition seems to fail the test.ii
How does Moore's non-natural do here? Actually, we have already seen an argument that his
theory in effect flunks this this test. It was Mackie's first argument from queerness against objectivist
intuitionism. He argued that objectivist intuitionism cannot account for the magnetic pull of the good
or the right. We can generalize this. One might argue that virtually all metaethics, with a very few
possible exceptions, that postulate some sort of moral “facts,” whether natural, supernatural, or nonnatural will flunk this test. The idea is that there is a distinction to be drawn between cognition and
motivation. A cognition is what we usually think of as a factual belief such as that the speed of light is
186,000 miles per second or that there is a cup of grape soda on the table. In general, with only a few
kinds of exceptions, we can have a belief without necessarily having any motivation of any kind. We
can have a belief and be completely indifferent to it. A motivation might be added to a cognition, say,
because one wants something, but it need not be. Thus, the belief that the cup is on the table and full of
grape soda will only motivate action if, for example, I want a drink and happen to like grape soda. As
it stands, I would have to be very thirsty before I felt any motivation to drink the grape soda. In
general, it certainly looks as if cognition and motivation are two very different things only contingently
related. If this is so, then any metaethic that turns a moral judgment into a belief, a cognition of some
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kind, will automatically have trouble accounting for the link between moral judgment and motivation
that Stevenson postulates.
So, if I think “This act is right” means something like “The ideal observer
would approve of this act,” or like “The majority would approve of this act” or for that matter, “There
is non-natural goodness produced by this act,” I loose the connection between the cognition of
rightness and motivation that Stevenson thinks is there.
Stevenson’s emotivism passes the magnetism test with flying colors. In fact, emotivism is
ready made to pass this test. Since the whole point of moral judgment, for the emotivist, is to express
emotions and attitudes, and since emotions and attitudes have a significant link to motivation, moral
judgment will have a significant link to motivation.
Limits on the Ability of Science to Solve Moral Problems Test
Stevenson believes that there is a key fact about the nature of moral argument and reasoning
that a metaethic must be able to make sense of. The fact is this. The methods of science play a role in
dealing with moral questions, and can even help us resolve some moral question. But these methods
only take us so far. It is possible to agree on all the scientific facts but to continue to disagree about
what is right or wrong. This fact provides a test for a metaethic. To be plausible, a metaethic must be
able to account for this fact. The test has the following form:
1. Proposed Metaethic: Pick your favorite, M
2. Science cannot resolve all our moral disagreements.
3. If M is consistent with, and even better, can explain this fact, it passes. If not, it fails.
Here is a kind of naturalism that fails this test.
1. Proposed Metaethic: An act is right, by definition, if and only if the majority approve of it.
2. Science cannot resolve all our moral disagreements.
3. This theory generates a theory of moral argument: we prove something is right by taking a poll
and determining what the majority approves of. This makes the answers to moral questions
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completely a scientific question. We appeal to the science of poll taking. Once a proper poll is
taken, there is no longer any room for argument. The social science settles the matter.
4. Hence, this theory violates Stevenson’s fact about the nature of moral argument.
Stevenson's emotivism, on the other hand, passes this test. He can allow that science can help resolve
some moral disagreements. After all, we sometimes disagree morally because we disagree about the
science. For example, if you think the science shows capital punishment deters, and I think it does not,
our scientific disagreement might produce disagreements in our attitudes and hence in our moral
judgments. This disagreement can be resolved by doing more science. But it is also true that there is
no reason to think that science will take us all the way to complete agreement in attitude. The facts of
fetal development are common to both the pro-choice and pro-life crowds – or perhaps it is more
accurate to say that they are common to a small number of folk on both sides since most probably have
minimal knowledge of the science here. But the important thing is that the science does little to resolve
the debate amongst those who do know it. And once the science runs out, basically all that is left is
non-rational argument of various kinds, that is, efforts to change attitudes by whatever means possible.
Emotivism and the Realist Surface of Morality
In our evaluations emotivism, we have focused so far on tests derived from the emotivist
Charles Stevenson. This nevertheless tends to stack the cards in favor of emotivism since, I assume, he
would not be presenting tests his own view failed. What other tests might we want a metaethical
theory to pass? As with the tests so far, these will also appeal to certain supposed facts about our moral
experience and thought. Some of these facts point to major problems with emotivism.
A common claim, one that is made by both objectivist intuitionists and that even error theorist
Mackie accepts, is that morality in some way embodies an assumption of objectivity. The error
theorist, of course, claims that this assumption is false, but he does not deny its existence. The problem
for emotivists is that they have trouble explaining why morality has this appearance given what they
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say moral thinking and language is really about. But first, why would someone think that morality in
some way involves an assumption of objectivity? There are a number of reasons.iii Together, these
support a thesis I will call the “realist surface of morality” thesis. First, there is a psychological point,
or what philosophers call a point about “moral phenomenology.” Moral requirements feel like they are
imposed from the outside. We often talk of recognizing them and speak of people as being more or less
morally perceptive. We feel that sometimes we have been blind to what is morally important, say, by
our own selfishness, and that such blindness has lead us into error. All of this seems to presuppose a
moral reality. Second, there are points having to do with the nature of moral language. Moral
sentences are in the indicative mood and appear to make reference to putative moral properties as when
we say “Goodness is its own reward.” Further, they seem to display logical features that only make
sense with realist assumptions. For example, they can figure in logically valid inferences. (What this
means will not be obvious to people unacquainted with logic, but it will be clarified below.) Third, we
engage in critical practices that only seem to make sense within an assumption of moral realism. These
practices seem to assume that some moral judgments are correct, that both moral error and moral
improvement are possible, and that when conflicts in moral judgment occur, at least one of them is
mistaken.
I will expand on this last point a bit because it confronts something Stevenson does say had on.
We already saw that Stevenson thinks moral argument can have a certain kind of rational content, and
in particular, that it can appeal to science to help resolve disagreements in moral attitudes, but that he
thought science could only take us so far. Once we come to agreement on the science, moral disputers
must appeal to non-rational means of argument. But many critics of emotivism have thought that in
fact, a careful examination of our critical practices shows that we have more rational tools than
emotivism allows and that we are often unwilling to turn to the non-rational practices that emotivism
says are all we have left. Of course, one who makes this point is obliged to identify these rational
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practices. But if they can do so, this furthers the claim that morality embodies a realist assumption.
Given that morality has a realist surface, we have a a new test for a metaethical theory, the
realist surface test. To be plausible, any moral theory must be able to account for this realist surface.
Genuine moral realism does it easily: morality has a realist surface because moral realism is true. The
reason moral judgments seem to make reference to moral properties is that they do make reference to
moral properties. The reason morality seems to be imposed from the outside is because it is objective.
The reason people talk about being more or less morally perceptive is because there are moral facts that
some people are more or less perceptive about. Error theory has something to say about this realist
surface as well. Morality has a realist surface because ordinary moral thinking embodies a realist
assumption, though one that is false; there is no reality beneath the realist surface. Of course, an
explanation must be given when so many people are so deeply wrong, but perhaps that is not so
puzzling since people are wrong about many things. But what will emotivism say? Can it account for
the realist surface of morality? Many have argued that it cannot. Emotivism must explain away this
surface, and that is hard to do. If moral judgment is nothing but expressions of pro and con attitudes,
why would we make moral judgments in the indicative mood? Why wouldn’t we just say “Boo” and
“Hurrah”? If moral judgment is nothing but expression of pro and con attitudes, why does morality
feel like it is imposed from the outside? What could it mean to say someone is morally perceptive as
compared to someone else? On an emotivist picture of moral language, none of this makes sense.
I will expand this attack on emotivism with a point mentioned above, but left unexplained. I
mentioned that part of the realist surface of morality is that moral statements can figure in logically
valid inferences. What does this mean? At the heart of modern logic is what is called the “valid
argument form.” A logically valid form has an important property: any argument that his this form and
which has true premises will, of necessity, also have a true conclusion. For example, the following
valid form is called “modes ponens.”
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1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
If I construct an argument of this form with true premises, the conclusion will also be true. For
example, the following argument is valid. (1) If that is a bear, then it is an omnivore. (2) That is a bear.
(3) Therefore, it is an omnivore. (Of course, if the premises of this argument were not true, say, if the
object referred to in the second sentence is not a bear, but rather a large, bear-like rock with large teeth,
then the conclusion is not guaranteed.) Now it is also clear that we can construct a legitimate modes
ponens argument that use evaluative terms, and more particularly, moral terms. Here is a non-moral
example which uses an evaluative term, “good.” (1) If this car is a Honda, then it is a good car. (2) It
is a Honda. (3) Therefore it is a good car. Next, here is a moral example. (1) If this act is the killing of
an innocent person, then it is probably wrong. (2) It is the killing of an innocent person. (3) Therefore
it is probably wrong.
Why is this a problem? Emotivism is a theory of the nature of moral language. It says that at
bottom, sentences like “That act is wrong” are not descriptive. They are not cognitive. They are
neither true nor false. They are mainly expressions of pro and con attitudes. But the essence of a
logically valid argument is that it deals with truth: a valid form has the feature that if you feed true
sentences in as premises, a true conclusion comes out. But if moral sentences are neither true nor false,
as emotivism says, moral and other evaluative sentences have no contact at all with valid forms like
modus ponens. To try to fit them in to these forms is a silly joke, sort of like this: If erp!, then
grrrrrrrr!. Erp! Therefore grrrrrrrr! And yet, unlike the exclamations “erp” and “grrrrrrrr,” it really
does look as if words like “good” and “right” can be part of legitimately valid argument forms. Hence,
critics conclude, emotivism is an inadequate theory of moral language.
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Emotivism and the Use of Moral Language in Non-Evaluative Contexts
I will explain several other problems for the emotivism. Emotivism purports to provide a
theory of moral language, and evaluative language generally. It is true that there are examples in which
the view seems to make sense. If I say that an act is wrong, it is likely that I am expressing
disapproval. If I say that that was a good thing to do, it is likely that I am expressing approval. Moral,
and other evaluative language is often used to express attitudes, pro and con. I get that. However, this
is not plausible as a general account of evaluative language. There are a number of contexts in which
we say things are good or bad, right or wrong, without expressing any attitude at all. Here is an
example from Philippa Foot.iv When I say that a particular oak tree has good roots, and another has bad
roots, I am not necessarily expressing any attitude toward the oak trees or their roots. I may not care at
all about these trees. I may personally prefer a tree with bad roots since that implies that the dang tree
will die sooner and stop dropping its stupid acorns on my head, not to mention attracting fewer stinking
squirrels. Given my dislike of acorns and squirrels, I may judge an oak to have good roots with
dismay. Or I could be utterly indifferent to the quality of the roots, and merely be answering someone’s
question. “How is that oak tree doing anyway?” John asks me. “Well, it has good roots so it probably
won’t blow over in a storm anytime soon,” I respond with no attitude about its roots or its blowing over
in a storm. Obviously, an emotivist account of these uses of evaluative terms will not do. Now the
emotivist could respond that this is not really a problem. Stevenson himself said that there are two
kinds of meaning, emotive and descriptive, and even classic evaluative terms like “good,” in particular
contexts, can have both. Indeed, though in some contexts, the emotive meaning can dominate, or be all
of the meaning, in others, descriptive meaning can dominate. Well, maybe.
Moral Language and the Embedding Problem
There is another sort of context that emotivism has trouble with. Emotivism is an account of
moral utterances in simple contexts like “That is good” and “That action is wrong.” However,
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expressions like “That is good” can appear as parts of longer sentences, called “embedded” contexts,
and for many of these longer sentences, the emotivist analysis does not seem to make much sense.
Here are some examples of embedded contexts: “Sue believes that abortion is wrong,” “Is immigration
a good policy?” “I wonder whether it would be right to invade Iran,” “If genocide is evil, we ought to
try to stop it.” The emotivist must give an account of the meanings of moral terms not only in simple
contexts, but also of these more complex contexts, and it is not clear how that is supposed to work.
The word “good” in a question like “Is immigration a good policy?” obviously cannot be expressing
either a positive or a negative attitude. If the meaning of good is mainly emotive meaning, what
meaning can “good” have in this context? Similarly, if I say “Sue believes abortion is wrong,” I am
expressing neither a positive nor a negative attitude by the use of the word “good.” Of course, Sue
herself might have a positive or negative attitude, but how can her attitude be part of the meaning of
my use of the word? Perhaps most interesting is the conditional. A conditional is a sentence of the
form, “If P, then Q.” The “P” is the antecedent and the “Q” is the consequent of the conditional. Moral
sentences can appear as the antecedents of conditionals. The sentence “If this act is right, then John will
do it in the end” is a conditional with a moral sentence as an antecedent. Further, it is a perfectly
ordinary conditional. When the moral terms are in the antecedent, that is, part of the if-clause, they
cannot express a positive or a negative attitude. The sentence does not assert that the act is actually
right, and it does not express a positive attitude about the act. As far as the sentence goes, it is possible
that the act is wrong and that the speaker thinks it is wrong. Or the speaker could be unsure. We do not
know. But we do know that, in this context, the clause “this act is right” does not express a positive
attitude and hence cannot have the meaning emotivists attribute to it. Emotivism is not a proper
account of the meaning of this sentence.
The emotivist might try to respond to this the way he responded to the previous point. He
might say that in different contexts, one and the same sentence can have different meanings. On its
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own, “This act is right” has positive emotive meaning, as the emotivist says, but as embedded in a
conditional, it has some other meaning. All we need is some account of this other meaning. But this
response will not do. “This act is right” means exactly the same thing as a standalone sentence and as
the antecedent of a conditional. That emotivism cannot allow it to mean the same thing means
emotivism conflicts with a plain fact. Why do I say it must mean the same thing in both contexts?
Return to our logically valid forms discussed earlier. I already pointed out that emotivism has trouble
with them in general, but put that aside. Assume that modes ponens makes sense with moral terms and
that someone were to argue as follows. (1) If this act is right, then John will do it. (2) This act is right.
(3) Therefore John will do it. This is a simple modes ponens. There is one crucial fact about modes
ponens, or any valid form, that I have not yet mentioned. It does not work unless the sentence that
replaces the “P” is the same for each occurrence of “P,” and used in the exact same sense. (Obviously,
the same goes for the “Q.”) The modes ponens argument about John is a good argument, but it would
not be were “This act is right” to mean something different in different places in the argument. Since
the argument is obviously good, “This act is right” must have a single, uniform meaning through the
entire argument. Since emotivism cannot account for its meaning in the antecedent of the conditional,
it cannot be the correct account of its meaning as a standalone sentence either.v
Summary
In previous lectures, I gave reasons to reject, or at least question, the two main forms of
metaethical realism, objectivist intuitionism and naturalism. Assuming, though just for the moment,
that these arguments are good, this leaves us with moral irrealism. So far, we have looked at two
versions of moral irrealism, metaethical nihilism, otherwise known as error theory, and a kind of noncognitivism, emotivism. I prefer not to adopt the nihilist position unless there are no other plausible
views on the table. But the only irrealist option we have yet looked at is in some trouble. Since
emotivism has been one of the most influential metaethics of the twentieth century, I am particularly
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interested in its problems. The main ones are these. First, emotivism has trouble accounting for the
realist surface of morality. A great deal becomes utterly inexplicable on an emotivist view. I focused,
in particular, on emotivism’s inability to account for the use of moral statements in logically valid
argument forms. Second, emotivism is unable to account for the use of moral sentences in certain
contexts, contexts in which there are no attitudes being expressed. This includes contexts such as “The
oak has good roots,” said by someone who does not care a fig (or perhaps I should say “does not care
an acorn,” to keep my botanical categories straight) about oaks or roots. Third, emotivism has trouble
explaining the meaning of evaluative terms in “embedded contexts” such as the antecedents of
conditionals.
Where does this leave us? It leaves us at the beginning of nearly fifty years of sometimes
feverish, and sometimes despairing metaethical work. In general, people have moved in two directions.
Some have tried to resurrect various forms of metaethical realism, especially forms of metaethical
naturalism. We will look at these efforts in some detail in future lectures. Others have tried to work
out other kinds of moral irrealism, often developments of emotivism, that avoid the problems for
emotivism described above. In a future lectures, I explain one of the most important non-cognitivist
developments of emotivism, R. M. Hare’s universal prescriptivism.
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i. In Morality Without Foundations (get reference).
ii.You will notice the tentativeness about these judgments. There is some room for doubt about
whether the theory passes the test so I prefer to leave the issue till we explicitly take up ideal observer
theory.
iii
Much of the following is from Mark Timmons, Morality Without Foundations. For someone
who denies that morality has this realist surface, see H. E. Mason, “Interpretations of Moral
Questions,” in Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Realism and Antirealism, P. French, J. Theodore
Uehling, and H. Wettstein, Eds. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1988) p. 413-432.
iv
In Natural Goodness (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2001).
v
This sort of point is usually associated with Peter Geach. See his "Imperative and Deontic
Logic," Analysis 18(1957-8); “Ascriptivism,” Philosophical Review 69 (1960) and “Assertion,”
Philosophical Review 74 ((1965).