Ayer 's Philosophical View : Emotivism Vs. Subjectivism

Ayer was an emotivist and therefore took the non-cognitive approach to meta-ethics. He believed that ethical language is subjective and not objective. He said that ethical statements are merely expressions of liking or disliking a certain action, so if you say that ‘Murder is wrong’, you are simply saying ‘I don’t like murder’. He called this approach the hurrah-boo theory and claimed that any expression of emotion was the same as saying ‘ouch’; it is meaningless. He said that as ethical statements are neither

"Moral Objectivism: The view that what is right or wrong doesn"t depend on what anyone thinks is right or wrong. That is, the view that the 'moral facts ' are like 'physical ' facts in that what the facts are does not depend on what anyone thinks they are. Objectivist theories tend to come in two sorts:"(1)

Its power does not lie simply in how others respond to it. If ethical clams were contingent on emotions, they would change as emotions changed. They cannot be universal claims as the emotions of the speakers would vary. Even when moral statements are carried by a weight of public emotion, that does not provide reason for them to be adopted, nor does it make them right. Emotivism effectively prescribes complete freedom of action on the basis that everyone’s opinion is equally valid and everyone is therefore free to do what they choose irrespective of the opinion of others. How can we judge between two people’s moral opinions? What criteria is there - if any – for judging the relative merits of a moral viewpoint. Emotions can unite people in a common moral bond, but can also isolate groups and individuals. The emotional force with which a moral view is expressed is no recommendation of its value.

Louis Vaughn states that the purpose of morality is not to describe how things are, but to “prescribe how things should be” (2). In Philosophy, moral relativism and moral objectivism are two conflicting but somewhat overlapping school of thought. These beliefs govern the way an individual acts; they also decide the ethical guidelines from which the law is written. In this essay we will delineate the differences between the two sects of belief.

One’s ethical belief system of what is right or wrong, is based on the lens in which one views life, or the worldview that one subscribes to. These beliefs can be adopted from a host of circumstances, consciously from a thoughtful introspective place, it can be shaped by one’s familial upbringing, a spiritual experience with God, or from an unreflective place derived unconsciously from one’s value system based on external resources. When shaping a conscious worldview in which our ethical belief system is a derivative, the framework of ontology, epistemology and axiology gives us the ability to ask who are we, what is truth, and how did we arrive at our values (Porter, 2013).

There are many things in this world that many people have very strong opinions on, such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and gun control. People have these opinions and they think that the opinions that they hold are right. Ethical subjectivism states have everyone has different opinions, but there are no “facts” when morality is involved. As a result, no one is “right.” For example, in the book Matt Foreman approves of being gay while Michele Bachmann disapprove of being gay. When it is put like this, the two people who have completely different options on people being gay cannot argue that the other person accepts or does not accept people being gay according to Subjectivism. This is what the authors of the book were trying to get say is that subjectivism is flawed.

Emotivism by definition is theory about the use of the meaning of sentences used in moral utterance. It is the expression of feelings or attitude as the function of the meaning of sentences, rather than the actual meaning behind what is said. Alasdiar MacIntyre, in his book, After Virtue, focuses on how emotivism has corrupted modern philosophy into, “nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling" (11-12). The purpose of this essay is to summarize and analyze the claims made in the formation of modern ethics and critique of philosophical history in After Virtue.

Lastly, Ayer is proving that moral sentences are not meaningful. “Ayer’s account of emotivism directly attacks many of our cherished assumptions about morality” (pg. 212). Ayer believes that the cognitive theorists are erroneous. Their outlook is perceptual and takes away the way we can portray our feelings. There were many critics to Ayer’s theory about emotivism. The first one was about the verification theory that it had multiple problems. Secondly, there was a controversy over the emotivism outlook. Which were disagreements on the attitudes mainly between having reasons, and causes. WRITE A CONCLUSION

Ethical Egoism stems from the idea that the self is the most important thing and that an ethical being has a moral obligation to do what is in the self’s best long term interest. Egoism is a normative ethical theory, meaning that Egoism gives us a framework based on reason that moral beings ought to follow.

Philosophy is one of the most interesting subjects. Many people assume and confuse it with psychology. Philosophy is completely different from psychology. Psychology is how a person feels about a topic, while philosophy is how you ought to feel about the topic. The purpose of philosophy is to understand an argument, not emotional, but logically. Only by truly understanding an argument, one can improve his/her thinking. Within philosophy, there are many ethical theories. Such theories include: the Divine Command Theory, Hedonism, Desire Theory, Ethical Relativism, and much more. In this term paper, I will discuss which theory I believe is the strongest and which theory I believe is the weakest. Regardless, there is no perfect theory. Each theory has their own flaws.

Subjectivism clenches that there are no objective ethical properties and that ethical statements are in fact arbitrary because they do not express unchangeable truths. Instead, moral declarations are made true or false by the attitudes or conventions of the spectators, and any ethical sentence just implies an attitude, opinion, personal preference or feeling held by someone. Thus, for a statement to be considered morally right hardly means that it is met with a green light by the person of interest. Another way of examine this is that judgments about human conduct are form by, and in many ways restricted to, perception or cultural believes.

The passage was talking about how moral theories are formed within people. One of the major ways the passage tells of how people form these moral theories is through how they feel and unrelated to external subject material — ethical subjectivists. And how that apposes the idea of culture dictating what is ethical based on popular opinions — cultural relativism. I found it interesting that the idea of forming a moral theories based on fallacies or “just because” is wrong. To that, who decides that way of thinking is wrong, who is to say what is the right or “better way” of forming moral

Initially, Ethical Subjectivism can be misinterpreted and these misinterpretations come when people state ethical sentences. Meaning ethical sentences only express propositions. For example, one may say “Marijuana is not bad for you.” What kind of statement is s/he making? Is s/he saying something that is corresponding to “squares have four corners” or “the earth is round”? Or is s/he just stating their opinion? It is the quintessence of Subjectivism that moral assertions are terminologies

Collectively, these texts help in understanding the general human standpoint on topics by presenting an embodiment of the opposite. Therefore, pure moral relativism is based in naivete, as factors shared by all humans, namely instinct, lead to one agreed upon opinion on certain topics as well as how our societies develop.

"A Short Overview of Cultural Relativism." Sarvodaya. N.p., 18 Oct. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.