Emotivism: Ethical Noncognitivism

Ethical naturalism is a realist, cognitivist position which posits that moral facts correspond to some sort of natural facts, which may or may not be capable of definition. Peter Railton in “Moral Realism” posits that such a definition is possible, offering an extensive account of non-moral good.

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.

Emotionism according to Jesse Prinz is a set of views according to which emotions are essential to morality. There are two types of emotionism: 1). Metaphysical emotionism is moral properties are essentially related to emotions and facts without mind independence 2). Epistemic emotionism is moral concepts are essentially related to emotions. Concepts such as right or wrong are emotional states of mind. Further epistemic emotionism is divided into two categories: a). Constitutive is moral concepts are constituted by feelings and b). Dispositional is moral concepts dispose one to have certain feelings. Epistemic emotionism is basically how emotions influence moral judgements. The evidence in support of epistemic emotionism is the dumbfounding experiment. This is where moral attitudes on sex between siblings were studied for a group of young people. Most if not all said that is morally wrong to even think about it and is very inappropriate but failed to give an explanation. Another example involves cannibalism where a woman working in a medical lab cooks and eats part of meat, which was donated to the lab for research purposes. Again this is something immoral, nasty and wrong. Other examples were cheating is wrong or stealing is wrong. Both of these being moral concepts are wrong and unacceptable and they align

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.

Ethical philosophy was a major focus of 20th century thinking. Philosophers spent a lot of time debating the nature of moral statements. This field of ethics is collectively known as meta-ethics. Charles Leslie Stevenson developed the theory known as emotivism to describe why people use moral expressions. Emotivism is the belief that moral phrases express a personal opinion, as opposed to describing the fundamental nature of the world. Emotivist concepts can occasionally be found within literature. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathanial Hawthorne each portray emotivist ideas through statements and actions made by the characters. The story “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., serves as a “moral statement”

Ethical universalism and ethical relativism are two types of meta-ethical views, meaning the two theories attempt to understand the reason behind ethical properties, attitudes, boundaries and judgements. Ethical universalism can be viewed as an ideal world, while ethical relativism explains a more realistic perspective on why different cultures can view the same actions differently. The two delve more into the essential meaning of a theory rather than just simply labeling actions as right or wrong.

"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)

To the extent that the morality of desire and emotivism hold true, objectivism finds no traction in ethics. These doctrines preclude the exclusion of the self in evaluation of questions of morality and ethics. Meno’s crude and self-interested model of virtue complements Unger and MacIntyre’s discussion of subjectivity.

Emotivism is a meta-ethical theory developed by AJ Ayer and agreed upon by C.L Stevenson which says that ethical sentences do not possess moral propositions but only emotional attitudes. This theory surged in the late 20th century, and was commonly known as the hooray/boo theory. I will discuss why I believe that this theory is correct and will discuss the problems that Emotivism faces, and I will give reasons on how emotivism can overcome these challenges. I will also be discussing why I think more people should follow Emotivism, and discuss the benefits of this philosophy.

Emotivism is a form of communication that relies on “the metaphor of ‘self’ and the emotive needs of ‘me’” (Arnett & Arneson, 1999, p. 55).

Emotivism communicates that emotions are the highest authority on morals rather than acknowledging logic. An angry nurse may shove a needle in a patients are on a bad day without stopping to think about the patients pain emotions without logic can inflict harm. Emotions are never a perfect science and can change radically from one instance to another. Emotivism has strength in that it listens to emotions but emotions are often wrong when logic is taken away. (P.23)

Expressivism is a non-descriptive (it does not use beliefs or truth-conditions to characterise the meaning of moral terms) semantic theory which holds that ‘’to make a normative judgement is to express a non-cognitive attitude’’ (Gibbard, 1990, 84). The distinctive expressivist claim is that we can give an adequate semantics for moral terms using non-cognitive, desire-like attitudes. This contrasts with cognitivism which holds that normative judgements are entirely descriptive, and that to make a normative judgement is to express a belief. Expressivists are typically seen as following in the footsteps of the emotivist analysis of moral terms offered by A.J. Ayer (1936). Ayer claims that moral language is not literally significant at all. Instead, when we utter a sentence like ‘You acted wrongly in stealing that money’ we have not literally asserted anything beyond ‘You stole that money’.

Moral cognitivism is “the view that we can have moral knowledge” and has a sub-form called “moral realism” that states that good and bad are properties of situations and of people (Lacewig, 2016). I believe this to be true because the morals of the actions are subjective to the people and/or situations. For example, following the example in the second paragraph of the little girl, she learned that hitting others is wrong but she will later learn through experience that hitting in self-defense if she is assaulted is fine due to the

This is a doctrine that bases its arguments in the fact that there are no universal absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society. Ethical relativism is a similar concept, based specifically on the ethics of a culture and how they are related to those of other cultures (Kluckhohn, 2011). Herodotus, the Greek historian advanced this view when he observed that different societies have different customs and that each person thinks that his customs are

Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one's