Emotivism

Emotivism is a metaethical theory that is noncognitivist. This means it deals with moral talk (as in the talk about morality) rather than morality itself; that is, “what is good/bad”. Noncognitivism is the denial that ethics is properly modelled on science or mathematics. This is important as A.J. Ayer, the most popular follower of Emotivism, was a Positive Logician[1]. This was a movement in the 1920s towards using science in philosophy. They believed in using the verification principle (VP) to decide if a statement was true, false or meaningless. The VP dictated that for something to be true (or false) it had to be verified through synthetic or analytic means. These are terms from Kant which – basically – mean through experience or definition (respectfully). The VP finds its origins in Hume’s Fork. Ayer set out to apply this to philosophy, as philosophers would no longer “waste time” on debates that have no foundation or that cannot be resolved through philosophical debate. Because of this, Ayer viewed philosophical fields like metaphysics as “meaningless”.

Cognitivist theories believe that moral statements are literally true or false. Given Emotivism is noncognitivist, they believe that moral statements cannot be true or false –although still possess meaning. Moral statements cannot be true by definition or through experience (A priori or posteriori means) they are, via the VP, not verifiable. Therefore, there is no real foundation (let alone philosophical foundation) in moral talk as it is not verifiable. This is why Ayer believed philosophers were wasting their time debating it (Ayer would also level this attack against metaphysics, labelling it a “pseudo-problem”). In Ayer’s view, the idea of a moral judgement (“X is bad but Y is good”, or as it would be more popular to phrase it: “X, boo! Y, yay!”) has no factual significance and are mere illusions.

These moral statements are expressed with two properties: the Primary (The person’s emotions) and the Secondary (Factual & non-moral elements to justify the primary). Emotivism specifically claims that moral judgements express the appraiser’s emotions (approval or disapproval) rather than making assertions about the object's properties. Due to this, it cannot be truth-apt (A statement can be considered truth-apt if it can express a true or false proposition in some context.)

Some choose to believe in Emotivism due to how naturalistic it is. This makes sense given the philosophy circle that Ayer was a follower of logical positivism. Which, as described before, embraced the VP; therefore, real world things we could verify. The non-natural property that would be inherit in “goodness” or “wrongness”, naturally, runs as anathema to this.

Ayer’s theory of Emotivism can explain why people are motivated by morality to act in a certain way – after all, what better motivator is there than emotion? Emotivism shows this through the differential between expressive and descriptive statements.

The common counter to Ayer’s Emotivism is the Frege-Geach Problem. This problem states that Emotivism does not account for more complex ethical problems. Another counter, although less used, is that Emotivism struggles to account for amoralists who recognize moral requirements but are indifferent to them

[1] Ayer was not the only Emotivist; Russell (1961) & Ogden and Richards (1923) also subscribed to Emotivism.

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