On Emotivism — by James T. Stillwell III (I-Theist)

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ORIGIN, DEFINITION & OBJECTIVE

In the 1930s, a school of philosophy known as logical positivism arose. This school of philosophy was a kind of radical empiricism whose center piece was "the principle of verification" that claimed a statement only has meaning (significants) if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. The implication of this principle requires that statements concerning right and wrong are meaningless. And that they are neither true nor false due to the fact that they are not truth apt. According to emotivism if one were to say ‘murder is wrong’, that such is not analytic, nor empirically verifiable. For example, we can empirically verify that murder causes grief pain, and suffering, that it is done out of anger. But we cannot empirically verify its "wrongness".

• Now, I certainly agree that 1 moral terms are not descriptive, analytical or empirically verifiable.

• 2 That they are not truth apt and thus neither true or false.

• 3 And that they are indeed emotive.

I define emotive as expressions of emotion, sentiments, attitudes, and feelings. As opposed to descriptive facts.

It should be noted here that one can be an emotivist without holding to "the principle of verification". One can agree with many of the original emotivist claims concerning moral language (like that of A.J Ayer) and yet reject the long discarded principle of verification.

The purpose of this treatise then, is to put forth a form of Emotivism distinct from Logical Positivism. This exposition of Emotivism is not meant to be exhaustive. If you are interested in probing Emotivism further then I would recommend reading chapter 6 of Language Truth And Logic by A.J Ayer and Ethics And Language by C.L Stevenson.

ANALYZING THE FUNCTION & MEANING OF MORAL TERMS

Let us begin this exposition with an analysis of the function of some basic moral terms and sentences. When a person states that "Abortion is immoral" what are they trying to communicate? Is this a statement about the qualitative 3rd person event, or medical procedure known as "abortion"? If we were to examine every atom and molecule that would constitute said event would we ever arrive at some mysterious substance called "wrongness"? I think not. Rather, I think it more likely that the sentence "Abortion is Immoral" is merely an expression of sentiment or a subjective value judgment. That is to say, that 'X is wrong" is to an attempt to communicate a preference, emotion or feeling about a given fact. But is not itself a statement of fact.

Let us now set out to illustrate this gap between descriptive factual statements and the emotive use of language.

If I say "John is mortal" this is a statement of fact not a value judgment. This fact can also be verified as fact if someone were to shoot John in the head or via other empirical means.

Now suppose I said "shooting John in the head is evil" what fact is this communicating about the act of "shooting John"? Again, what about the physical 3rd person event known as "shooting John" is "evil"?

What does evil even mean? In my experience as being a living human organism what people mean by "X is immoral" (or "evil") is that they strongly dislike X or disapprove there of.

These 2 different ways of using language were duly noted by the philosopher C.L. Stevenson.

"Broadly speaking, there are two different purposes which lead us to use language. On the one hand we use words (as in science) to record, clarify, and communicate beliefs. On the other hand we use words to give vent to our feelings (interjections), or to create moods (poetry), or to incite people to actions or attitudes (oratory). The first use of words I shall call "descriptive" ; the second, "dynamic"." — C.L Stevenson — The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms.

Try a social experiment some time. Ask someone why "shooting someone in the leg for your own personal pleasure is wrong?". (Make sure you know them well enough.) They may say something like "it is wrong because you will cause them harm" which raises the question "why is harming someone wrong?" and so on... What you will find (after pealing away some layers) is that ultimately what they mean by "X is wrong", "immoral", "evil" etc is that it always comes down to "I don't like X" or "I disapprove of X".

One collection of atoms (a bullet) colliding with another collection of atoms (a human head) is a fact, not a value or disvalue, though due to the nature or disposition of a specific human organism it may be valued or dis valued. That is people do not like, they disapprove of that which is destructive to who and or what they value.

Thus we see that moral terms do not state facts (or that which is true for all). Rather, moral terms merely express feelings about facts. Every prescription like "you ought not harm" is really just "I disapprove of X" or "I do not like the consequences of doing X". Though," you ought not do X" is often a command. Moral terms do not have objective referents or referents with in-the-world properties but are merely expressing emotion and are thus not propositions about objective reality.

Another way of putting this is that moral terms or judgments are not "truth apt" but rather only have emotive meaning. In essence then, "murder is wrong" can simply mean "boo Murder!" or "FUCK MURDER!".

In his book Language Truth And Logic A.J Ayer put it this way:

“[I]f I say to someone ‘You acted wrongly in stealing that money’, I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, ‘You stole that money.’ In adding that this action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it, I am simply evincing my moral disapproval about it. It is as if I had said, ‘You stole that money,’ in a peculiar tone of horror, or written with the addition of some special exclamation marks. The tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal meaning of the sentence. It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker."

So we see then that even when a moral terms like ,wrong, immoral, evil etc are used in a descriptive proposition the term is emotive and adds nothing to the descriptive meaning. "YOU JUST SHOT BOB IN HIS KNEE CAP!" when expressed in an emphatic tone is 1 stating a fact or proposition to be believed and 2 expressing an emotion of disapproval about said event. The emphatic tone adds nothing factual whatsoever to the sentence, but it's purpose is to provoke perhaps a feeling of remorse or to express ones disapproval and or shock of such a violent action on your part. Similarly, I could envision a statement such as "You just fucking shot Bob in the Foot!". The term (or "more colorful metaphor") "fucking" — contributes nothing factual to the sentence . Factually speaking, it is as if one had just stated "you shot John in the foot". In this sense then moral terms are not communicating anything true or false.

If a person states that "X is wrong" and another states that "X is righteous" neither is stating anything true or making any factual claim. Rather, they are simply expressing 2 different sentiments concerning X and it would make no sense to ask "which one is right?"

It should be noted here that ethical terminology is not only used strictly to express emotions and moral sentiments. As A. J Ayer noted "[Moral terms] are calculated also to arouse feeling, and so to stimulate action. Indeed some of them are used in such a way as to give the sentences in which they occur the effect of commands. Thus the sentence "It is your duty to tell the truth" may be regarded both as the expression of a certain sort of ethical feeling about truthfulness and as the expression of the command "Tell the truth." The sentence "You ought to tell the truth" also involves the command "Tell the Truth," but here the tone is less emphatic. In the sentence "It is good to tell the truth" the command has become little more than a suggestion. And thus the "meaning" of the word "good," in its ethical usage, is differentiated from that of the word "duty" or the word "ought." In fact we may define the meaning of the various ethical words in terms both of the different feelings they are taken to express, and also the different responses which they are calculated to provoke. We can now see why it is impossible to find a criterion for determining the validity of ethical judgements. It is not because they have an "absolute" validity which is mysteriously independent of ordinary sense-experience, but because they have no objective validity whatsoever. If a sentence makes no statement at all, there is obviously no sense in asking whether what it says is true or false." (Language Truth and Logic — A.J Ayer)

The philosopher C.L Stevenson agreed with Ayer on these points stating that the purpose of moral judgements is not to make factual statements but to express feelings and to attempt to influence human behavior via expressions of emotions of approval and disapproval. He argued that ethical terms have emotive meanings that are neither descriptive nor analytic. (Facts and Values, Ch. 1) One of the main differences between Stevenson's brand of Emotivism however is, that it did not include the principle of verification.

There are many other examples which could be employed to illustrate the use of moral terms in language that are beyond the scope of this text.

EMOTIVISM IS NOT SUBJECTIVISM

Now, it also important to note that Emotivism is not some form of Subjectivism. Whereas Subjectivism states that moral and ethical terms and sentences are assertions of the existence of certain feelings by the speaker, Emotivism states that ethical terms are expressions of feeling and provoking exhortations.

It is important to distinguish between the claim "I like X" and expressing a feeling of disapproval of X. In essence "X is good" means "Boo X!". If "X is good" were an assertion that "I like X," then when you tell me I am wrong about X being "good" you would be telling me that I'm wrong that "I like X". In other words, that "I don't really value X".

ARGUING ABOUT VALUE IS IMPOSSIBLE

However one common implication that Subjectivism and Emotivism share is that it is impossible to cogently argue concerning questions of value.

On this matter A. J Ayer was clear. In chapter 6 of his book Language Truth and Logic Ayer wrote: "For we hold that one really never does dispute about questions of value. This may seem, at first sight, to be a very paradoxical assertion. For we certainly do engage in disputes which are ordinarily regarded as disputes about value. But, in all such cases, we find, if we consider the matter closely, that the dispute is not really about a question of value, but about a question of fact. When someone disagrees with us about the moral value of a certain action or type of action, we do admittedly resort to argument in order to win him over to our way of thinking. But we do not attempt to show by our arguments that he has the "wrong" ethical feeling toward a situation whose nature he has correctly apprehended. What we attempt to show is that he is mistaken about the facts of the case. We argue that he has misconceived the agent's motive: or that he has misjudged the effects of the action, or its probable effects in view of the agent's knowledge; or that he has failed to take into account the special circumstances in which the agent was placed. Or else we employ more general arguments about the effects which actions of a certain type tend to produce, or the qualities which are usually manifested in their performance. We do this in the hope that we have only to get our opponent to agree us about the nature of empirical facts for him to adopt the same moral attitude towards them as we do. And as the people with whom we argue have generally received the same moral education as ourselves, and live in the same social order, our expectation is usually justified. But if our opponent happens to have undergone a different process of moral "conditioning" from ourselves, so that, even when he acknowledges all the facts, he still disagrees with us about the moral value of the actions under discussion, then we abandon the attempt to convince him by argument. We say that it is impossible to argue with him because he has a distorted or undeveloped moral sense; which signifies merely that he employs a different set of values from our own. We feel that our own system of values is superior, and therefore speak in such derogatory terms of his. But we cannot bring forward any arguments to show that our system is superior. For our judgement that it is so is itself a judgement of value, and accordingly outside the scope of argument. It is because argument fails us when we come to deal with pure questions of value, as distinct from questions of fact, that we finally resort to mere abuse. In short, we find that argument is possible on moral questions only if some system of values is presupposed."

Later in the same chapter Ayer states that the primary motivating factor behind moral behaviors is both conscious and unconscious fear. Fear of a deities displeasure, social and societal pressures, consequences etc.

CONCERNING AESTHETIC TERMS

As a side note I would like to point out that on the emotivist view what has been said of ethical terms may be said about aesthetic terms as well. On this subject Ayer said....

"Aesthetic terms are used in exactly the same way as ethical terms. Such aesthetic words as "beautiful" and "hideous" are employed, as ethical words are employed, not to make statements of fact, but simply to express certain feelings and evoke a certain response. It follows, as in ethics, that there is no sense in attributing objective validity to aesthetic judgements, and no possibility of arguing about questions of value in aesthetics, but only about questions of fact."

CONCLUSION

In conclusion then, on this expressivists view ethical and aesthetic terms do not state facts but are merely expressions of emotion. They are indeed emotive. There is no evidence to suggest nor reason to believe in a metaphysical realm of values or that there is some deity which makes their existence possible.