Explain the meta-ethic of Emotivism

There are two main philosophers who are linked with the ethical theory of Emotivism; Ayer and Stevenson.

However previously, Bertrand Russell said in Religion and Science that moral judgements are justified if they promote good, but if the act in itself is good is another matter. He said that there is no evidence to say if an act is right or wrong, therefore for something to have intrinsic value is not a matter of objectivity but subjectivity. Russell also said that for something to be self-evident it cannot be true or false.

Ayer then developed this into Emotivism relating the idea of morality with his work on verification. For an ethical proposition to be verified, they must fit into one of the two categories of Hume's Fork. These are either logic or empirical evidence. However ethical propositions do not fit into either. Reason cannot provide a motive behind an action and neither can empirical evidence.

Firstly, Ayer wanted to make sure that despite believing that ethical statements are meaningless, he did not mean that they have no value or ethical debate was not worthy.

Ayer said that ethical statements cannot be verified and are not analytic. He said that there are 4 categories of ethics. Propositions that express definitions of ethical terms such as the 'greatest happiness for the greatest number'. Propositions that explain moral phenomena such as giving money to charity because it is the right thing.

Exhortions to moral virtue such as 'be a good person'. The last category is ethical judgements that attempt to describe value such as 'murder is wrong'. Ayer said that this last category is just personal approval or disapproval.

Emotivism, it is worth remembering is not subjectivism. Subjectivism is the idea that values are based on previous opinions, ideas and knowledge available. Emotivism on the other hand says that this knowledge is not needed to base emotions on.

Ayer also rejected intuitionism because he believed that it was a matter of verification. For example, what happens when two conclusions are drawn through using our minds in an intuitive way. There is no way to solve it.

What Ayer did believe though was that ethical statements can be persuasive. He said they 'arouse feeling and so stimulate action' demonstrating that ethical statements go beyond personal opinion.

As well as this, emotivism explains why there are so many different ideas about morality-it is simply a difference in opinion.

Ayer concluded that there was no way to say if ethical judgements are right because they have no objective validity. They are 'pure expressions of feeling'. For this reason, Ayer called ethical propositions 'pseudo concepts'.

In summary, Ayer said that he did not believe that moral expressions were pointless. all moral theories are natural because they do not tell us about the actions but just say that people are doing.

In addition to this, Ayer made a clear difference between ethics proper (the first 3 categories) and meta-ethics.

Emotivism is also known as the boo-hurrah theory because Ayer said that ethical statements were just personal opinion.

Another philosopher linked with emotivism is Stevenson. He is credited for being the philosopher who developed emotivism into a full bodied systematic theory.

Stevenson believed that ethical question needed to be clear. Talking about good would have to enable disagreement, motivate a person to act in its favour and to be unverifiable.

His idea of Emotivism was called interest theory. It is interested in two ways in which ethical propositions are used ;how they acquire meaning and how this meaning in turn is influenced by dynamic power.

Stevenson said that we use ethical statements to evoke a opinion. He called this the 'causal dispositional property of a proposition'. Stevenson said that the emotive meaning of a word is the tendency of a world arising from the history of its use to produce response.

Furthermore many people may conclude that because Emotivism is just personal opinion, debate becomes pointless. However Stevenson said that ethical debate was meaningful. He showed this by saying that there were two types of propositions; about belief and about attitude. Beliefs were more factual statements whereas attitudes were statements that revealed a person's opinion. For example a belief is something such as 'abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy' whereas an attitude is 'abortion is wrong'. In an ethical debate, Stevenson believed that people tried to change attitudes rather than belief. A disagreement is not about attitudes but rather a disagreement in attitudes, demonstrating why people do not agree about morality.

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