3.1.13: Non-Cognitivist and Anti-Realist Theory One (Emotivism)

A. J. Ayer and C. L. Stevenson (1908–1979) were defenders of Emotivism, a metaethical view that held considerable sway for a time in the early parts of the twentieth century. According to Emotivism, the moral statement that murder is wrong is simply an expression of emotion against the act of murdering. It gives formal linguistic voice to what is essentially a negative “boo” to murder. Indeed, Emotivism is referred to as the “boo/hurrah” metaethical theory; when we claim that something is morally wrong we boo that action and when we claim that something is morally right we hurrah that action. This explains the connection between morality and motivation; we express motivationally-relevant emotional distaste or emotional approval when we use moral words rather than expressing motivationally inert moral beliefs.

Although a verificationist about language himself, Ayer did not wish to deny that moral utterances had a meaning even though, as a non-cognitivist and anti-realist, he plainly could not suggest that moral utterances were empirically verifiable or open to real-world testing in order to determine their truth value (moral utterances, on this view, are not truth-apt beliefs attempting to describe the world). Thus, Ayer suggested that moral utterances had an emotive meaning. Ayer, speaking of the claim that “stealing money is wrong” says this is simply an act of “…evincing my moral disapproval of it. It is as if I had said, ‘You stole that money’ in a peculiar tone of horror, or written it with the addition of some special exclamation marks”. Thus, the moral judgment meaningfully reveals an emotion, even if not a description of the world. Emotivism does not, therefore, straightforwardly lead to nihilism as some meaning for moral values and moral judgments is preserved. On this basis, there is no pull to the idea that we should stop using moral language.

Stevenson, in addition, suggested of moral terms like “right”, “wrong”, “good” and “bad” that they have only emotive meanings in the sense of approval and disapproval. Therefore, just as we cannot say that a “boo” is false, for it is not truth-apt so too we cannot say that a linguistic boo of the form “stealing is wrong” is either true or false. Stevenson thus argued that Emotivism captured the “magnetism” of morality — our moral utterances track our motivations because our moral utterances are expressions of the emotions that underpin our motivations.