Emotivism | Moral Philosophy Through the Ages

EMOTIVISM

From Moral Philosophy through the Ages (2nd edition), by James Fieser

CONTENTS

Introduction

Ayer's Theory

Logical Positivism and the Verification Principle

Descriptive Utterances versus Performative Utterances

Criticisms of Ayer

Ross's Criticism: Performativism is Based on the Faulty Verification Principle

Moore's Criticism: Performativism Does Not Account for Moral Arguments

Stevenson's Criticism: Moral Utterances are both Descriptive and Performative

Baier's Criticism: Moral Facts are Good Reasons that Facilitate Social Harmony

Lingering Issues with Emotivism and Prescriptivism

The Varieties of Performative Utterances

Expressing our Most Urgent Moral Convictions

References

Study Questions

INTRODUCTION

Some things in life are so obviously immoral that there is nothing about their ethical status to dispute. Slavery is a case in point, where, despite its widespread practice in the past, the evils and unfairness of it were recognized by both its victims and enlightened thinkers. The modern‑day equivalent of this is human trafficking, which affects perhaps tens of millions of people worldwide, cutting across regions, ages, and social groups. It takes various forms, such as forced labor in agriculture and manufacturing, coerced commercial sexual exploitation, and the recruitment of vulnerable migrants through fraud or debt bondage. For example, a teenager in a rural region of Bangladesh was approached by a recruiter who promised factory work in Malaysia and showed documents that appeared to be official. His family agreed because overseas labor migration was common in the area, but once he arrived, his passport was taken, his wages were withheld, and he was told he owed recruitment and travel fees that kept increasing. With no identification or access to outside communication, he had no realistic prospect of leaving the situation on his own.

The more horrible the offense, the more resolute we are about our moral assessment, and in the worst cases we describe the offenses as "evil," a term that we reserve for only the most immoral actions. Despite how obvious some immoralities are, there is still a vagueness in our moral judgments that needs clarification. What exactly do I mean when I say, "human trafficking is morally wrong"? Most moral philosophers of the past assumed that our moral judgments were simply about the presence or absence of some moral quality. Thus, the phrase "human trafficking is morally wrong" could be variously interpreted according to these theories:

• Scotus's theory: "Human trafficking is contrary to God's commands."

• Locke's theory: "Human trafficking violates our natural rights."

• Clarke's theory: "Human trafficking is contrary to eternal moral relations."

These are only three of many possible interpretations. In the early twentieth century, however, some philosophers began to question this approach. When I make the statement "human trafficking is morally wrong", I am not making a factual statement about the presence or absence of a moral quality. Instead, I am merely expressing my personal attitudes, feelings, and recommendations about human trafficking. It makes no difference how apparently immoral an action is, the actual meaning of my moral assessment is simply a reflection of my individual attitude. This plays out in two related theories. According to the theory of emotivism, the fundamental meaning of moral utterances is that they express our feelings. According to prescriptivism, the fundamental meaning of moral utterances is that they prescribe or recommend others to adopt some specific behavior.

When first proposed, defenders of traditional moral theories criticized this approach, arguing that my moral condemnation of human trafficking is much more than a reflection of personal emotions and recommendations. There is something factually wrong with human trafficking. We will look at the emotivist and prescriptivist theories and see if they are as misguided as critics argue.

AYER'S THEORY

One of the founders of emotivism and prescriptivism was British philosopher Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989). Ayer's ethical views are presented in his influential book Language, Truth and Logic (1936), a work that defends a controversial philosophical position known as logical positivism. Since Ayer's view of moral judgments is an offshoot of logical positivism, we will begin with a brief look at that theory.

Logical Positivism and the Verification Principle

Philosophers commonly distinguish between two kinds of factual statements, such as these:

1. All bachelors are unmarried men.

2. The door is brown.

The first statement is true by definition and does not rely for its truth on sense perception or observation. If we know that the word "bachelor" by definition includes the notion of a single male, then it is clearly true that "all bachelors are unmarried men." Philosophers commonly call this kind of sentence an analytic statement, which also includes mathematical truths such as "3 times 5 is equal to half of 30". By contrast, the truth of the second statement cannot be established merely through definitions, but instead relies on sense perception and observation. We must visually observe the color of the door to establish that it is brown. Philosophers call sentences of this kind empirical statements.

David Hume (1711–1776) pushed the distinction further and argued that analytic and empirical statements were the only legitimate types of knowledge that we have. Commentators refer to this view as "Hume's fork" since, according to Hume, all legitimate quests for knowledge divide (or "fork") between these two types of statements. Hume ruthlessly applied this principle to traditional philosophical discussions and rejected any philosophical theory if it involved neither analytic nor empirical truths. Hume dramatically expresses this method of assessment here:

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [i.e., Hume's fork], what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, "Does it contain any [analytic] abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any [empirical] experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames. For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. [Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 12.3]

Inspired by Hume, Ayer and other logical positivists in the 1930s adopted a similar method of assessing the truth and meaning of knowledge claims. They proposed what they called the "verification principle," and, like Hume, they used it to test the meaning of various assertions.

Ayer's account of the verification principle is this:

The principle of verification is supposed to furnish a criterion by which it can be determined whether or not a sentence is literally meaningful. A simple way to formulate it would be to say that a sentence had literal meaning if and only if the proposition it expressed was either analytic or empirically verifiable. [Language, Truth and Logic, 1946 Appendix]

According to Ayer's verification principle, a statement is meaningful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. For him, a statement is analytic if it is either explicitly true by definition or reducible to statements that are true by definition. By contrast, a statement is empirically verifiable if some possible experience will either confirm or disconfirm it. For example, these statements pass this two-part test of the verification principle:

• Triangles have three angles (passes for being analytic).

• All bachelors are unmarried men (passes for being analytic).

• The door is brown (passes because it is empirically verifiable, e.g., we can perform a light wave test on the door to determine where it falls on the color spectrum).

• It is raining right now (passes because it is empirically verifiable, e.g., we can look out the window and see if water droplets are falling and if the sidewalk is wet).

Compare these, now, to the following statements that fail the two-part test of the verification principle since they are neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable:

• There's an invisible creature in my closet that no one can ever detect (fails because it defines the creature in a way that rules out any possible observation).

• The universe has a purpose that transcends all possible human understanding (fails since, if the purpose transcends human understanding, then it is empirically untestable).

• Everyone has a personal aura that shapes how others feel around them (fails because an aura of this kind cannot be empirically observed or measured).

• A person's luck changes when the universe decides they need a new direction (fails because no observation could confirm or disconfirm the universe making such decisions).

Consider now the following moral statements, and whether they are more like statements on the first list, which pass the test of the verification principle, or more like ones on the second list, which fail it:

• Donating to a homeless shelter is morally good.

• Mother Teresa was a morally good woman.

• Tax evasion is morally wrong.

• Human trafficking is morally wrong.

At first glance, each of these moral utterances appears to be like the first list of factually meaningful statements. However, Ayer argues, on closer inspection, these all fail the test of the verification principle and are more like statements on the second list. First, none of these statements are true by definition. For example, "donating to a homeless shelter" does not, by definition, include "morally good." That is, the meaning of the words themselves does not contain the moral predicate of being morally good. Second, the truth or falsehood of these statements cannot be empirically demonstrated. For example, there is no empirical test that will determine whether a specific act of donating to a homeless shelter is morally good. That is, moral goodness is not the kind of property that can be confirmed or disconfirmed by sensory observation, measurement, or experiment.

According to Ayer, then, these moral utterances are factually meaningless. While they may appear to be true or false statements about the world, they are not genuine factual descriptions. They are what he calls "pseudo-concepts". To be clear, Ayer is not saying that these statements are complete gibberish, such as with the nonsensical utterance "The time now is green." When I make moral utterances, people know how to respond appropriately to me in their actions and in their words. Ayer concedes this much and recognizes that moral utterances have a practical function in our lives, even though they are factually meaningless. What, then, is that practical function? The answer is these statements express our feelings and urge others to adopt our view, but they are still not making any genuinely factual claims.

Descriptive Utterances versus Performative Utterances

Even before Ayer came on the scene, analytic philosophers were already explaining how we use language for many purposes, which can often mislead us when trying to understand moral utterances. In a 1922 book titled The Meaning of Meaning, British philosophers Charles Ogden and Ivor Richards argued that "in ordinary everyday speech each phrase has not one but a number of functions" and that we must distinguish between the "symbolic" use of words and the "emotive" use (Chapter 7). The symbolic function is what we usually think of as factual communication insofar as it involves making statements about the world that can be tested, such as "the door is brown." In contrast, the emotive function is not meant to convey facts at all, but rather to express the speaker's feelings or to "evoke" a specific reaction in the listener. Ogden and Richards argued that we must be attentive to this distinction so that we may rightfully expose "all the verbal disguises, by which each at times endeavors to pass itself off as the other" (Ibid.). For example, when we say "this is good," we aren't adding any new factual information to the object we are discussing. Instead, we are simply using a word that has no scientific "truth-value" to show our approval or to encourage others to feel the same way. By stripping the word "good" of its factual status, Ogden and Richards laid the groundwork for Ayer's later claim that moral language is essentially a psychological tool rather than a way of stating truths.

Philosophers use different terminology to distinguish between two primary functions of language, but for clarity we will use the following:

• Descriptive utterances: provide factual descriptions of the world (also called "cognitive utterances").

• Performative utterances: performing a linguistic task, such as venting a feeling or issuing a command (also called "non-cognitive utterances").

For Ayer, factually descriptive utterances are those that pass the test of the verification principle, as we have seen above, such as "all bachelors are unmarried men" (analytic) and "the door is brown" (empirically verifiable). By contrast, implicitly performative utterances fail the test of the verification principle since they are not factually descriptive. Examples include these:

• Oh, my aching back! (expression of physical feeling)

• Three cheers for Old Glory! (expression of emotional feeling)

• Shut the door! (command)

• Keep your dog out of my yard! (command)

The first two statements are expressions of feelings and the second two are commands. Although we understand what each of these four says, they do not literally express truths or falsehoods. One way to see this is to take a statement of command, such as "Shut the door!" and ask whether it makes sense to ask, "Is it true or false that 'Shut the door'?" No it does not make sense, and so too if we ask the same with expressions of feelings such as "Three cheers for Old Glory!". Rather than describing any facts, these verbally perform some task. As such, they can be reasonably translated into statements that begin with the phrase "I hereby . . ." For example, I can rephrase each of the prior utterances as follows:

• I hereby express my physical feelings concerning my aching back.

• I hereby express my emotional feelings for Old Glory.

• I hereby ask you to shut the door.

• I hereby ask you to keep your dog out of my yard.

Take again this list of moral utterances, which as we've seen fail the test of the verification principle:

• Donating to a homeless shelter is morally good.

• Mother Teresa was a morally good woman.

• Tax evasion is morally wrong.

• Human trafficking is morally wrong.

At first glance each of these seems to be expressing some truth or falsehood, since it seems intelligible to ask, "Is it true or false that 'Donating to a homeless shelter is good'?" But, according to Ayer, this first appearance is misleading, and instead they are all merely performative utterances like "Three cheers for Old Glory!". They are just pseudo-concepts, that is, they are utterances that are merely disguised as factual descriptions:

We say [of ethical statements] that the reason why they are unanalysable [or non-factual] is that they are mere pseudo-concepts. The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if 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 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. 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. [Language, Truth and Logic, Chapter 6]

Ayer argues here that the presence of an ethical term in a sentence adds no factual content, but only performs two non-descriptive functions: (1) expressing feelings, which we strictly speaking call emotivism, and (2) urge or prescribe others to adopt our attitude or behavior, which we strictly speaking call prescriptivism. Let's look at each of these individually.

First, regarding emotivism, moral utterances express our feelings similar to the way we express our feelings with the statement "Three cheers for Old Glory!". When saying this we don't intend anything factual at all, it is just an emotional outburst like saying "Hooray!" about the national flag. Similarly, when uttering the statement "Mother Teresa was a morally good woman" we only express our approval of her, and it could be reworded more accurately as "Three cheers for Mother Teresa!" or "I hereby express my feelings of approval for Mother Teresa". In Ayer's interpretation, expressing my feelings about Mother Teresa is not the same thing as reporting my feelings about her. Compare these two statements:

(1) I hereby express my feelings of approval for Mother Teresa.

(2) I have feelings of approval for Mother Teresa.

The first of these statements is only an expression of feelings and is not factually descriptive. However, the second of these is a factually descriptive report of my feelings, that is, a report of my mental state regarding my feelings of approval.

We might think that the difference between "expressing" feelings and "reporting" feelings is trivial. For Ayer, though, the difference is enormous. When I make moral assessments, my expression of feelings does not even rise to the level of a report. When I morally approve of something, I am merely acting like a cheerleader. When I morally disapprove of something, I am merely acting like a heckler. As another analogy, think of how cats purr when they have positive feelings, but hiss and fluff up their fur when they have negative feelings. When we say "Mother Teresa is a morally good woman", it is like we are purring in response to our idea of her. When we say "human trafficking is morally wrong", it is like we are hissing. Our moral utterances, then, reduce to something like a biological response with no factual content. We are not even reporting our mental states, merely venting them. Ayer does not claim to have created this distinction between expressing and reporting, and attributes it to Hume:

If we did insist on extracting from Hume a reformulation of our moral statements, we should come nearer the mark by crediting him with the modern "emotive" theory that they serve to express our moral sentiments rather than with the theory that they are statements of fact [that report] about one's own or other people's mental condition. (Hume, p. 85)

Regarding prescriptivism, when making moral utterances we issue commands, similar to the way we give a command in the statement "Keep your dog out of my yard!" Ayer makes this point here:

It is worth mentioning that ethical terms do not serve only to express feeling. They 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. (Language, Truth and Logic, 6)

When making moral utterances, we are urging (prescribing) others to adopt specific attitudes or behavior. For example, the statement "Murdering people is wrong" is primarily a command urging people to adopt my negative view of murder and, hopefully they will not murder anyone themselves. This statement could be more accurately reworded as "Do not murder!" or "I hereby ask you to not murder." By contrast, when we say "Donating to a homeless shelter is morally good", I am urging people to adopt my positive view of donating to a homeless shelter, and hopefully make a donation themselves. I am essentially issuing the command "Donate to a homeless shelter!" or "I hereby ask you to donate to a homeless shelter".

In summary, here are the main points of Ayer's theory:

• Statements are factually meaningful if and only if they are either analytically true by definition or empirically verifiable.

• Moral utterances are not factually meaningful, but only implicitly perform something.

• The emotive performance of moral utterances is that they express our personal feelings.

• The prescriptive performance of moral utterances is that they urge others to adopt specific attitudes or behavior.

CRITICISMS OF AYER

When Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic first appeared, many readers were startled by the boldness with which he dismissed large portions of traditional philosophical discourse as literally meaningless. One early reaction captured the sense of alarm felt by critics who saw Ayer's verification principle as sweeping away the very subject matter of philosophy: "Under the pretence of ultimate wisdom it [i.e., Ayer's book] guillotines religion, ethics and aesthetics, self, persons, free will, responsibility and everything worth while. I thank Mr. Ayer for having shown us how modern philosophers can fiddle and play tricks while the world burns" (D'Arcy, 1936). Ayer himself later acknowledged the intensity of the response, stating in the second edition of the book that his treatment of morality in particular "provoked a fair amount of criticism." We will look at four main criticisms of his performativism.

Ross's Criticism: Performativism is Based on the Faulty Verification Principle

British philosopher William David Ross (1877–1971) charged that Ayer's performativist account of moral utterances rests on a faulty verification principle. What is wrong with the verification principle? Let's note two commonly mentioned problems that Ross draws upon. First, logical positivists have difficulties when deriving an acceptable formulation of "empirical verifiability." Suppose I define empirical verifiability in this way:

• A statement is empirically verifiable if it is possible to have some direct experience that will confirm its truth.

However, Ross argues, this criterion will not apply to obviously factual statements such as "a material thing cannot be in two places at once". The problem here is that no direct experiences can fully verify universal statements. Although logical positivists continually attempted to refine the notion of "empirical verifiability," no revision appears to be immune from similar counterexamples. A second problem with the verification principle is that it fails its own test. Suppose I framed the verification principle in this way:

• A statement is factually meaningful only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable.

But this framing of the verification principle itself is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, so that framing is not factually meaningful. On the one hand, if I insist that my utterance is factually meaningful, then I must conclude that the verification principle is too restrictive. On the other, if I accept that my statement of the verification principle is factually meaningless, then I do not have a good reason to advise you to accept the verification principle. For these and other reasons, there are genuine problems with the verification principle. As Ross states it, by grounding the theory of emotivism on the verification principle, "Ayer's attempt to discredit ethics is not successful" (Foundations of Ethics, p. 38).

To the extent that Ayer's performative theory of moral utterances is based on the verification principle, then Ross seems correct that Ayer's performativism also has problems. In response to Ross's criticism, Ayer argued that his performative theory of moral utterances is "valid on its own account," irrespective of its initial association with the verification principle. For Ayer, when someone makes a moral utterance, such as "Mother Teresa was a good woman," we are entitled to ask whether that statement is factually descriptive or implicitly performative. Ayer believes that we will not find any descriptive content in it and so must see it as implicitly performative.

However, Ayer's response is not satisfactory. It does not seem possible to brand moral utterances as purely performative without appealing to either the verification principle or a similar principle that is just as restrictive. Here is Ayer's principal argument for performativism:

1. Moral utterances are either factually descriptive or implicitly performative.

2. Moral utterances are not factually descriptive.

3. Hence, moral utterances are implicitly performative.

The key premise is the second one. What reason do we have to maintain that moral utterances are not factually descriptive? Our only answer is to show that they do not live up to a specific standard of factualness. At minimum, this requires that we consider strict litmus tests for factualness, such as whether an utterance is true by definition and whether an utterance is empirically verifiable. If we stop at these two litmus tests, then we thereby rely on the verification principle. Suppose, however, that we consider additional litmus tests that are more inclusive, such as that an utterance has practical value in our lives. But this test is so broad that it will render almost any utterance meaningful, including moral ones, which is exactly the opposite of what Ayer wants to say about moral utterances. So, Ayer's argument locks us into a litmus test that is at least as restrictive as the verification principle, if not actually the verification principle itself.

Just to be clear, even if Ross is correct that Ayer's performativist account of moral utterances rests on the verification principle, that does not mean that Ayer's account is either wrong or without value. It only weakens its foundation. Rudolf Carnap, another logical positivist of the time, suggested that the verification principle is only a recommendation, and not a strictly meaningful statement. This follows from what he called the "principle of tolerance", which suggests that we should not treat the verification principle, or any logical rule, as a sacred commandment. It is just a tool, which we should use if it helps, or build a different system if it doesn't. As he states, "It is not our business to set up prohibitions, but to arrive at conventions" (Carnap, Logical Syntax of Language, 1934, Sect. 17). In further defense of logical positivism, there are good reasons why we should adopt the verification principle as a recommendation. For, it forces us to ask what would genuinely make a claim true or false, instead of letting vague language mislead us. For example, if someone says, "Time is a flowing river," the logical positivist method asks what observable difference this metaphor makes, which reveals that the sentence is poetic rather than factual. By pushing us to separate testable claims from verbally vague ones, logical positivism helps determine which philosophical problems are real. This is particularly so with moral utterances. For example, the statement "greed is immoral" is so vague that nothing in the sentence itself indicates any observable condition that would make that claim true or false. Even the time-honored statement that "stealing is wrong" is vague since the wrongness of stealing would depend upon the rule or standard the speaker is implicitly appealing to, such as universal pleasure, or harm, or property rights, or the will of God. Logical positivism cuts through this vagueness by showing that, in the absence of clear truth‑conditions, these utterances function primarily as performative utterances, rather than as factually descriptive claims.

Moore's Criticism: Performativism Does Not Account for Moral Arguments

According to Ayer, moral utterances are not statements of fact but are merely performative in the sense that they express our feelings and urge others to adopt our view. This means that if you and I dispute a controversial moral issue, such as abortion or capital punishment, we are not disputing facts. Instead, for Ayer, we are just expressing different opinions. British philosopher G.E. Moore (1873–1958) argued that performativism is an inadequate theory of moral utterances since it does not recognize that in moral disputes we really are arguing over facts. Stated precisely, Moore's criticism of performativism is this:

1. If performativism is true, then we cannot factually argue about questions of moral value.

2. In point of fact, we can engage in genuine factual arguments about questions of moral value.

3. Therefore, performativism is false.

In defense of premise 2, Moore maintains that an important and obvious feature of morality is that we can argue about questions of moral value, and our arguments involve questions of fact:

When I judge of a given action that it was wrong, and you perhaps of the very same action that it was not, we are not in fact differing in opinion about it at all; any more than we are differing in opinion if I make the judgment "I came from Cambridge to-day" and you make the judgment "I did not come from Cambridge to-day." (Philosophical Studies, 10)

Moore states here that moral disputes are not merely differing opinions; instead, the disputes are factual in nature. For example, I may argue that abortion is morally permissible, and you may argue that it is morally wrong. We may argue back and forth on the issue, examining factual evidence and drawing factual conclusions. However, if performativism is true, then moral arguments of this sort are not possible. For Ayer, what appears to be a moral argument is in reality more like two snakes hissing at each other. Moore, by contrast, thinks that moral disputes are not just hissing matches, but instead have a genuine argumentative component.

Ayer was aware of Moore's criticism, but he was not convinced. According to Ayer, if we look closely at moral disputes, we see that we never use arguments to show our opponents that they have the wrong ethical feelings or the wrong value systems. The most we can do in a given case is show that our opponent is mistaken about some facts, such as a person's true motive or the actual consequences of a person's action. If our opponent is not persuaded by these facts, then we give up reasoning with that individual and start insulting him or her for having an inferior sense of morality. For Ayer, this shows that the central aspect of moral assessment involves not facts or argumentation, but rather presupposed value systems. Again, at this crucial level, so-called moral disputes are just hissing matches.

American philosopher Charles L. Stevenson (1908–1979) clarifies this point. According to Stevenson, when we engage in moral discussions, we principally dispute with each other about our respective attitudes, and not about facts. To illustrate this difference, if I say, "John's truck is a Ford," and you say, "John's truck is a GM," then we are disputing facts. But if I say, "John's truck is cool," and you say, "John's truck is uncool," then we no longer have a dispute about facts, but instead have a dispute about attitudes. Unlike factual disputes, attitude disputes cannot be resolved by simply appealing to facts. For Ayer, then, ethical statements such as "capital punishment is morally permissible" involve disputes of attitude.

Ayer and Stevenson are correct that we often resort to insults when our quick and ready factual observations fail to win our opponents over to our side, which reveals that the dispute is one of attitude, not fact, and we have reached a performative level in the discussion. But we can further strengthen their case when we see how entrenched those attitude differences are. Each of our value systems is the result of years of education, indoctrination, and reinforcement. The individual beliefs are woven together into a larger fabric that collectively reinforces each strand. Maybe, with enough new facts and enough time, we can unweave the old fabric and replace it with a new one. For example, after four years of science classes in college, a student might revise or even reject their literal understanding of the biblical view that God created the world in six days. We resort to insults when we see that we cannot duplicate the educational experiences of four years of college within five minutes of conversation. Such value systems have become fixed, where isolated facts no longer matter. Disputes between conflicting value systems are then about attitudes, not facts, and utterances based on those systems are largely performative.

Stevenson's Criticism: Moral Utterances are both Descriptive and Performative

In his 1944 book Ethics and Language, Stevenson developed his own emotive and prescriptive analysis of moral statements, stating that he finds "more to defend" in Ayer's analysis of morality than to criticize. We've seen above the distinction between expressing a feeling and reporting a feeling with the following example:

(1) I hereby express my feelings of approval for Mother Teresa (performative expression of feelings).

(2) I have feelings of approval for Mother Teresa (descriptive report of one's state of mind involving feelings).

Ayer, we've seen, argues that moral utterances are only of the first sort (expressions of feelings) and do not rise to the level of the second sort (reports of feelings). Stevenson, by contrast, contends that moral utterances are both of these types, that is, expressions of feelings and reports of feelings. Ayer's main fault, he says, was failing to recognize "the complex descriptive meaning that ethical judgments can have, in addition to their emotive meaning" (Stevenson, p. 276). Stevenson thus takes on the task of explaining how moral utterances involve both performative and descriptive elements. He observes that our use of moral language in everyday life is vague, and that there is no single way to analyze all moral utterances. Sometimes the purpose of my moral assessment is mainly to reflect my personal attitudes; other times I aim to make more objective judgments.

To simplify matters, Stevenson proposes two distinct patterns that cover the various ways in which we naturally make moral judgments. The first pattern for analyzing moral utterances is this:

• "This is good" means (1) I approve of this and (2) I want you to do so as well.

This pattern contains both descriptive and performative elements. The first phrase, "I approve of this," is both a descriptive report of my feelings, but performatively expresses my feelings, particularly when accompanied with specific gestures and tones of voice. Similarly, the second phrase, "I want you to do so as well," is a descriptive report of my desire to influence you, but it also performatively prescribes (urges) you to change your attitude. In this first pattern, the descriptive parts of my utterances are completely limited to my own attitude.

The second pattern for analyzing moral utterances is for the philosopher who has a specific theory of what makes an action moral. Such theories could include the utilitarian view that an action is morally right because it is universally pleasing, or the divine command view that the action conforms to the will of God, or the natural rights view that the action is grounded in natural rights, or multiple others. Stevenson's aim is to offer patterns of analyzing moral utterances that work with any moral judgment, whether you are an ordinary person (pattern 1) or a philosopher (pattern 2). In the case of the second pattern, Stevenson extends the descriptive element beyond reports of my personal attitude, to now include objective descriptive qualities based on some moral theory:

• "X is good" means (1) X has various morally relevant qualities (e.g., X is universally pleasing), and (2) hooray for X, and (3) you should approve of X as well.

The descriptive emphasis here is with moral qualities, such as that a particular action is universally pleasing, which is presumably a claim about the objective world, and not merely reports about what I personally am thinking or feeling. Unlike the first pattern, then, this second one downplays the descriptive references to the speaker's attitude, specifically, the speaker's reports of their feelings. According to Stevenson, the second pattern's emphasis on more objective descriptions allows "descriptive references of the ethical terms to become as complicated as any occasion or context may require" (p. 89). However, Stevenson notes, just because this second pattern allows one to include a string of objective qualities, such as universal pleasure, it is not necessarily any more ethically rich than the first pattern (p. 231). For, any quality that we link with X in this second pattern we can indirectly squeeze into what we say about X in the first pattern, particularly when we offer reasons for approving of something. For our purposes, the main point of Stevenson's two patterns of moral utterances is that both contain factually descriptive elements, unlike Ayer's analysis which maintains that moral utterances have no factually descriptive elements whatsoever.

Following Stevenson's lead, in his book The Language of Morals (1952), Richard Mervyn Hare also holds that moral utterances are factually descriptive and not merely performative. Hare specifically attempts to uncover the descriptive element that is embedded in the prescriptive (commanding) elements of moral utterances. For him, the descriptive component of moral utterances changes from judgment to judgment while the prescriptive component stays the same. Take, for example, the utterance "Human trafficking is wrong." The descriptive meaning of this may vary depending on who makes the utterance and what moral theory that person ascribes to. For example, it can mean "Human trafficking is contrary to God's will," or "Human trafficking violates human rights," or dozens of other things. However, regardless of who makes the utterance and what theory they follow, the prescriptive meaning is precisely the same: "Do not commit human trafficking." Because the prescriptive meaning of moral utterances is constant, Hare concludes that the prescriptive meaning is primary and the descriptive meaning is secondary.

Stevenson's and Hare's inclusion of descriptive elements seem reasonable at first, but it comes with the added cost of complexity and unwarranted psychological assumptions. Ayer's account, by contrast, is simpler with fewer assumptions. Here is an analogy. When I laugh by uttering "ha, ha, ha", I am expressing my feelings of happiness. You may infer that, as a matter of fact, I am reporting that my mental state is one of happiness, but that is just your inference. My utterance of "ha, ha, ha" by itself does not include that factual report. Compare this now to my moral utterance that "Mother Teresa is morally good". Similarly, you may rightfully infer that, factually speaking, I am reporting that my mental state is one of having feelings of approval for Mother Teresa, but, again, that is your inference. I may not be psychologically intending that (even when I am not being deceitful). I may simply be having an emotional reaction just as I do when laughing. Further, when I utter "Mother Teresa is morally good", this may not even logically entail that I am reporting my mental state of approval about her (again, even when I am not being deceitful). The reason is that there is nothing about the utterance itself which logically includes a report of my mental state. When I laugh, the sound "ha, ha, ha" does not state that I am happy, it just shows it. Granted, in this analogy, uttering "ha, ha, ha" is not exactly the same as uttering "Mother Teresa is morally good". But the two may be close enough to see how moral utterances are just expressions of feelings, and not factual reports of feelings.

This point may be clearer when considering the thought experiment that there may exist philosophical zombies that look and behave like us, yet are completely unconscious. If such a zombie uttered "Mother Teresa is morally good", there clearly can be no logical inference about the zombie's mental state for the simple reason that the zombie has no mental states at all. While we are not philosophical zombies, there is enough unclarity about the human mind that, for all practical purposes, we must treat it as a black box, even when we assume we are conscious. Stevenson and Hare are in essence opening that black box and say with unjustified confidence what my mind is doing at the moment I utter "Mother Teresa is morally good". There may come a time when a brain-machine interface will reveal my innermost thoughts in all their complexity at any given moment. But until then, your best evidence that I am reporting my mental state is if I explicitly tell you that I am. Ayer thus offers a simpler and less assuming theory by restricting moral utterances to the more obvious performative elements of expressing feelings and urging acceptance.

My argument here targets the problematic baggage of descriptive reports of mental states, such as "I have feelings of approval for Mother Teresa." However, my criticism here also extends to the more factually objective descriptive utterances in Stevenson's second pattern that, for example, a particular action is universally pleasing and for that reason is morally good. For, even these claims are qualified by the speaker's own mental state, such as their endorsement of the utilitarian value system that universal pleasure is the criterion of morality. Here the speaker is not saying anything factual about the objective truth of utilitarianism, but only reporting the speaker's own favorable attitude toward the utilitarian standard of morality. But Ayer would go a step further and hold that the speaker is not even doing that, but simply uttering "Hooray for Mother Teresa, and hooray for utilitarianism!" This is more evident if someone says, for example, "meat eating is wrong because our holy guru says it is wrong", particularly if we do not agree with this guru. What we hear in this case is "Boo for meat eating, hooray for our guru, and please don't eat meat!" Out of politeness we might pretend that the speaker is saying something factual, but only until the discussion heats up and makes clear that the dispute is about conflicting attitudes, and is not about facts.

Baier's Criticism: Moral Facts are Good Reasons that Facilitate Social Harmony

A fourth significant challenge to Ayer's emotivism came from Kurt Baier, who argued that emotivism fundamentally misrepresents the factual nature of moral discourse. Emotivism, Baier argues, reduces moral judgments to "essentially verbal ways of throwing one's weight about" thereby making it a theory of psychological impact rather than moral reasoning (The Moral Point of View, p. 35). He describes emotivism's primary mistake here:

It is quite generally, though falsely, believed that no epistemological problem can arise if moral judgments are not verifiable or the reverse by looking, listening, touching, tasting, or smelling. This is a simple-minded blunder. [Ibid.]

Reacting against emotivism, Baier championed what is called the "best reasons" theory of morality, suggesting that morality has its own unique logic that is designed to facilitate social harmony.

Baier provides a step-by-step procedure for making moral judgments. To answer the question "What should I do?", we employ two distinct reasoning processes: (1) We survey the facts, and (2) we weigh the facts. In surveying the facts, we are looking for all of the relevant considerations that might impact our performing a particular action. Suppose, for example, that a stranger offers to sell me a new TV for half the price that it would cost me in an appliance store. One fact relevant to my decision is that I'd be saving money if I bought the TV, and saving money is typically a good reason for performing an action. At the same time, in view of the price the stranger is offering me, the odds are fairly good that the TV is stolen merchandise, and I'd be breaking the law if I knowingly bought it. So, a second relevant fact to my decision is that I'd likely be breaking the law if I bought the TV, and breaking the law is typically a good reason for not performing an action.

Once we line up the relevant facts, we then weigh them. To weigh the facts, though, we need some guiding principles that will tell us when one fact is more important than another. Suppose, for example, that I use the principle of selfishness to weigh the facts just given pertaining to my purchasing the TV. Saving money may be more conducive to selfishness than is obeying the law. So, when weighing the facts using the principle of selfishness, the best thing for me to do is buy the TV. However, selfishness is only one of many principles. Here is a short list of relevant principles that Baier mentions:

• We should pursue short-range self-interest.

• We should pursue long-range self-interest.

• We should obey the law.

• We should pursue religious interests.

• We should not lie.

• We should not steal.

According to Baier, the principles toward the bottom of this list are distinctively moral, and thus more important than those at the top which are more selfish. So, although buying the TV would indeed help me attain some short-range self-interest, it would not be conducive to most of the other principles on the list. He gives two reasons for why the moral principles are superior to those higher on the list. First, since moral principles involve the good of everyone, they will be less harmful than other more selfish principles. Second, even from our individual selfish standpoint, we sometimes further our own self-interest when we pursue the good of everyone. Suppose, for example, that everyone in my neighborhood is at war with everyone else. According to Baier, it will be in my best interests to participate in a general truce so long as my neighbors also abide by the truce. The truce will certainly serve the larger interests of the neighborhood, but it will also serve my interests since I can then leave my house without being attacked.

Baier devised the best reasons approach to address the failures of traditional moral theories in resolving complex problems such as those we've just seen. In fact, many moral philosophers today follow the best reasons approach when writing on applied ethics issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, animal rights and dozens of other hot button moral issues today. Ayer, of course, would not accept Baier’s best‑reasons model as an improvement on emotivism. His likely reply would be that what Baier calls "moral reasoning" ultimately reduces to the same thing that emotivism already describes, namely, the expression of a moral attitude. The apparent structure of reasons in Baier's analysis is only a way of reinforcing a person's underlying attitude that is already in place, but is not a genuinely different kind of moral thinking. The force of this reply by the emotivist becomes clearer when we look at three problem areas within Baier’s account where he seems to slide back into the very expression of attitude that emotivism emphasizes.

The first problem area with the best reasons approach is that its step-by-step procedure is too mechanical and does not reflect the actual process by which we investigate moral issues. The procedure first tells us to lay out all the relevant facts for and against a course of action. But we often do not uncover all of the facts until much later in the reasoning process. The moral issue of abortion well illustrates this. Until we start actually arguing the pros and cons related to the moral status of a fetus, we may not even think about the fact that 5-month-old fetuses are capable of perception. Baier's procedure next tells us to lay out relevant rules by which we balance the pros and cons. The problem here is that even the best rules are too general to offer us guidance. For example, the general rule "don't kill" is unhelpful since we know there are multiple exceptions, such as in cases of self-defense, war, and perhaps euthanasia. A more specific rule might be that "a woman's autonomy sometimes outweighs a fetus's right to life." But this does not tell us, for example, whether the autonomy of a women with life-threatening complications outweighs a 5-month-old fetus's right to life. This only becomes clear when we begin weighing the competing arguments. Thus, failure of rigid rational procedure suggests that moral discourse may be best explained as, not a discovery of external facts, but the ongoing expression of attitudes and prescriptions that evolve as we emotionally engage with a case.

A second potential problem area with the best reasons approach is that it relies on a person's private intuitions in the process of selecting relevant principles and in weighing competing arguments. This problem emerges when someone simply disagrees with our intuitions. In the case of abortion, two competing intuitions might be (a) that a developing fetus has a morally significant claim to protection vs. (b) the intuition that a woman's autonomy gives her a decisive say over whether a pregnancy continues. Baier attempts to address this problem by having the person adopt the stance of an objective judge or impartial spectator while we tap our intuitions in various situations. However, it may be unrealistic to think that, on a moment's notice, we can psychologically step outside of our private intuitions and adopt a truly impartial perspective. Even if we could quickly adopt a slightly more impartial stance, that stance might reflect only the views of popular culture that we are exposed to in talk shows and news commentaries, and these may not be any better than our own private intuitions. So, the possibility of conflicting moral intuitions seems to present a genuine challenge for the best reasons approach. However, this problem is inherent in the nature of morality itself and will surface within all moral theories. Every moral theory that we consider rests on some foundational intuition about what kinds of actions or lifestyles are good. We continually dispute with moral philosophers about their underlying intuitions, and we reject moral theories that do not match our own intuitions. Like it or not, morality is grounded in our intuitions, and these often conflict. The persistent conflict of these underlying intuitions lends weight to the emotivist claim that moral "reasoning" is ultimately a mask for hidden emotional preferences and the prescriptive desire to influence the attitudes of others.

There is a third and more serious problem area with the best reasons approach. Although this approach closely captures how philosophers and lawyers think about moral problems, it does not represent the way most of us face real-life moral controversies. We often simply follow the traditions in which we were raised, with moral reasoning playing no part. We do not think about balancing competing reasons, and we may not even care whether the authorities within our traditions ever went through this reasoning process. Baier would dismiss such blind appeals to tradition as irrational. However, it is wrong to simply dismiss appeals to tradition. Human moral life is not built upon constant rational calculation. We lock onto various traditions and let inertia carry us along for much of the time. This includes moral traditions from which none of us can fully escape, not even the advocates of the best reasons approach. Seen this way, much of our moral talk reflects inherited attitudes, and not deliberate reasoning, which is exactly the terrain emotivism claims to describe.

I am not advising here that we should outright reject the best reasons procedure of moral reasoning that Baier describes. Instead, again, it may be wise to follow Hume's advice that "reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions". Emotion and its underlying attitudes appear to be the primary driver of moral choices, and reasoning serves only a secondary role by assisting with facts that may or may not be relevant. In this secondary capacity, Baier's best reasons approach may be helpful.

LINGERING ISSUES WITH EMOTIVISM AND PRESCRIPTIVISM

On the whole, there is a strong case to be made for taking Ayer's view of moral utterances seriously today, despite the sophisticated objections we have seen. For, Ayer's theory has the advantage of capturing the observable features of moral discourse without loading our ethical analysis with unnecessary psychological assumptions about facts and human reasoning. While this advantage shows its continuing value as a moral theory, emotivism is not perfect, and we will look at two lingering problems with it.

The Varieties of Performative Utterances

We've seen how Ayer's theory of moral utterances avoids including factual descriptions of three sorts: (a) claims about objective moral facts that are natural (e.g., X promotes universal happiness), (b) claims about objective moral facts that are metaphysical (e.g., "X conforms to God's will"(, and (c) subjective reports of mental states (e.g., "I have feelings of approval for Mother Teresa"). Instead, Ayer's analysis of moral utterances is restricted to performative uses of two sorts: (d) emotive expressions of feelings (e.g., "hooray for Mother Teresa!"), and (e) prescriptive commands or urgings (e.g., "I approve of Mother Teresa!"). Let's grant that he has good reason to eliminate the factual descriptions in (a), (b) and (c). The problem, though, is why should we restrict the performative uses to just (d) and (e)? What is so special about these two where they alone exhaust the performative uses of moral utterances? I will discuss five possible additional ones.

Drawing on a modernized version of Hume's moral theory, we can see two additional performative functions of moral utterances beyond what Ayer suggests. Suppose that someone robs your house. Hume would argue that when I as a spectator say that "this robbery is morally wrong," I am doing two things: (1) I am sympathetically absorbing your pain, and (2) I am projecting disapproval toward the robber who caused you that pain. Both of these are performative functions, not descriptions of any moral facts. This example of robbery pertains specifically to bad conduct, but we can also see these two performative elements with good conduct. Suppose, for example, that after you are robbed, a generous donor replaces your stolen property free of charge. When I say, "the donor's act of charity is good," I am (1) sympathetically absorbing your pleasure, and (2) I am projecting approval of the donor who brought you that pleasure. Combining both examples, these two performative functions can be more clearly represented with the following designations:

(1) Sympathetic-absorbative function: I hereby sympathetically absorb your pleasure (pain).

(2) Approving/disapproving-projective function: I hereby project my approval (disapproval) towards the donor (robber).

The first function of sympathetic absorption is unique to Hume's theory and not at all part of Ayer's account. Even though the second function of approving/disapproving projection looks similar to Ayer's account of expressing moral approval, on Hume's theory, there is a big difference. For Ayer, it is the action itself that we express approval of. But, for Hume, we are expressing approval of the person performing the action, and, more precisely, the motive in the mind of that person. This, then, gives us two additional performative functions of moral utterances beyond what Ayer suggests. From Hume's perspective, these two additional functions are by no means trivial, but are in fact the foundation of all moral assessments that we make. Ayer, though, takes a short cut by focusing only on isolated actions (e.g., stealing is wrong) or isolated people (e.g., Mother Teresa was a good woman). Hume, by contrast, considers full scenarios (e.g., a robber, you the victim, and me the spectator), which gives a more complete point of reference to our moral utterances.

A third performative function of at least some moral utterances is that we are professing or avowing the truth of our position. This is most evident when we are disputing something with another person and we want to underscore that our moral judgment is true, or perhaps even absolutely and universally true. Explicit examples might include "It is true that human trafficking is immoral," or "It is an absolute truth that we have duties toward our fellow humans," or "It is a universal truth that we forfeit our rights when we violate the rights of others." Avowing truth in our moral judgments is another performative element of moral utterances, and not a descriptive element. We do not add descriptive content to our judgment by underscoring its truth component. Avowing its truth is an example of what some philosophers would call a rhetorical intensifier, or an emphatic assertion, or stance taking. It is like adding a special exclamation point to the end of a sentence. We can designate this performative function as follows:

(3) Truth-avowing function: I hereby profess the truth of the statement "Capital punishment is immoral."

I can also implicitly make truth professions in moral judgments without using the actual words "it is true that." Suppose you say, "I do not believe that capital punishment is wrong." In response, I may say, "But capital punishment is wrong." My aim here is to assert that something which you believe to be false is actually true.

A fourth performative element included in at least some moral utterances is that we make statements to remind ourselves of our previously established moral attitudes. Beginning in early childhood, we adopt various moral standards from our parents, and as we mature, we continually add to the list. It would be nice if we could remember all of these standards all of the time, but, in point of fact, we cannot. We can remember the obvious standards, such as that it is wrong to lie, steal, and murder. However, more specific moral standards are easily forgotten. For example, I may forget that it is wrong to make obscene gestures at other motorists on the highway or that I should treat strangers respectfully. Even the issue of capital punishment is one that might require some memory jogging if the issue comes up only every few years or if I've changed my views on it a few times. When we make moral statements and engage in moral debates, at least part of the task is to bring us up to speed on our previously established moral views. So, if I state that capital punishment is immoral, my utterance in part means this:

(4) Recollective function: I hereby remind myself that I previously disapproved of capital punishment.

A fifth and related performative function of moral utterances is that we use them to motivate ourselves to do the morally right thing. Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare each noted that we make moral statements to prescribe or urge other people to adopt our views. However, we sometimes make moral statements to urge ourselves to behave morally. Suppose someone leaves a wallet unguarded for a moment and you are tempted to take it. You may say to yourself "stealing is wrong" in order to help yourself resist the impulse. You may even give yourself reasons that stealing is wrong, such as that it violates people's rights or that it causes more unhappiness than happiness. Hearing the dialogue in your mind or reciting it out loud may sometimes provide the motivation to do the right thing. And, at least some of the time, this is just what we do. So, if I state that taking lost property is immoral, my utterance in part means this:

(5) Self-motivative function: I hereby urge myself to behave consistently with my disapproval of taking lost property.

Some of these newly-discovered functions of moral utterances may look like a stretch, but no more so than the emotive or prescriptive functions appeared when Ogden, Rogers, Carnap and Ayer first suggested them. With a little creativity, we might be able to conjure up a dozen more. The lingering problem with performativism, then, is how we impartially devise a ranked-ordered list of more specific performative functions. Perhaps the easiest solution is to not try, and just acknowledge that moral utterances are (1) primarily or entirely performative in character, and (2) they can include (but not necessarily include), emotivism, prescriptivism, and multiple others.

Expressing our Most Urgent Moral Convictions

The best way to deflect criticisms of emotivism and prescriptivism is to retain the descriptive components of our moral statements and simply supplement them with various performative components. Nevertheless, when philosophers today discuss emotivism and prescriptivism, they typically have in mind the more radical view that Ayer proposed, which allows no room for descriptive components. The radical versions of emotivism and prescriptivism are attractive to people who are skeptical about speculations concerning laws of nature, divine commands, and eternal truths. The only thing we know for sure about moral judgments is how they make us feel, and it is best to restrict our moral theories to that. So, when I say, "Murder is wrong," I am really expressing my negative feelings about murder and am imploring you to adopt my attitude. This is not only skeptical but pessimistic since it puts moral judgments on the same level as other expressions of personal preference, such as "The tuna casserole today is horrible, and I suggest that you avoid it."

Two centuries ago, radical emotivist and prescriptivist theories would have brought down the wrath of religious and political officials for undermining the stability of social values. Philosophy was not just armchair speculation for those officials. They believed that the riffraff of society would latch onto any theory that led to anarchy, and that reducing morality to personal preference would invite chaos. Today, no one sees emotivism, prescriptivism, or any other pessimistic moral theory as a social threat, so proponents are not attacked with the same zeal as were philosophical villains from past centuries.

Even though the radical theories of emotivism and prescriptivism pose no threat to society, we still should consider whether they adequately capture the meaning of our most urgent moral convictions. The issue of human trafficking highlights a big problem with the adequacy of these theories. Human trafficking is clearly one of the greater moral evils facing human society, and the seriousness of the issue is not fully captured by the emotivist and prescriptivist accounts. In these theories, it seems that the serious nature of the human trafficking issue simply involves adding the word extreme to our utterances:

• I hereby express my extreme disapproval concerning human trafficking.

• I hereby extremely urge you to adopt my attitude.

This, though, does not fully capture the urgency of the systematic kidnapping and enslavement of millions of people today. Suppose that, instead of inserting "extreme" only once, I insert it twice, such that "I hereby express my extreme, extreme disapproval concerning human trafficking." But this also does not fully capture the urgency of the issue. How many times, then, must I insert "extreme" before I can adequately express the issue's importance? The fact is that there is only so much extreme disapproval that I am psychologically capable of expressing, and with colossal evils such as human trafficking, I will psychologically max out long before I begin to capture the issue's true importance.

To fully depict the importance of the human trafficking issue, then, it seems I have no choice but to bring in some descriptive component about the immorality of human trafficking that extends beyond my limited psychological expressions. Traditional moral theories offer a variety of descriptive elements that better convey greater urgency, such as "Human trafficking is contrary to God's commands," "Human trafficking violates our natural rights," or "Human trafficking is contrary to eternal moral relations." As skeptics point out, though, these statements rest on concepts that have serious philosophical problems, and some of these concepts might simply be gibberish. The safest way to add a descriptive component, though, is to steer clear of metaphysical descriptions and instead make a generic moral statement, such as "Human trafficking is morally evil." It is true that the skeptic might still dispute the factual nature of "moral evil." However, unlike metaphysical descriptions, the notion of "moral evil" is universally understood and tied to everyone's common life experiences. The less we attempt to clarify the concept of moral evil, the better it serves as a factual description of humanity's most immoral deeds.

REFERENCES

Ayer, Alfred Jules. Hume (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980).

Ayer, Alfred Jules. Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover Publications, 1952/1963.

Ayer, Alfred Jules. Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), p. 139.

Baier, Kurt. The Moral Point of View. Cornell University Press, 1958.

Carnap, Rudolf. Logical Syntax of Language. Harcourt, 1934.

D'Arcy, Martin. "Philosophy Now," Criterion 15 (1936): 593

Hare, Richard Mervyn. "Ethics," A Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by J. O. Urmson.

Hare, Richard Mervyn. The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952).

Hume, David. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 1748

Hume, David. Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. 1751

Moore, George Edward. Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge, 1992), "The Nature of Moral Philosophy."

Ogden, Charles Kay, and Ivor Armstrong Richards. The Meaning of Meaning. Kegan Paul, 1923.

Ross, William David. The Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 30–41.

Stevenson, Charles Leslie. The Ethics of Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944).

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. Define "emotivism" and "prescriptivism."

2. Give examples of analytic statements and empirical statements.

3. What is Ayer's verification principle?

4. Based on Ayer's verification principle, why might the following statement meaningless: " The universe has a purpose that transcends all possible human understanding"?

5. What is a "factually descriptive statement"?

6. What is a " performative statement", and give an example of an implicitly performative statement that is an expression of feelings.

7. According to emotivism, how may we reword the statement "Mother Teresa was a morally good woman"?

8. According to prescriptivism, how may we reword the statement " Murdering people is wrong "?

9. What is Ross's criticism of Ayer's performativism?

10. What is Ayer's response to Ross's criticism?

11. According to Moore, performativism cannot adequately account for moral arguments. What is Moore's rationale?

12. What is Ayer's response to Moore's criticism?

13. What is Stevenson's criticism of Ayer's version of emotivism?

14. According to Hare, what is a key feature that distinguishes the prescriptive meaning from the descriptive meaning of moral utterances?

15. What is the response to Stevenson's criticism given in the chapter?

17. What is Baier's criticism of Ayer?

18. What is Baier's best reasons approach to moral decision making?

18. Give one of the criticisms of Baier's best reasons approach given in the chapter.

19. In the section on Lingering Problems, what are some additional performative functions of moral utterances?

20. In the section on Lingering Problems, why can't emotivism and prescriptivism adequately capture the meaning of our most urgent moral convictions, such as the wrongness of human trafficking?

21. Short essay: pick any one of the following views in this chapter and criticize it in a minimum of 100 words. Ayer: verification principle, emotivist function of moral utterances, prescriptivist function of moral utterances, Ross's criticism of the verification principle, Moore's account of moral arguments, Stevenson's patterns of moral utterances, Baier's processes of moral reasoning, one of the five additional performative functions of moral utterances, the inadequacy of performativism to adequately capture the urgency of extremely immoral conduct.