EMOTIVISM

EMOTIVISM
“X is good” is an emotional exclamation (not
a truth claim) and means “Hurrah for X!”

Pick your moral principles by following your

feelings.
 EMOTIVISM
EMOTIVISM says that moral judgments express
positive or negative feelings.

“X is good” is equivalent to the exclamation “Hurrah

for X!” – hence can’t be true or false. So there can’t
be moral truths or moral knowledge.
 EMOTIVISM
Logical Positivism holds that only two
types of statements make genuine
truth claims (claims that are true or
false).
 EMOTIVISM
1. Empirical statements – in principle,
these can be shown or tested by our
sense experience to be true or at least
highly probable.
 EMOTIVISM
2. Analytic statements – these
can be true because of the
meaning of words.
 EMOTIVISM
Example:
1. Empirical (testable by sense experience):
“It’s raining outside.”

2. Analytic (true by definition):

“Frozen water is ice.”
 EMOTIVISM

Science is empirical while

mathematics is analytic.
 EMOTIVISM

Science is empirical while

mathematics is analytic.
 EMOTIVISM

If one’s statement is not

empirical or analytic. It is
meaningless.
 EMOTIVISM

“True reality is spiritual.”

 EMOTIVISM
Moral judgements aren’t empirical and
analytic.
Therefore, we don’t actually express our
truth claims but at most our feelings about
things.
 EMOTIVISM
Emotivism sees a moral
judgment as an expression of
feeling, not a statement that’s
literally true or false.
 EMOTIVISM
Moral judgements are
exclamations: “Ex is good” means
“Hurrah for X!” and “X is bad”
means “Boo on X!”
 EMOTIVISM
An exclamation (!) doesn’t state a fact
and isn’t true or false. Since moral
judgements are exclamations, there
can’t be moral truths or moral
knowledge.
 EMOTIVISM
What if we feel cold? Is it
something true?
 EMOTIVISM
Emotivism (just express feelings):
“Brrr!”, “Ha,ha,ha!”, “Wow!”

Subjectivism (truths about feelings):

“I feel cold.”, “I find that funny.”, “I’m
impressed.”
 EMOTIVISM
Moral reasoning = to appeal not to
reason but emotion.
Ex: Terrorism or Nazi – appeal to
emotion. Turning hatred into feelings
of friendship.
 EMOTIVISM
Morality is about feelings and not
about truths.
 PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

*Any genuine truth claim is either empirical (testable

by sense experience) or analytic (true by definition).
*Moral statements aren’t either empirical or analytic.
* Á Moral statements aren’t genuine truth claims.
PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

The central claim of Logical

Positivism (Emotivism) is self-
refuting.
PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

Moral judgements aren’t always

emotional.
PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

A view must be testable by sense

experience or else it makes no
sense.
(This claim is self-refuting)
PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

For emotivism we can’t progress

anymore by reason (at any given
conflicts) but we can try to change
other’s feelings.
 PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

However, the same feeling can also

be used to manipulate other
feelings.
 PROBLEMS ON EMOTIVISM

By denying moral knowledge and

moral truth, it seems to water down
morality.