What can you remember about Emotivism So what

What can you remember about Emotivism?

So what do moral statements do? Ayer (Emotivism): Moral judgements express positive or negative emotions Importantly - They are not true or false! “X is good” = “X hurrah!” “X is bad” = “X boo!” Abortion boo! Abortion hurrah!

Emotivism Vs Subjectivism Important – don’t confuse with subjectivism! • Subjectivism: Moral statements report feelings or opinions, and are therefore factual and can be true or false. My statement of “Murder is wrong” is true to me because that’s what I think. • Emotivism: moral statements express feelings, and are therefore nonfactual and can’t be true or false. “Murder is wrong” just means “Boo murder!” and there is nothing true or false about this. It’s similar to me cheering at a football goal – how could you describe that act as true or false?

C. L. Stevenson’s addition to emotivism: • Moral statements also have a social function • They attempt to arouse similar feelings in others and get them to act accordingly. They have a persuasive force, similar to an argument. Abortion boo! You abortion boo too!

Starting Point: Prescriptivism Like Emotivists, Prescriptivists believe: • Moral values are not types of facts. They cannot be true or false (noncognitive). • Moral judgements do not state moral facts about the world (antirealist). • Moral discourse is therefore not informative or descriptive. It’s not about the facts of the world. They also make use of the Open Question argument highlighted by Moore to demonstrate that no definition of ‘good’ is adequate.

What’s in a name? : Prescriptivism Where Prescriptivists differ from Emotivists is what they think moral statements do. If a doctor gives you a prescription, what is he intending? For Prescriptivists, moral statements are not just expressions of emotions, but commands or recommendations related to behaviour.

R. M. Hare “The function of moral principles is to guide conduct”

Prescriptivism – 2 Uses of Moral Language Command imperatives – Most common terms are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Using moral language like this implies that someone should do something or act in a particular way. For example ‘Eating meat is wrong’ entails the imperative ‘Don’t eat meat’. If you accept the moral judgement then you will act accordingly. This means if you ask ‘should I eat meat? ’, and I answer ‘eating meat is wrong’, I have answered your question. • Stealing is wrong. • Helping the homeless is the right thing to do. • You are doing the right thing in saving those animals. • Why would you defend that man? It’s wrong! What imperatives are contained in the following moral judgements?

Prescriptivism – 2 Uses of Moral Language Commending (Value judgements) – Common terms include ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Using moral language like this is intended to commend or criticize something. Although this commendation is not explicit about what we should do, it does serve as guidance for our choices later. So when I say ‘Ameerah is a good student’ I am commending Ameerah for something that she has done and implying she should probably continue to do it in future.

Quick Summary So Far… • Term’s like ‘ought’ / ‘should’ / ‘right’ – prescribe By using these terms we are stating that someone should be behaving in a particular way. • Terms like ‘good’ / ‘bad’ – commend. By using this term we want to identify something or someone as praiseworthy. • Either way our words are intended to guide / command someone’s behaviour, they do not simply describe a fact about the world.

Looking a little bit closer at ‘Good’ • By commending are makingfacts a value judgement, we are This differencesomething betweenwedescribing about the world saying the thing we are commending is praiseworthy in some way. and commending behaviour is what Hare thinks Hume got right with hisfrom Is-Ought gapsomething and Moore got right with • This is different describing – Suppose I say ‘Thisthe is a naturalistic good strawberry, because it is sweet fallacy. and juicy’. If we think ‘good’ as applied to strawberries is just a matter of whether they have particular qualities (sweet and juicy) then all I have said is ‘This is a Moral judgements arebecause very different types of thing than sweet and juicy strawberry it is sweet and juicy’. factual statements about the world, they operate in a • different But this does notand seem to intended be what I mean referring different. to the way are to dowhen something strawberry as ‘good’, Iin am not merelyare describing extrathem qualityas it Realists (naturalists particular) wrongsome to claim has instead I am commending it for having particular qualities. simple facts.

But there is more to ‘Good’ is not just a term of praise however for Hare. He argues that when we call something good there is a set of standards that we are implicitly judging it against. What standards do you think we might use to judge: • Good chocolate? • Good teachers? • Good musicians? • Good people? • For Hare, a good person (as in morally ‘good’) is just someone who is the way we think we ought to be as people. They have achieved a standard that we consider to be important. • These standards though are not absolute, they’re not something that everyone has access to and should follow (as a virtue ethicist might claim) instead we have to adopt them. Your idea of a ‘good’, commendable person might be different to mine.

Finally… Since, in describing something as good, I am appealing to a particular set of standards, it would be illogical if I had two identical things to call one ‘good’ and the other ‘not good’. Either they both achieve the standards, or neither does. If I say one chocolate is good and the other is not, I must be appealing to some key difference between the two. This also extends to moral imperatives – terms like right and wrong are intended to guide someone towards a particular standard. Two actions, in similar circumstances must both therefore be right or wrong. To have one right and the other wrong, with no relevant difference between the two would be odd and contradictory. Hare says we must therefore be willing to ‘universalise’ our moral judgements.

Quick Check So Far… • What do prescriptivists think are the two key uses of moral judgements? • How do we judge whether something is good or not according to prescriptivists? • Why does Hare think we should be able to ‘Universalise’ our judgements?

Emotivism Vs Prescriptivism There is a key difference in the way emotivism sees moral language as an attempt to influence others, whereas prescriptivism sees it as guiding action. So for emotivists, if Theresa May tells us 'it is wrong to join terrorist organisations fighting in other countries' then she is trying to affect our attitudes and behaviour so that we don't join a terrorist organisations. It is the equivalent of a persuasive argument. But, for the prescriptivist the essence of moral language is not to influence but to guide: May is actually saying 'Do not join terrorist organisations'. Presumably some persuasion is also needed. The emotivist doesn't think Theresa has much more to add, as for them ethical language is non-rational. Hare’s prescriptivism accounts for our expectation that Theresa would be able to offer reasons for her instruction, and be able to enter into a discussion with us about these reasons.

Summary – Prescriptivist Moral Language… • It is used to command, to tell people how they ought to behave. (right / wrong) • It is used to commend, to tell people ‘well done’ for behaving in a particular way. (good / bad) • It assumes a set of standards, features in virtue of which something counts as e. g. good / bad / right / wrong etc. • These standards are moral standards but they are adopted, rather than being true or false. • Two relevantly similar things must both be good / bad / right / wrong etc. or not. To think otherwise is logically contradictory. • This is different to Stevensons Emotivism – as Hare thinks we should also be able to give reasons for our prescriptions, the moral statement on it’s own is not persuasive (as Stevenson thinks they are).

Criticism Universalisabilty tries to explain rationality of morality, but it is flawed. The problem is, Hare focuses on form rather than content, he thinks anything is a valid moral view as long as it can be universalised. There is nothing out there in the world that can be used as a measure of our prescriptions. What problems does this present?

Criticism First, there are trivial prescriptions that could be universalised (such as, 'It would be good to always tie my left shoe before my right). As we saw with Kant’s categorical imperative, although such statements are prescriptions, and are universalisable, they don’t seem to be moral imperatives. Secondly, and more importantly, Hare allows prescriptions that emerge from a fanatic culture that we would want to condemn. Prescriptivism appears to say that so long as people are consistent in putting forward horrific judgements then their consistency makes the judgement a moral one.

What does this all mean? Both of these cases undermine Hare's claim that he has shown how prescriptivism retains the rationality of moral discussion. It turns out that universalisability isn't enough to save moral argument, as you might universalise a prescription that I disagree with ('Eating meat is right'), and I might universalise a judgement that you disagree with ('Eating meat is wrong') and we want a successful moral theory to be able to show we can have this disagreement in a way that doesn’t just come down to a difference of opinion.

One paragraph Weigh up the advantages and criticisms of prescriptivism to come to a conclusion about whether it shows that moral language simply expresses prescriptions.