Emotivism: Are Moral Statements Mere Emotions?

The concept of morality is often recognized as difficult to define. Discerning moral from immoral is bound to result in heated debates, so much so that it often appears impossible to reach an agreement on the outcome of discussions on the matter. What is it then—within the nature of morality—that makes it seem impossible to define? Among the countless philosophers who have attempted to answer this question, A.J. Ayer has concluded that moral statements are nothing but expressions of emotive attitudes towards actions.

Discerning what is moral from what is immoral is often thought of as a necessary endeavor. It allows one to determine the bounds of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and it provides a great amount of security in knowing that there is a clear line between right and wrong. There is a sub-branch of ethics that is concerned exactly with the analysis of actions and the question of whether such actions can be considered moral or immoral. It is called Applied Ethics, and its goal is to apply ethical theories to determine whether each action is morally permissible or not. It is needless to say that agreements on these matters are rarely, if ever, found. Applied ethicists work under several assumptions and cultural influences and operate according to distinct ethical theories, resulting in various outcomes in their investigations.

The different theories that applied ethicists can rely on are established by another sub-branch of ethics, namely, Normative Ethics. The role of Normative Ethics is to determine what makes an action moral or immoral rather than whether the action is moral or immoral. Hence, instead of investigating the morality of individual events, Normative Ethics takes a wider scope on the issue of morality and attempts to answer questions such as “What is it that makes the action of killing immoral and the action of helping the ones in need moral?”. In other words, its goal is to determine the features of moral and immoral actions, attempting to develop a framework that would allow one to discern clearly and, in all cases, between the two.

However, this article’s focus is on an even wider scope. It will investigate the nature of morality per se through the work of a sub-branch of ethics known as Metaethics.

Within the realm of moral philosophy, the role of Metaethics is to step aside from moral and immoral actions and rather investigate what constitutes the essence of morality, i.e., its ontology.

To understand how Metaethics operates, think of a statement such as:

(1) There is a cat in my bedroom.

This can be called an epistemic belief or simply a belief carrying knowledge. The peculiarity of this statement is that one could go into my bedroom and—using their senses—determine whether the cat is there or not. Hence, one could deem the statement either true or false depending on the outcome of the initial observation. Statements like (1) are, for this reason, known as truth-apt.

However, things are not equally as simple when the statement in question is a moral statement such as:

(2) Stealing is wrong.

How can one check whether this statement is true or false? Is there any authority to refer to if one is to assign a truth value to (2)?

How to deal with statements like (2) is a metaethical question. Philosophers have taken distinct approaches to the study of metaethics, resulting in the development of two main currents – cognitivism and non-cognitivism.

Metaethical Theories: Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

In epistemology, the branch of Philosophy that investigates knowledge and beliefs that may consist of knowledge, a belief is considered valid when it can be proven either true or false. Hence, a statement like (1) in the paragraph above would be considered a valid belief, as observation can prove it either true or false.

Metaethics attempts to do something similar with moral statements such as (2). Hence, it developed in two opposite theories – cognitivism and non-cognitivism -, where the former argues that moral statements like (2) are philosophically meaningful, and the latter argues they are philosophically meaningless.

Meaningfulness—in the realm of metaethics—concerns whether moral statements can or cannot be assigned a verifiable truth condition, similar to what can be done for epistemic beliefs. According to cognitivist metaethical theories, moral statements have the same values as epistemic beliefs, i.e., they can also be deemed either true or false. On the other hand, according to non-cognitivists, moral statements do not have such status, as there is no way to determine either their truthfulness or their falsehood.

As expected, cognitivist and non-cognitivist metaethical theories take opposite approaches to determining the value of statements like (2). The former treats moral statements (2) exactly as epistemic beliefs (1). Hence, it attempts to individuate the truth value of the statement according to preestablished moral theories. The latter, on the other hand, argues that moral statements (2) can be deemed neither true nor false, and for this reason, they are meaningless.

Among both cognitivist and non-cognitivist metaethical theories, there are multiple sub-branches. A. J. Ayer, a 20th-century British philosopher mainly known for his contributions to the philosophical endeavor of the Vienna Circle, is considered one of the main promoters of a non-cognitivist theory known as emotivism, first introduced in his text Language, Truth and Logic. Being a non-cognitivist metaethical theory, emotivism claims that moral statements are meaningless, as they can be deemed neither true nor false. However, it further argues that—while being by no means knowledge-bearing—moral statements are said to be expressions of emotive attitudes.

According to the emotivist, saying sentences such as “stealing is wrong” corresponds to expressing a negative attitude towards stealing. Similarly, saying “helping the ones in need is right” is simply an expression of a positive attitude towards helping the ones in need. At the heart of the question is the fact that, according to the emotivist, there is nothing inherently wrong with stealing, and there is nothing inherently right about helping the ones in need. Hence, statements that declare the rightness or wrongness of such actions are just expressions of how one feels about the actions and do not describe any inherent property of the actions themselves or of morality per se.

Emotivism is also often described in terms of “Boo” and “Hurray,” where a statement about the wrongness of an action, such as stealing, is paraphrased as corresponding to something such as: “Boo stealing!”. Similarly, a statement about the rightness of action – such as helping the ones in need – would correspond to “Hurray helping the ones in need!”. This notation clarifies that such statements are not descriptions of any properties of the actions in question but just describe whether one feels positively or negatively about the action.

Emotivism may seem appealing for those who do not wish to assign epistemic – i.e., knowledge-bearing—value to moral statements but still want to provide an account of the role they play within human lives. Emotivism allows one to keep using moral statements to make personal judgments about actions while not necessarily having to commit to any account of the nature of morality or having to determine the properties that make an action moral and immoral.

However, like all philosophical theories, emotivism does not come without complications and a series of objections that may lead one to reject it. Metaethical cognitivism, in particular, argues that – given the relevance of morality within human life—one should not surrender to the idea that morality cannot be defined and relegate it to the expression of emotions and attitudes. Instead, one ought to strive to define morality and determine its true nature to build a society that relies on the values of ethics and goodness.

Furthermore, Ayer’s version of emotivism is often rejected since it does not account for the ever-occurring disagreements on matters of morality. It is evident that humans constantly dispute matters of morality, and often, for practical reasons, a common ground must be found. However, according to the emotivist perspective, disagreements on matters of morality can never be solved, as they are grounded on personal emotive attitudes rather than on facts and beliefs whose truth value can be established.

Should We Reject Emotivism?

The above paragraph expounds on how emotivism faces numerous challenges, some of which are specific to its particular formulation, while others address the whole realm of non-cognitivist metaethical theories. The objections against Ayer’s emotivist account are even more numerous. It is developed through a highly criticized system known as verificationism, which is often charged with being self-refuting, i.e., establishing a principle with which the established principle itself cannot comply. Hence, the complications faced by emotivism are numerous and undeniable, especially within Ayer’s account.

However, emotivism’s accomplishments are not to be ignored. Among its merits, the most relevant is that it allows one to continue availing of moral statements by assigning them the value of simple emotive attitudes while also not committing oneself to the task of defining morality and assigning meaning to moral statements—in accordance with metaethical non-cognitivism.

Additionally, emotivism has provided great insights into developing new non-cognitivist metaethical theories. Among those, quasi-realism is worth mentioning, as it attempts to resolve the challenges faced by emotivism by developing a new theory that tries to pursue a similar objective. Hence, while Ayer’s emotivism itself might have been overcome, its impact on non-cognitivist Metaethics is still significant and ought not to be ignored.