Emotivism

Emotivism is a metaethical view that holds moral judgments do not express beliefs about objective states of the world, but rather express emotional attitudes such as approval or disapproval. Proponents say moral statements function to influence attitudes and actions rather than to present factual claims.

The theory is associated with the logical positivist tradition of the early 20th century, notably A. J. Ayer, who argued that ethical terms express feelings and thus are not truth-apt. C. L. Stevenson later developed an expressive theory that emphasized the persuasive force of moral language and how moral utterances aim to guide and modify the attitudes of others. R. M. Hare’s related non-cognitivist program, often labeled prescriptivism, treats moral language as issuing universalizable commands rather than merely expressing feelings, a position that is closely connected to emotivism though it adds a prescriptive element.

Core claims of emotivism include that moral statements are non-cognitive: they do not have truth values in the same way as factual statements. Their primary function is to express approvals or disapprovals and to motivate behavior. Moral disagreements are thus disagreements about attitudes rather than about facts, and moral discourse resembles expressions like “Boo stealing” or “Hurrah for helping others.”

Critics challenge emotivism on several fronts. It is said to struggle with moral reasoning, objectivity, and moral progress, and to have difficulty accounting for the perceived force of universalizable moral norms. Variants like Stevenson’s emphasis on persuasion and Hare’s prescriptivism attempt to address these issues, but the core non-cognitivist stance remains controversial.

Emotivism has been influential in the study of the expressive function of moral language and in debates between cognitivist and non-cognitivist accounts in metaethics.