Concept
Emotivism
Overview
Emotivism is a meta-ethical view that claims ethical sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory. Influenced by the growth of analytic philosophy and logical positivism in the 20th century, the theory was stated vividly by A. J. Ayer in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic, but its development owes more to C. L. Stevenson.
Emotivism can be considered a form of non-cognitivism or expressivism. It stands in opposition to other forms of non-cognitivism (such as quasi-realism and universal prescriptivism), as well as to all forms of cognitivism (including both moral realism and ethical subjectivism).
In the 1950s, emotivism appeared in a modified form in the universal prescriptivism of R. M. Hare.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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But all philosophy is either cognition on the basis of pure reason, or the cognition of reason on the basis of empirical principles. The former is termed pure, the latter empirical philosophy. The philosophy of pure reason is either propædeutic, that is, an inquiry into the powers of reason in regard to pure à priori cognition, and is termed critical philosophy; or it is, secondly, the system of pure reason—a…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Emotivism is.
A secret intimation of anger or contempt shews that we still have some consideration for the person, and avoid the directly abusing him. This makes a concealed satire less disagreeable; but still this depends on the same principle. For if an idea were not more feeble, when only intimated, it would never be esteemed a mark of greater respect to proceed in this method than in the other.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
States what Emotivism is; the author is tied to Emotivism in the knowledge graph.
But however philosophers and the vulgar may differ in their explication of the contrariety of events, their inferences from it are always of the same kind, and founded on the same principles. A contrariety of events in the past may give us a kind of hesitating belief for the future, after two several ways. First, by producing an imperfect habit and transition from the present impression to the related idea.
David Hume, Philosophical Works, v. 1
The author is tied to Emotivism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Emotivism
- A. J. Ayer
- R. M. Hare
- Alasdair MacIntyre
- Iris Murdoch
- Charles Stevenson (philosopher)
- David Hume
- Axel Hägerström
- James Rachels
- J. Baird Callicott
Related ideas
- An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
- George Berkeley
- G. E. Moore
- Philippa Foot
- Karl Menger
- Analytic philosophy
- Truth value
- Expressivism
- Logical positivism
- W. D. Ross
- Metaethics
- A. J. Ayer
- Moritz Schlick
- Non-cognitivism
- Naturalistic fallacy
- Vienna Circle
- R. M. Hare
- Scientific method
- Galileo Galilei
- Cognitivism (ethics)
- Quasi-realism
- Social theory
- Utilitarianism
- Value theory
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.