WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

WJEC / Eduqas Religious Studies for A Level Year 2 and A2 Religion and Ethics

This section covers AO1 content and skills

F: Meta-ethical approaches: Emotivism Emotivism as an ethical theory The theory of Emotivism is usually associated with the British philosopher A. J. Ayer and, quite independently of Ayer’s work, the American philosopher Charles L. Stevenson. Whilst Ayer was more influenced by the Logical Positivists and the ideas of the verification principle , Stevenson was influenced more by the later ideas of Wittgenstein on the meaning of language. However, prior to the popularisation of the theory of moral language as emotive, this had been

Specification content Theory that believes objective moral laws do not exist; a non-cognitivist theory; moral terms express personal emotional attitudes and not propositions.

already raised by empiricists such as David Hume and then by one of Moore’s closest friends at Cambridge, Bertrand Russell. Ayer acknowledges this in his first edition preface: ‘The views which are put forward in this treatise derive from the doctrines of Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, which are themselves the logical outcome of the empiricism of Berkeley and David Hume.’ A year prior to the publication of Ayer’s book, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) Bertrand Russell had published a book called Religion and Science (1935) and argued that moral judgements of right and wrong were justified if they promote good but in terms of whether or not an act is a good act he states: ‘there is no evidence either DRAFT

Key quote The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value – and if there were it would be of no value. (Wittgenstein)

It was the philosopher Bertrand Russell who first really challenged Moore’s views and suggested that ethical language was emotive.

way; each disputant can only appeal to his own emotions’. He also argued that moral statements were a form of rhetoric to rouse the emotions of others. Russell writes: ‘Questions as to “value” lie wholly outside the domain of knowledge. That is to say, when we assert that this or that has “value”, we are giving expression to our own emotions, not to a fact which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.’ He concluded the contrary to Moore when he argued that for

something to have intrinsic value is a matter, not of objectivity as Moore claimed, but of pure subjectivity. For example, the classic case is with the goodness of beauty, which, as we know from the common phrase that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, is totally a matter for debate and personal perspective. Key quote Moore would agree that moral judgements are neither analytic nor empirically verifiable. But he believed that they are nevertheless true or false, because they are about non- natural properties. But Ayer responds that our ‘intuitions’ are simply our feelings of approval or disapproval. Feelings are not cognitions of value, and value does not exist independently of our feelings. (Lacewing) In other words, whilst Moore indicated that ‘self- evident’ truths did not need justification, Russell drew a different conclusion that for something to

1.23 According to Russell, where did question of value belong?

Key terms Emotivism: theory that ethical propositions are simply expressions of approval or disapproval Veri cation principle: methodology of the Logical Positivists that only statements that are empirically veri able (i.e. veri able through the senses) are cognitively meaningful

Alfred Ayer’s book Language, Truth and Logic generated a lot of debate amongst moral philosophers when published in 1936.

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