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22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism

[morality is just an expression of feelings]

30 ideas
'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: Whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth 'Good'; and the object of his hate or aversion 'Evil'.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.06)
     A reaction: This meets the Frege-Geach Problem - that we can have these feelings while reading ancient history, but we can't possibly 'desire' any of that. This is better on evil than on good.
If an irrational creature with kind feelings was suddenly given reason, its reason would approve of kind feelings [Shaftesbury]
     Full Idea: If a creature wanting reason has many good qualities and affections, it is certain that if you give this creature a reflecting faculty, it will at the same instant approve of gratitude, kindness and pity.
     From: 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], I.III.III)
     A reaction: A wonderful denunciation of the authority of reason, which must have influenced David Hume. I think, though, that the inverse of this case must be considered (if suddenly given feelings, they would fall in line with reasoning). We reason about feelings.
We cannot discover vice by studying a wilful murder; that only arises from our own feelings [Hume]
     Full Idea: Examine wilful murder and see if you can find the matter of fact called vice. You only find certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no matter of fact in the case. You can never find it till you turn your reflexion into your own breast.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], III.I.2), quoted by Philippa Foot - Hume on Moral Judgement p.77
     A reaction: [...In you breast you find 'disapprobation'] The question Foot asks is whether the facts of the case are relevant to the disapprobation. If they are not, as Hume implies, then it would be rational to feel the same disapprobation about drinking coffee.
Moral principles do not involve feelings [Kant]
     Full Idea: No moral principle is based on any feeling whatsoever.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 376 Pref)
People cannot come to morality through feeling, because morality must not be sensuous [Kant]
     Full Idea: In the subject there is no antecedent feeling tending to morality; that is impossible, because all feeling is sensuous, and the drives of the moral disposition must be free from every sensuous condition.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III)
     A reaction: I'm not quite clear (even after reading Kant) why moral drives 'must' be free of sensuousness. Aristotle gives a much better account, when he tells us that the sensuous drives must be trained in the right way, and must be in harmony with the reason.
Moral feelings are entirely different from the moral concepts used to judge actions [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The history of moral feeling is completely different from the history of moral concepts. The former are powerful before, the latter especially after an action in view of the compulsion to pronounce upon it.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 034)
     A reaction: I think he places the feelings in our animal origins, and the concepts in rather unnatural cultures.
Treating morality as feelings is just obeying your ancestors [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: To trust your feelings - that means obeying your grandfather and your grandmother and their grandparents more than the gods in us: our reason and our experience.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 035)
     A reaction: He says prior to this that feelings are just an inheritance, not our true natures. Stoics said 'live according to nature', by which they meant 'live by reason', because that is our true nature.
'You ought to do p' primarily has emotional content, expressing approval [Russell]
     Full Idea: A sentence like 'You ought to do so-and-so' primarily has an emotional content. It means ' this is the act towards which I feel the emotion of approval'.
     From: Bertrand Russell (An Outline of Philosophy [1927], Ch 22)
     A reaction: I don't understand how I can say 'you ought to do p', and very clearly mean that the situation would be altogether better if p, only to be told by some philosopher that what I thought was a sensible judgement is actually an emotional outburst.
Moral words have an inherited power from expressing attitudes in emotional situations [Stevenson,CL]
     Full Idea: A term is moral because of the power that the word acquires, on account of its history in emotional situations, to evoke or directly express attitudes, as distinct from describing or designating them.
     From: Charles Leslie Stevenson (Ethics and Language [1944], p.33), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 1 'Ayer'
     A reaction: Invites the question of what the words meant before they acquired this patina of historical usage. If 'good' orginally meant 'hurray!', its repeated usage doesn't seem to change that. If it was descriptive, why would that change with time?
Approval of historical or fictional murders gives us leave to imitate them [Ayer]
     Full Idea: In saying that Brutus or Raskolnikov acted rightly, I am giving myself and others leave to imitate them should similar circumstances arise.
     From: A.J. Ayer (On the analysis of moral judgements [1949], p.237)
     A reaction: This seems to be a reply to the Frege-Geach Problem, of why we have emotional attitudes to crimes that mean nothing to us. Such crimes, however, involve our virtues, and don't depend on awaiting 'similar circumstances'.
Moral judgements are not expressions, but are elements in a behaviour pattern [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To say, as I once did, that moral judgements are merely expressive of certain feelings is an oversimplification; ..moral attitudes consist in certain patterns of behaviour, and the expression of a judgement is an element in the pattern.
     From: A.J. Ayer (On the analysis of moral judgements [1949], p.238)
     A reaction: This seems to switch from emotivism to what Frank Jackson calls 'moral functionalism', where morality is what gets us from certain emotional responses to willed actions. This strikes me, like most functional explanations, as wrong.
Ayer defends the emotivist version of expressivism [Ayer, by Smith,M]
     Full Idea: Ayer defends emotivism, which is his own favoured form of expressivism.
     From: report of A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.6) by Michael Smith - The Moral Problem 2.1
     A reaction: A helpful distinction of terminology. Expressivism is the broad theory, and emotivism is a sub-type, saying that it is emotions which are expressed. The alternative (such as Prescriptivism) is to express pro- and con- attitudes.
To say an act is wrong makes no further statement about it, but merely expresses disapproval [Ayer]
     Full Idea: In adding 'You acted wrongly in…' to 'you stole my money' I am not making any further statement about it; I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.6)
     A reaction: A basic claim of emotivism. Perhaps an understandable response to (e.g.) Kantian claims that we have duties, but to no one in particular. Most people mean by moral criticism that there will be long-term bad consequences, or virtue is lacking.
The mistake is to think good grounds aren't enough for moral judgement, which also needs feelings [Foot]
     Full Idea: The mistake is to think that whatever 'grounds' for a moral judgement may have been given, someone may be unready, indeed unable, to make the moral judgement, because he has not got the attitude or feeling.
     From: Philippa Foot (Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? [1995], p.192)
     A reaction: This is roughly the Frege-Geach problem for expressivism, of how we still make moral judgements about situations where we ourselves are entirely disinterested (such as ancient historical events).
Calling a knife or farmer or speech or root good does not involve attitudes or feelings [Foot]
     Full Idea: No one thinks that calling a knife a good knife, a farmer a good farmer, a speech a good speech, a root a good root, necessarily expresses or even involves an attitude or feeling towards it.
     From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.163)
     A reaction: This is the Aristotelian idea (which I favour) that good derives from function. In such a case it seems obvious that it has nothing to do with expressing emotions.
Emotivists mistakenly think all disagreements are about facts, and so there are no moral reasons [Hare]
     Full Idea: Emotivists concluded too hastily that because naturalism and intuitionism are false, you cannot reason about moral questions, because they assumed that the only questions you can reason about are factual ones.
     From: Richard M. Hare (Universal Prescriptivism [1991], p.455)
     A reaction: Personally I have a naturalistic view of ethics (based on successful functioning, as indicated by Aristotle), so not my prob. Why can't we reason about expressive emotions? We reason about art.
Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers.
     From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209)
     A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone?
In trying to explain the type of approval involved, emotivists are either silent, or viciously circular [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: In reply to the question of what kinds of approval are expressed by the feelings or attitudes of moral judgments, every version of emotivism either remains silent, or becomes viciously circular by identifying it as moral approval.
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2)
     A reaction: There seems to be an underlying assumption that moral judgements are sharply separated from other judgements, of which I am not convinced. I approve of creating a beautiful mural for an old folks home free of charge, but it must be beautiful.
The expression of feeling in a sentence is in its use, not in its meaning [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: Expression of feeling is not a function of the meaning of sentences, but of their use, as when a teacher shouts at a pupil "7 x 7 = 49!", where the expression of feeling or attitude has nothing whatsoever to do with its meaning.
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2)
     A reaction: This point is what underlies the Frege-Geach problem for emotivism, and is a very telling point. Apart from in metaethics, no one has ever put forward a theory of meaning that says it is just emotion. ...Unless it concerns speakers' intentions?
Emotivism cannot explain the logical terms in moral discourse ('therefore', 'if..then') [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: Analytical moral philosophers resist emotivism because moral reasoning does occur, but there can be logical linkages between various moral judgements of a kind that emotivism could not allow for ('therefore' and 'if...then' express no moral feelings).
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2)
     A reaction: This is the 'Frege-Geach Problem', nicely expressed, and is the key reason why emotivism seems unacceptable - it is a theory about language, but it just doesn't explain moral discourse sufficiently.
Nowadays most people are emotivists, and it is embodied in our culture [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: To a large degree people now think, talk and act as if emotivism was true, no matter what their avowed theoretical standpoint may be. Emotivism has become embodied in our culture.
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue: a Study in Moral Theory [1981], Ch. 2)
     A reaction: I suspect that it is moderately educated people who have swallowed emotivism, in the same way that they have swallowed relativism; it provides an excuse for neglectly the pursuit of beauty, goodness and truth, in favour of pleasure.
Expressivists count attitudes as 'moral' if they concern features of things, rather than their mere existence [Smith,M]
     Full Idea: The pro- and con- attitudes of the expressivists count as 'moral' only if they are had towards particular people, actions or states of affairs in virtue of their natural features, ….rather than in virtue of being the particulars that they are.
     From: Michael Smith (The Moral Problem [1994], 2.4)
     A reaction: So whereas emotivists don't have to have any reasons for their moral feelings, other expressivists seem to require reasons (i.e. indicating features of things) to endorse their attitudes. What of reasonless emotionless attitudes?
Emotivists claim to explain moral motivation by basing morality on non-cognitive attitudes [Brink]
     Full Idea: By stressing the intimate connection between moral judgements and the agent's non-cognitive attitudes, emotivists claim to capture the motivational properties of moral judgement.
     From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.223)
     A reaction: The same claim is made by contractarians, who start from our universal self-interest. Emotivists also nicely capture the motivation properties of immoral judgements.
Emotivism implies relativism about moral meanings, but critics say disagreements are about moral reference [Brink]
     Full Idea: Emotivism suggests that different feelings lead to different individual meanings for moral terms, but critics say that meanings are the same, and disagreement is about the extension (range of reference) of the terms.
     From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224)
     A reaction: It's hard to see how 'ought to p' could have quite different meanings for an emotivist and (say) a theistic moralist. 'Ought' is an obvious and simple word. Good criticism.
Emotivists tend to favour a redundancy theory of truth, making moral judgement meaningless [Brink]
     Full Idea: If you want to recognise the truth of some moral judgements, perhaps to make room for the possibility of moral mistakes, then one may not be satisfied with the emotivists' tendency to appeal to the redundancy theory of truth.
     From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224)
     A reaction: Probably thinking of Simon Blackburn. People who adopt a redundancy view of truth for semantics are left floundering when discussing what is true in the rest of philosophy.
Two people might agree in their emotional moral attitude while disagreeing in their judgement [Brink]
     Full Idea: Critics of emotivism claim that moral agreement need not track agreement in attitude; moralists with the same attitude can disagree in their views, and they can hold the same view while disagreeing in attitude.
     From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224)
     A reaction: Thus two racists can disagree about how racists should behave. Sounds like a good criticism.
How can emotivists explain someone who recognises morality but is indifferent to it? [Brink]
     Full Idea: It is not clear how the emotivist can accommodate the amoralist - one who recognises moral requirements but is indifferent to them.
     From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224)
     A reaction: Nietzsche recognised current morals, but was indifferent to them. It is hard to imagine, though, an amoralist who lacked all the feelings which imply morality.
Emotivists find it hard to analyse assertions of moral principles, rather than actual judgements [Brink]
     Full Idea: It is hard for the emotivist to give an analysis of the occurrence of moral ideas in unasserted contexts, such as "IF he did wrong, then he should be punished".
     From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224)
     A reaction: This is the 'Frege-Geach Problem'.
The Frege-Geach problem is that I can discuss the wrongness of murder without disapproval [Miller,A]
     Full Idea: The main problem faced by non-cognitivism is known as the Frege-Geach problem: if I say "If murder is wrong, then getting your brother to murder people is wrong", that is an unasserted context, and I don't necessarily express disapproval of murder.
     From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 9.2)
     A reaction: The emotivist or non-cognitivist might mount a defence by saying there is some second-order or deep-buried emotion involved. Could a robot without feelings even understand what humans meant when they said "It is morally wrong"?
Evaluations are not disguised emotions; instead, emotion is a type of evaluation [Achtenberg]
     Full Idea: The emotivist gets things backwards: evaluations are not disguised emotions; instead, emotions are types of evaluation.
     From: Deborah Achtenberg (Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics [2002], 6.1)
     A reaction: A nice comment, though a bit optimistic. It is certainly a valuable corrective to emotivist to pin down the cognitive and evaluative aspects of emotion, rather than regarding them as 'raw' feelings.