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3 ideas
22485 | Non-cognitivists give the conditions of use of moral sentences as facts about the speaker [Foot] |
Full Idea: What all these [non-cognitivist] theories try to do is to give the conditions of use of sentences such as 'It is morally objectionable to break promises', in terms of something which must be true about the speaker. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? [1995], p.192) | |
A reaction: A wonderfully simple and accurate analysis of this view. Compare analysing 'there is a bus coming towards you' in the same way. Sounds silly, but lots of modern philosophers see things that way. |
22486 | 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). |
5168 | Moral approval and disapproval concerns classes of actions, rather than particular actions [Ayer] |
Full Idea: The common objects of moral approval and disapproval are not particular actions so much as classes of actions. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.27) | |
A reaction: This 1946 revision of his pure emotivism looks like a move towards Hare's prescriptivism, where classes, rules and principles are seen as the window-dressing of emotivism. It's still a bad theory. |