ETHICAL EMOTIVISM MARTINUS NIJHOFF PHILOSOPHY LIBRARY VOLUME 25 For a complete list of volumes in this series see final page of the volume. Ethical Emotivism by Stephen Satris 1987 MARTIN US NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS ~411 a member of the KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP •• DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTER ." Distributors for the United States and Canada: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Assinippi Park, Norwell, MA 02061, USA for the UK and Ireland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, MTP Press Limited, Falcon House, Queen Square, Lancaster LAI lRN, UK for all other countries: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, Distribution Center, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Satris, Stephen. Ethical emotivism. \Martinus NiJhoff phllosophy library; v. 25) BIbliography: p. Includes index. 1. Emotivlsm. I. Title. II. Series. BJ1473.S27 1987 171.2 86-23493 ISBN-13:978-94-010-8067-5 e-ISBN-13:978-94-009-3507-5 DO!: 10.1007/978-94-009-3507-5 Copyright © 1987 by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht. Reprint of the original edition 1987 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, P.O. Box 163, 3300 AD Dordrecht, The Netherlands. For Kimiko I speak here of moral virtue, since that is concerned with emotions and actions; and excess, deficiency, and the mean occur in these. In feeling fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and in general pleasure and pain, one can feel too much or too little; and both extremes are wrong. The mean and the good is feeling at the right time, about the right things, in relation to the right people, and for the right reason; and the mean and the good are the task of virtue. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. II, ch. 6 .. .it is not surprising that these states should have been often described as states of knowledge. The temptation to a philosopher when concerned with a subject in which he feels a passionate interest, to use all the words which are most likely to attract attention and excite belief in the importance of the subject is almost irresistible. Thus, any state of mind in which anyone takes a great interest is very likely to be called 'knowledge', because no other word in psychology has such evocative virtue. Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, p. 268. PREFACE The primary contributions of this work are in three overlapping categories: (i) the history of ideas (and in particular the history of the idea of value) and moral philosophy in both continental and Anglo-American traditions, (ii) the identification and interpretation of ethical emotivism as one of the major twentieth-century ethical theories, and (iii) the evolution of a philosophically viable form of ethical emotivism as an alternative to utilitarianism and Kantianism. In addition, along the way, many particular points are touched upon, e.g., the relation of Hume to Stevenson and emotivism, the facti value distinction, and human emotional and social nature. The work begins by challenging the received account of the development of twentieth-century moral philosophy, i.e., the account that occurs in all the recognized historical books (such as G.c. Kerner, The Revolution in Ethical Theory, Oxford, 1966; G.1. Warnock, Contemporary Moral Philosophy, London, 1967; W.D. Hudson, Modern Moral Philosophy, London, 1967; Mary Warnock, Ethics Since 1900, 3rd ed., Oxford, 1978; and W.D. Hudson, A Century of Moral Philosophy, New York, 1980). This received account is not only the property of scholars of the history of recent moral philosophy but is also generally assumed by philosophers themselves, and is repeated quite uncritically in the literature at large. I show the influence of Franz Brentano, Ralph Barton Perry and other continental and American philosophers and psychologists of value on the development of ethical emotivism, especially in the work of Charles Stevenson-who is regarded, even in the received account, as the chief spokesman for emotivism. The standard view of emotivism is shown to be seriously defective, and some of the hitherto overlooked relationships between continental and Anglo-American traditions are explored. On the basis of the new historical connections with value theory (or Werttheorie) and a careful examination of Stevenson's own writings, emotivism recovers its intellectual integrity. Because of the great importance of (non-cognitive) attitudes for Stevenson's emotivism, the theory is fundamentally opposed to the positivist notion that the only important subjective orientation to the world is that of a knower. Its non­ cognitivism emerges as a form of anti-positivism, rather than as a form viii ETHICAL EMOTIVISM (or even a corollary) of positivism. The theory is no crude irrationalism­ involving such absurdities as the equation of effective persuasion with good moral argument, or a 'causal theory of meaning'. It is a strong critique of scientism, and a systematic defence of a philosophy of value according to which ethical issues put conative-affective attitudes (and not just scientific beliefs) at stake, and according to which both utilitarianism and Kantianism are overcome in favour of an account that places the conative-affective and social nature of human beings in the foreground. What is demanded is nothing less than the re-investment of experience with a significance or meaning that is not derived secondhand from science (as in utilitarianism) or transcendentally from metaphysics (as in Kantianism). Stevenson's emotivism is clearly distinguished from the thought of A.J. Ayer, Carnap and other logical positivists, with which it is often unjustly associated. It is disturbing that even quite recently philosophers of the status of Stanley Cavell (in The Claim of Reason, Oxford, 1979) and Alasdair MacIntyre (in After Virtue, 2nd ed., Notre Dame University Press, 1984) have given interpretations of Stevenson and emotivism that are plainly travesties. And yet these travesties will unfortunately be allowed to stand because they are based on the same historical and interpretive presumptions that inform the received account of the origin and nature of emotivism, an account that further research shows to be inadequate. Moreover, the new interpretation of emotivism is much more defensible-philosophically stronger and more interesting-than the easily refuted 'straw man' versions that have circulated for so long. This work initiates the rehabilitation of emotivism. In particular, the theory is shown to be superior to Hare's prescriptivism, which Hare and others claim supersedes emotivism as the only viable form of non-cognitivism. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thinking in ethics has been greatly stimulated by numerous discussions with Elizabeth Anscombe, and by her article 'On Brute Facts'. Bernard Williams was immensely helpful in encouraging my research and the writing of this work, which was my Ph.D. dissertation at Cambridge University; and I am grateful for his continued criticism and support. J.O. Urmson, Ross Harrison and J.B. Schneewind read previous drafts of the entire work, and I have benefited from their critical questions and comments. Chapter One, 'The Theory of Value and the Rise of Ethical Emotivism', is reprinted with slight revision from the Journal of the History of Ideas (vol. xliii, No.1, Jan. 1982, pp. 109-28) by kind permission of the Editors. I would like to thank Southeast Missouri State University for a research grant in Spring, 1986, which helped to prepare the final manuscript for print. And I thank Cindy Heuer and Red Letter Communications for their work on the typesetting. ABBREVIATIONS EL Ethics and Language, Charles L. Stevenson, (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1944). EMC Essays on the Moral Concepts, Richard M. Hare, (London: Macmillan, 1971). FV Facts and Values, Charles L. Stevenson, (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963). GTV General Theory of Value, Ralph Barton Perry, (New York: Longmans, Green, 1926). MM The Meaning of Meaning, C.K. Ogden and LA. Richards, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1923). (All references are to the first edition.) Stylistic Note: All direct quotations of English-language writers retain the original spelling, punctuation, etc. CONTENTS Preface VII Abbreviations x Acknowledgements IX The Theory of Value and the Rise of Ethical Emotivism 1. The standard account I II. German and Austrian roots 5 Ill. Ayer and the Vienna Circle 20 II Attitudes, Beliefs and Disagreements 26 1. Introductory 26 II. Attitudes and beliefs: interest and cognition 27 Ill. Disagreement in belief and disagreement in attitude 47 III Emotive Meaning: Marty to Ayer 51 1. Introductory 51 II. Marty 53 Ill. Ogden and Richards 57 IV. Ayer 67 IV Emotive Meaning: Stevenson 73 1. Morris and pragmatic meaning 73 II. Dispositions and the causal theory of meaning 75 111. A confusion of two theses 80 IV. The pragmatic meaning question: emotive meaning and descriptive meaning 88 v. Emotive meaning and human social nature 91 xii ETHICAL EMOTIVISM V Perry, Hume and the Rejection of Naturalism 95 1. Introductory; Hume and Stevenson 95 11. Perry's interest theory 97 HI. Stevenson's rejection of Perry 100 iv. Stevenson on Hume 109 v. Further on Hume and emotivism 112 VI. Sympathy, the is/ ought gap and motivation 116 VI Reasons and Persuasion 125 1. Introductory 125 11. Ethical argument 128 lll. The two patterns of analysis and the issue of relevance 133 IV. Further on the two patterns; naturalistic fallacy; self-persuasion 138 VII Hare's Critique of Emotivism 144 1. Introductory 144 11. Hare: two groups of verbs and six differences 150 VIII Does Prescriptivism Supersede Emotivism? 166 1. Introductory 166 11. General criticism 167 lll. Emotivism vs. prescriptivism 170 IV. Moral thinking: two levels 181 Bibliography 184 Index 199 .