Emotivism

I would be remiss if I started this review of MacIntyre without a "discussion" on emotivism. Thus, an outline of points raised in a recent discussion with a fellow philosopher of After Virtue's first chapters.

First, why does this matter? MacIntyre structures his argument very thoughtfully. He gives us a succinct picture of what a faded discipline might look like in everyday language, explains that it would be difficult for "historians" to notice the problem, but gives us hints as to how we might carefully discern the problem. Then, he gives us examples of common ethical discussions of today and points out that they exhibit the same easy-to-miss but nevertheless telltale signs of having been built on a since-collapsed knowledge structure. We should be very worried, he says.

An obvious retort would be to acknowledge that there is an emptiness behind ethical discussion, but to disagree with the assertion that this emptiness is a problem, or that the problem is solvable. MacIntyre knows that if this position were true, it would deflate his argument, so he chooses to encounter the opposition on the offensive.

Second, what is emotivism? Our discussion identifies MacIntyre's definition of it as a theory that claims that the sentence "Honesty is right" is the same as "Yay, honesty." MacIntyre views emotivist theories as linguistic theories, that is, theories about the meanings of sentences. Perhaps there is room here for deepening emotivist theories to discuss claims, not sentences. Certainly there is room for a wide variation of emotivist theories, and MacIntyre does recognize his opponent as a family of theories, rather than a single school. If MacIntyre can succeed in convincing us that emotivism is false, he is one step closer to convincing us that there is some other reason ethical language is empty, and that this is a dire problem.

Thirdly, how prevalent is emotivism? Part of MacIntyre's urgency is grounded in his opinion that most people function as emotivists and that the ethical history we acknowledge as a society is perpetuates this by consistently recreated the ethical mood to which emotivism was a natural reaction. Therefore we are consistently steered away from recognizing the dismal state of the discipline of ethics while at the same time continuing to value it as if it were not empty.

How much do we agree with MacIntyre's opinion that mild emotivism is so prevalent? On the one hand, I tend to disagree that people would ever admit to recognizing emotivism in their own ethical convictions, even if they were pressed to the point that they could give no deeper defenses of those positions. Is this just denial, buried under MacIntyre's "desire to be rational"? Possibly, but quite possibly not as well. On the other hand, I have begun to think about whether we might be able to recognize emotivism on a cultural rather than personal scale. I would certainly agree that cultural relativism is prevalent in modern American culture. Could this be construed as emotivism on a societal level? We might not be willing to identify our ethical convictions as boiling down to "Yay X" or "I approve of X." We do seem more willing, though, to explain and accept that another person's beliefs could be boiled down to "my parents/community/religion/culture taught me that yay X." Might we even be willing to use such an explanation of our own beliefs? I would say, arguably yes. And if so, the very same problems that arise with personal emotivism regarding an emptiness in ethical communication would arise here. The very same arguments that MacIntyre makes against the emotivist trends could apply.