META-ETHICS
OCR Religious Studies Developments in Christian Thought
, 'Ethical statements are no more than expressions of emotion.' Discuss
The statement is taken from A.J. Ayer's emotivist perspective that believes when we make moral statements, we are simply
expressing our emotional response to a stimulus; Ayer said "the presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds
nothing to its factual content" meaning moral statements do not have the same truth value as empirical facts. An
emotivist is an anti-realist (doesn’t believe that 'goodness' is something really out there) non-cognitivist (believes
there is no objective moral right or wrong). There are two main criticisms of this viewpoint which are naturalism
(the belief that values can be de ned in terms of some natural property in the world) and intuitionism (the belief
that basic moral truths are inde nable but self-evident). This essay will strongly argue in favour of the statement
because we have created moral standards through societal expectations that have no objective truth for ourselves to
follow in order to keep society in balance.
Point:
◦ Ethical statements are no more than expressions of emotion because moral judgements are merely re ections of
different ways of life
• Explanation:
◦ A.J. Ayer’s emotivism claims that acting morally is just an emotional response to a stimulus—“boo-
hurrah” theory—not objective truths.
◦ Emotional response purely down to personal preference
◦ J.L. Mackie argues that objective moral values are an error, and moral judgments "re ect… participation
in different ways of life" not universal truths
◦ Hume’s Fork and the Veri cation Principle show that meaningful statements must be analytic or
empirically veri able—moral claims are neither.
◦ Therefore, moral language lacks objective meaning and is rooted in human emotion and culture.
• Response (Criticism):
◦ Ethical non-naturalists like G.E. Moore argue that goodness is a simple, inde nable property known
through rational intuition and moral truths are "self evident".
◦ His Open Question Argument suggests goodness is like the colour yellow—indescribable/cannot be
broken down but intuitively known (e.g. elephant)
◦ We will know what moral action to take by thinking about the consequences of it using our intuition
(consequential intuitionism)
◦ Ross: a moral action contains more than pure emotion and you must use rationality to discern between
different objective Prima Facie duties to follow (e.g. delity)
◦ Sometimes you can be con icted and confused and make mistakes but ultimately it is not purely down to
subjective emotion
• Evaluation:
◦ Moore’s analogy fails because “goodness” is not universally agreed upon like yellow—intuition varies
widely across cultures and individuals.
◦ Dawkins critiques the idea of "self-evident" truths—if moral truths were obvious, everyone would reach
the same moral conclusions.
◦ Stevenson- moral truths are not self-evident pieces of knowledge but emotional outbursts or expressions
of belief.
◦ Ross’s theory still relies on subjective judgment—deciding which duty takes priority depends on
personal intuition, not objective criteria.
◦ Frankena supports that moral statements re ect attitudes, not facts, reinforcing subjectivity in ethical
discourse.
• Link:
◦ Thus, even if intuition plays a role, the inconsistency and subjectivity of moral judgments show that no
mind-independent standard of goodness exists.
Paragraph 2
• Point:
◦ Ethical statements are also no more than expressions of emotion because attempts to derive it from nature
or divine command are logically awed and contradictory.
• Explanation:
◦ Ethical naturalists like Bentham claim goodness is pleasure and can be measured using the Hedonic
Calculus.
◦ However, Hume’s Guillotine shows you can’t logically go from what is (facts) to what ought (morals).
◦ e.g. if someone were to lie and a moral philosopher said “you ought not to lie”- jump in language and
unjusti ed relationship between the words
◦ Ethical monotheism argues goodness comes from God’s commands, but this leads to Plato’s
Euthyphro Dilemma:
• Are actions good because God commands them (making goodness arbitrary)?
• Or does God command them because they are good (making goodness external to God)?
• Response (Criticism):
◦ Divine command theorists say God is omnibenevolent, so His commands are a perfect moral standards
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OCR Religious Studies Developments in Christian Thought
, 'Ethical statements are no more than expressions of emotion.' Discuss
The statement is taken from A.J. Ayer's emotivist perspective that believes when we make moral statements, we are simply
expressing our emotional response to a stimulus; Ayer said "the presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds
nothing to its factual content" meaning moral statements do not have the same truth value as empirical facts. An
emotivist is an anti-realist (doesn’t believe that 'goodness' is something really out there) non-cognitivist (believes
there is no objective moral right or wrong). There are two main criticisms of this viewpoint which are naturalism
(the belief that values can be de ned in terms of some natural property in the world) and intuitionism (the belief
that basic moral truths are inde nable but self-evident). This essay will strongly argue in favour of the statement
because we have created moral standards through societal expectations that have no objective truth for ourselves to
follow in order to keep society in balance.
Point:
◦ Ethical statements are no more than expressions of emotion because moral judgements are merely re ections of
different ways of life
• Explanation:
◦ A.J. Ayer’s emotivism claims that acting morally is just an emotional response to a stimulus—“boo-
hurrah” theory—not objective truths.
◦ Emotional response purely down to personal preference
◦ J.L. Mackie argues that objective moral values are an error, and moral judgments "re ect… participation
in different ways of life" not universal truths
◦ Hume’s Fork and the Veri cation Principle show that meaningful statements must be analytic or
empirically veri able—moral claims are neither.
◦ Therefore, moral language lacks objective meaning and is rooted in human emotion and culture.
• Response (Criticism):
◦ Ethical non-naturalists like G.E. Moore argue that goodness is a simple, inde nable property known
through rational intuition and moral truths are "self evident".
◦ His Open Question Argument suggests goodness is like the colour yellow—indescribable/cannot be
broken down but intuitively known (e.g. elephant)
◦ We will know what moral action to take by thinking about the consequences of it using our intuition
(consequential intuitionism)
◦ Ross: a moral action contains more than pure emotion and you must use rationality to discern between
different objective Prima Facie duties to follow (e.g. delity)
◦ Sometimes you can be con icted and confused and make mistakes but ultimately it is not purely down to
subjective emotion
• Evaluation:
◦ Moore’s analogy fails because “goodness” is not universally agreed upon like yellow—intuition varies
widely across cultures and individuals.
◦ Dawkins critiques the idea of "self-evident" truths—if moral truths were obvious, everyone would reach
the same moral conclusions.
◦ Stevenson- moral truths are not self-evident pieces of knowledge but emotional outbursts or expressions
of belief.
◦ Ross’s theory still relies on subjective judgment—deciding which duty takes priority depends on
personal intuition, not objective criteria.
◦ Frankena supports that moral statements re ect attitudes, not facts, reinforcing subjectivity in ethical
discourse.
• Link:
◦ Thus, even if intuition plays a role, the inconsistency and subjectivity of moral judgments show that no
mind-independent standard of goodness exists.
Paragraph 2
• Point:
◦ Ethical statements are also no more than expressions of emotion because attempts to derive it from nature
or divine command are logically awed and contradictory.
• Explanation:
◦ Ethical naturalists like Bentham claim goodness is pleasure and can be measured using the Hedonic
Calculus.
◦ However, Hume’s Guillotine shows you can’t logically go from what is (facts) to what ought (morals).
◦ e.g. if someone were to lie and a moral philosopher said “you ought not to lie”- jump in language and
unjusti ed relationship between the words
◦ Ethical monotheism argues goodness comes from God’s commands, but this leads to Plato’s
Euthyphro Dilemma:
• Are actions good because God commands them (making goodness arbitrary)?
• Or does God command them because they are good (making goodness external to God)?
• Response (Criticism):
◦ Divine command theorists say God is omnibenevolent, so His commands are a perfect moral standards
fi fi flfi fififl fl fi fi fl fl
