Emotivism
Emotivists held that moral judgments express and arouse emotions, not beliefs. Saying that an act is right or
wrong was thus supposed to be rather like saying ‘Boo!’ or ‘Hooray!’ Emotivism explained well the apparent
necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation. If people judge it wrong to lie, and their judgment
expresses their hostility, then it comes as no surprise that we can infer that they are disinclined to lie. Emotivism
did a bad job of explaining the important role of rational argument in moral practice, however. Indeed, since it
entailed that moral judgments elude assessment in terms of truth and falsehood, it suggested that rational
argument about morals might be at best inappropriate, and at worst impossible.
In the early part of the twentieth century, under the influence of logical positivism, a new view about the nature of
morality emerged: emotivism (see Logical positivism). Emotivists held that when people say, ‘It is wrong to tell
lies’, they express their hostility towards lying and try to get others to share that hostility with them. Moral claims
were thus supposed to be very different from claims expressing beliefs. Beliefs purport to represent the world, and
so are assessable in terms of truth and falsehood. Emotions, by contrast, do not purport to represent the world, so
moral claims were supposed to elude such assessment (see Analytic ethics §1; Moral judgment §1). Judging acts
right and wrong was thus rather like saying ‘Boo!’ and ‘Hooray!’
Emotivism had evident appeal. It is widely agreed that there is a necessary connection of sorts between moral
judgment and motivation. If someone judges telling lies to be wrong then they are motivated, to some extent, not to
lie. But what people are motivated to do depends on what they approve of, or are hostile towards, not simply on
what they believe (see Moral motivation). Imagine, then, that someone’s judgment that telling lies is wrong
expressed a belief. In order to know whether they are inclined to lie or not we would th