Similarly a group called the logical positivists (also known as the Vienna Circle) who were also non-cognitive, believed that a statement only has meaning if it can be tested using the real world of sense experience. They said that statements could be split into three groups. Firstly analytical/ logical, secondly synthetic, and thirdly they said all religious or moral statements are meaningless. They didn’t say that these statements were useless, but believed the fact they cannot be tested and no-one can know with certainty if they are true or false means they are meaningless. Another ethical non-cognitivist, A.J.Ayer believed like the logical positivists that moral language does not deal with objective, knowable facts but with opinions. It is this theory that makes him an emotivist. Ayer expressed his view of emotivism by saying that when we make moral statements such as “stealing is wrong” we are not talking about objective facts but are simply expressing our own feelings on the matter. This theory is known as the “boo-hurrah” theory because Ayer believed all we are saying when we make that
statement is “boo to stealing” or “hurrah to respect for others property”. We are basically grunting our approval or disapproval.
C.L. Stevenson took a similar view and agreed that ethical statements are just expressions of our attitudes but went on to say that these attitudes are not just based on a certain mood but are based on our views on the world and the way it should work. He stated that there is more to a statement than the boo-hurrah theory, because you could agree with something to an extent and acting upon your thoughts means more than just saying boo or hurrah to it. Stevenson also believed that the words you use can persuade people to agree with your point of view. Emphasizing certain words (such as using the word baby instead of embryo) will put a more persuasive side to your argument and people use these emotive words both naturally without thinking, and sometimes use these words to an advantage to strengthen their argument.
This kind of approach is called prescriptivism, and a philosopher who was a well known prescriptivist was R.M.Hare. He is known as a prescriptivist because although he expressed a non-cognitive view on moral statements he went a step further than Ayer and said not only are we expressing our opinions, but we are encouraging others to share our ideas. He promoted the idea of universalizability which means that if you are going to make a statement such as “I disagree with abortion” you have to be consistent with what you say and universalise it, (i.e. if you disagree with abortion, you disagree with abortion for everyone in the world”. There are however some criticisms of prescriptivism because it argues that moral judgements are based on prescriptions and not the objective. It did not help people to understand why they should follow one persons “prescription” rather than someone else’s.
We have been concentrating on the non-cognitive view; however there were some philosophers who took the opposite view. Cognitivists such as Peter Vardy believed that moral statements are based on known facts, and an example of this is his quote “We not only feel the holocaust to be wrong, we know it to be wrong”. He was an ethical naturalist in that he believed good and bad can be equated with something else and can be verifiable (e.g. Hitler was an evil man). He believed in the following principles: that ethical terms can be defined by using information to observe, and that ethical conclusions can be made from non-ethical statements (for instance, “abortion ends the life of a foetus, therefore abortion is wrong”).
G.E.Moore was hugely influential however in saying that there was a fault in ethical naturalism because, he argued, moral statements cannot be verified by looking at the evidence known to our senses. He called this mistake the “naturalistic fallacy”. Moore argued that when ethical naturalists equate good with something else they are going from an “is” to an “ought”. Moving from an objective factual statement to a subjective statement leaves open questions which have not been answered. “Good”, Moore said is indescribable and cannot be equated with anything else. He uses the colour yellow to explain this theory. If we are asked to describe the colour yellow we will end up giving examples of yellow things rather than giving yellow itself a definition. We know what it is, and we recognise it when we see it but we cannot describe it. Likewise we recognise goodness intuitively but we cannot describe it.
Influenced by Moore and also called an Intuitionist was W.D.Ross. He criticises part of Moore’s theory and says certain actions are right and wrong in themselves and are separate from their good or bad consequences. Actions are either right or wrong but the goodness is defined by their intentions, (e.g. it might be right giving up time to help at an old peoples home but if the motive is to get points on my UCAS form it would not be good). He believes then that right is an act which is suitable in a certain situation, Like Moore, Ross found there was a sense of right and wrong but this intuitive sense is different in everyone.