Elanor Kerr

Explain what scholars mean when they say ethical statements are no more than expressions of opinions.

 

Some scholars say that ethical statements are no more that expressions of opinions, others however would disagree. I will now explore these ideas further.

 

Emotivism is a theory which says that moral statements are just expressions of feelings and has no ethical knowledge. Emotivism does not tell you how to live your life, but helps you to understand and influences moral statements.

When we talk about good and ‘bad’ right and wrong we are simply just expressing an opinion emotional state of approval and disapproval.

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Emotivism came about from the theory of logical positivism. This is the view that only those things that can be tested are meaningful. For example … The theory says roughly says that any genuine truth claim must be able to be tested by sense experience. Since moral judgments can't be tested by sense experience, they aren't genuine truth claims. So moral judgments only express feelings. Thus logical positivism leads to Emotivism.

 Emotivism is also known as the boo/hurrah theory in which we say boo to bad things e.g. poverty and illness, but hurrah to the good things e.g. giving ...

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