Talk:Emotivism

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Describe criticism and responses to it. Explain the changes introduced by Hare's prescriptivism. Elaborate upon Stevenson's views on moral argumentation under emotivism. Give a history of the theory, including the relationship of Ayer's views to logical positivism and early allusions to emotivism by George Berkeley and David Hume, among others; regarding these allusions, a footnote on page 205 of Richard Brandt's 1959 Ethical Theory mentions: George Berkeley, para. 20 of the Introduction of A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725, and An Essay on the Anature and Conduct of the Passions, with Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, 1728. David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 1738. See also W. K. Frankena, "Hutcheson's Moral Sense Theory," Journal of the History of Ideas, XVI (1955), 356–75. Consider restructuring the Proponents section into a Tenets section, moving some material about Ayer and Stevenson to the History section and splitting Tenets into subsections like Meaning of ethical language (itself split into Expression of attitude and Imperative) and Role of moral argumentation. These sections would incorporate criticism, making a separate criticism section unnecessary (see Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Article structures that can imply a point of view and Wikipedia:Criticism).

[edit] Attributing objections

First of all, these objections need to be attributed. Second of all, they don't seem to be correct. A steals from B. I have a negative reaction to A stealing from B. I criticize A stealing from B.

Emotivists suffer from the several key flaws in this line of thought, a couple being:

1. They could never legitimitely criticize the moral views of other people's actions.
2. They could never legitimitely criticize the moral views of their own actions.

If a person does something an emotivist doesn't like, he/she cannot criticize that person because, for that person, it may be morally correct.

This doesn't follow at all. A steals from B. A doesn't feel bad about stealing from B, but I feel bad about A stealing from B so I criticize A based on my feelings.

Likewise, they could not criticize themselves, either for past or present actions, because at the time, it would have been morally correct.

Again, doesn't follow. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs) 17:14, July 18, 2003 (UTC).

[edit] Elaboration

This page needs SIGNIFICANT elaboration, as this is a fairly important movement in 20th century ethics, from the viewpoint of both meta-ethical theory as well as modern analytic philosophy. It's connection to the school of Logical Postivism and the Vienna circle, as well as it's influence should be discussed in length. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.35.245.121 (talk) 18:35, March 20, 2007 (UTC)