July 4, 2009
Emotivism & Moral Nihilism
One tends to wonder whether an emotivist view of ethics will ultimately result in a case of moral nihilism. Firstly, lets examine what exactly is emotivism and then have a look at a few problems faced by it. Emotivism is a form of non-cognitivism and was first put forward for consideration by A. J. Ayer in his book Language, Truth and Logic. Although more sophisticated versions of non-cognitivism were later penned by people such as Charles Stevenson, Simon Blackburn, Allan Gibbard and Richard Hare, Ayer’s version is the most unadorned yet still highly confrontational of these developed theories.