Political & Moral Atomism: Taylor’s Reasons For Disagreeing
Atomism was always used as a very broad term, unfortunately though it was usually used by people attacking the theory rather than supporting it, which lead to a lot of philosophers referring to atomism by other names such as individualism. Hence when it comes to defining what atomism is in the eyes of Taylor, a lot of clarification is needed to establish exactly what it is he is referring to.
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.