Jonah Bossewitch	PHI 334

April 21, 1997	Prof. Soames

Analysis #2b

"I want you to remember that words have those meanings which we have given them;

and we give them meanings by explanations."

Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue Book

The application of the Logical Positivist theory of meaning to ethical statements produced a strange, but compelling, movement known as Emotivism. A central claim of Emotivism is the idea that "evaluative judgments are neither true nor false. They do not state facts; rather their meaning is entirely emotive." (Emotivism handout) A strong version of this claim even tries to pin down the precise types of emotion that value terms express, and equates all such terms with commands or recommendations. It is this position which Sir David Ross attacks in The Foundation of Ethics, written in 1936.

Ross's argument begins by pointing out the fact that when expressing their views, the Emotivists constructed extremely simple sentences, such as 'you ought to do so-and-so'. According to Ross, any analysis of a concept must explain all the occurrences and usage of that concept. He then introduces a series of more complex sentences which all contain the term 'ought' and states that 'ought' ought to mean "the same in all these cases, and that if in some of them it does not express a command, it does not do so in any."

The types of sentences that Ross introduces as counter-examples to the claim that ethical terms are logically equivalent to commands include: 'he ought to do so-and-so', 'you ought to have done so-and-so', 'if this and that had been the case, you ought to have done so-and-so', and 'I ought to do so-and-so'. These sentences involve counterfactuals, statements about the past or the future, reference to a third person, and self-reflective observations. It is difficult to understand how, in such sentences, the term 'ought' could be expressing a simple command. Does it make sense to say that people command themselves to do things? It is one thing to criticize yourself or try to motivate yourself to act, however it is weird to claim that the 'ought' occurring in these sentences is logically equivalent to a simple command or recommendation.

Ross understands a command as "an attempt to induce someone to behave as one wishes him to behave, either by the mere use of authoritative or vehement language, or by this coupled with the intimation that disobedience will be punished." Ross concedes that the simple examples given by the Emotivists could support this analysis, but these limited classes of examples do not confirm the theory, since there are many other classes of sentences which can not be analyzed in this fashion. One of the aspects of meaning that these simple sentences express is the sense of an imperative order, but this is not the only sentiment that such sentences express, and consequently, Ross argues that sentences containing value terms are meaningful enough to warrant their treatment as statements (that is, having a truth value).

For Ross, value terms are not simply orders to perform an action, they are actually reasons for performing the act. "What distinguishes its meaning from that of the genuine 'do so-and-so' is that one is suggesting to the person addressed a reason for doing so-and-so, viz. that it is right." Ross accepts the imperative role that value terms have in our language, namely, that by calling something right we are trying to convince/coerce someone into behaving in a certain manner. However, Ross recognizes that this role accompanies the functional meaning of the term apparent in all of the complex sentences that he presents. Ross emphatically asserts that the Emotivist interpretation of value terms "cannot for a moment be accepted as the meaning of the words 'you ought to do so-and- so'.

Ross's critique of Emotivism is powerful, since for many years philosophers were convinced of Emotivism's worth, and Ross's analysis was the first serious threat to the Emotivism, expressed in terms that Emotivists could not ignore. Intuitively, the average man would dismiss Emotivism on the grounds that it certainly seems as if we are saying something meaningful, beyond merely asserting our feelings or issuing a command, when we utter a sentence containing such terms. However, for a long time the Logical Positivists had the upper hand, since they had constructed a theory of meaning which allowed them to explain (away) the usages of these terms in a way that preempted attempts to develop theories about the meaning of these terms.

Instead of butting heads with the Emotivists by insisting that ethical terms must be meaningful since everybody thinks they are, Ross presents an argument which challenges their position without directly confronting the verificationist criterion of meaning. For Ross, it could have turned out that our usage of ethical terms was consistent with the interpretation posed by the Emotivists. However, the Emotivists did not go out and determine how these words are actually used and then form a theory. They developed their theory of meaning and then tried to apply them to terms in use. Their critical error was their failure to include all the ways in which certain terms are actually used in their analysis.

A crucial joint in Ross's argument concerns his assertion that all occurrences of a term must always convey the same meaning. "But it is easy to see that 'ought' means the same in all these cases." There are many words that do not mean the same thing in different contexts, and it is not so easy for all to see that 'ought' necessarily conveys the same meaning in all of these examples. However, this flaw in Ross's argument can be bracketed, since even if 'ought' does have different meanings in different contexts, the Emotivists have failed to give us an account of their meaning in these contexts, and until they do the status of their theory is in jeopardy. Ross has successfully refuted the strong Emotivist claim that these terms are always equivalent to a command.

There still might be room for an Emotivist maneuver along the lines of stretching their idea of an equivalence relation. After all, it is possible to speak about commands issued in the past ('Yesterday I told my dog to fetch.') the future ('Tomorrow I will tell my dog "fetch".') and, with slight variation, for the others. Grammatically, the command terms do not play the same role in these sentences as they do in a simple imperative clause, but an expansion of the notion of a command might provide the Emotivist with a good strategy for responding to Ross's claim. Of course, if the syntax and usage of such command terms becomes sufficiently complex, it becomes more and more difficult to claim that these terms are meaningless and do nothing more than express an opinion of the speaker. Such is the predicament that the Emotivists created for themselves, and they have yet to squirm free of its binds. Their ideas were far from a failure since they demonstrated that it is possible to articulate a philosophical theory clearly enough for it to be soundly refuted, and for this legendary distinction they will forever be remembered.

I pledge my honor that I did the right thing (Hooray!) and did not violate the honor code in writing this paper.

Jonah Bossewitch