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Expressivism

Expressivism is a theory about the use of moral language in the field of Meta-ethics. Some of the early examples have a vintage from the Logical Positivist period after the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The most prominent example of this is Ayer's emotivism propounded in his Language, Truth & Logic. Later came the 'Projectivism' of Simon Blackburn, the 'Prescriptism' of Hare and the 'Norm-expressivism' of Allan Gibbard .

Such theories share a fundamental thesis about what is actually happening when we use moral langauge. The conviction is shared that moral talk is not 'truth-apt ' in the way talk about the location of a set of keys can be, or the height of the Eiffel Tower (common sense talk about the world is truth-apt ). All Expressivist theories would agree that when people say "killing is wrong" they are not stating a 'fact' which is considered 'true'.

Expressivists beleive that when using moral langauage we are not stating that we consider a certain position to be true, but instead that we approve of it. So if someone said "killing is wrong" they are stating "I approve of the statement 'killing is wrong'" rather than "the statement 'killing is wrong' is true". Certain theories such as Blackburn's have gone on to develop complex logical apperatus along the lines of truth tables for an expressivist logic of morality.

Expressivism is susceptible to The Frege-Geach Problem which seems to undermine its adaquacy as a description of moral talk.

Last updated: 05-10-2005 02:17:23
Last updated: 10-29-2005 02:13:46