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Subjectivism
Ethical Subjectivism – the view that
our moral opinions are based on
our feelings and nothing more.
Ethical subjectivism is a meta-ethical
theory
 Does not tell us how we ought to live
 Does not tell us what specific actions are
right or wrong

Simple Subjectivism
“x is morally acceptable”
 “x is right”
 “x is good”
 All these statements = “I (the speaker)
approve of x”

Problems with Simple Subjectivism
No one is infallible
 There cannot be moral disagreement
(though in fact there is disagreement
about moral issues).

Emotivism
Emotivism does not view moral assertions
as either true or false.
 Reporting – “I (the speaker) approve of x”
 Expressing – “Hurrah for x” (does not
express my feelings about x)
 Moral statements are essentially
commands, and not at all fact stating.

Virtues of Emotivism
Problem with fallibility is avoided since
moral utterances are not true or false.
 Different senses of disagreement

 Factual
disagreement
 Disagreements about what we think ought to
happen


Disagreements about attitudes
Disagreements in attitude
Problem with Emotivism
Cannot account for good and bad
reasoning in ethics.
 If moral statements are commands
intended to change the attitude/behavior
of another, then any reason given that
successfully changes someone’s attitude
is morally appropriate.

Proofs in Ethics

Subjectivism and Emotivism are troubling because they
seem to imply that reason is not an important element of
morality.

“No Proof Argument”
(1) If there were any such things as objective truths in
ethics, we should be able to prove that some moral
opinions are true and others are false.
(2) But in fact we cannot prove which moral opinions are
true and which are false.
(3) Therefore, there is no such thing as objective truth in
ethics.



Objections to the “no proof
argument”
Inappropriate standard of proof i.e., ethics
≠ science
 The difficult proofs in ethics are analogous
to difficult proofs in science

Example: Geometry
Point:
No, length, no width, no depth.
Point
10
Infinite
number of points in 2 directions
Line
11
Connect
three lines and you get. . .
Triangle
12
So what did you study in
Geometry?
13