Emotion, Truth and Meaning: In Defense of Ayer and Stevenson (Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy Book 12)

The aim of this book is to defend the Emotive Theory of Ethics, and, in particular, the versions of that theory proposed by A. J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and by C. L. Stevenson in Ethics and Language (1944). For those readers who are familiar with the conventional history of Twentieth Century moral philosophy and the infamous place which the Emotive Theory occupies in that history, the question which may well spring to mind at this point is 'Why bother?' In order to answer this question, however, I will need to provide a rough sketch of the very unconventional history of Twentieth Century moral philosophy which inspired me to 'resurrect' a theory which most modem moral philosophers have long assumed to be safely dead and buried. From the very outset, the Emotive Theory (ET) was a misunderstood, misrepresented and unjustly ridiculed theory, but, contrary to what one might expect, it has, with the passing of time, become an even more misunderstood, misrepresented and unjustly ridiculed theory. The Emotive Theory was theory ahead of its time, and a theory which was, perhaps understandably, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and ridiculed by its critics from the outset. In Emotion, Truth and Meaning, Dr Wilks not only acquaints the reader with what the original emotivists actually claimed (and clarifies what they actually meant when they made some of the more controversial claims), he enriches their claims by psychologically expanding them. Like its predecessor, Dr Wilks's enriched emotive theory distinguishes between moral conflicts which are rationally resolvable and moral conflicts which are not, but, unlike its predecessor, it traces the irresolvability of the latter to the psychological fact that they are merely symptomatic of more fundamental conflict at the level of world view - the level where questions about the meaning of life are answered, and where the truth of the answers arrived at is emotionally-felt rather than empirically-sensed The Emotive Theory was theory ahead of its time, and a theory which was, perhaps understandably, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and ridiculed by its critics from the outset. In this work, the author acquaints the reader with what the original emotivists actually claimed, and enriches their claims by psychologically expanding them. He thus develops an enriched emotive theory.