“I Find Myself Incapable of Believing That All That Is Wrong with Wanton Cruelty Is That I Don’t Like It” (Russell) to What Extent If at All Is Expressivism Exposed to This Worry?

“I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it” (Russell) To what extent if at all is expressivism exposed to this worry?

Throughout this essay I will discuss how expressivism attempts to move on from mackie’s error theory and subjectivism, to show that their can be moral truths. However I will show how there are many flaws in the arguments, and in actual fact does not lead us much closer to a knowledge of moral truths at all.

The expressivists view of morality stems from emotivism, defended by philosophers such as A. J. Ayer. The theories claim that ethical statements serve solely to express emotion, and it is commonly referred to as the ‘Boo-Hoorah theory’ of ethics. For example the sentence ‘murder is wrong’, is like saying ‘boo to murder’. The aim of the theory is to show the moral approval or disapproval of the expressivist on given circumstances. It is a theory   about the meaning of moral language. Moral statements for the expressivist are non descriptive, the judgments are there to express an evaluative attitude toward an object of evaluation. The expressivist’s take a naturalist’s view that the facts we have about the world is all there are, there are no moral facts or properties. We come to the conclusion that there are moral views because we project our attitudes on to the world of natural facts.

The expressivists view point on first glance seems very similar to that of the Mackie’s error theory, however Blackburn’s quasi-realism form of expressivisms aims to show the difference between expressivism and error theory. His theory allows us to construct a moral truth, or enables us to refer to moral truths. He points out that when speaking of ethics we are speaking ‘as if’ realism was true. However the talking ‘as if’ is just a habit which mankind has got into when considering ethics, but according to Blackburn we are entitled to speak in this way even though realism is not true....