A Critique Of Ethics Summary

In, “A Critique of Ethics,” AJ Ayer defends the theory of meta-physics called expressivism. Expressivism is a theory that defines moral statements as statements that are not descriptive statements. Expressivism is still widely used today; after studying the theory, one will easily be able to see how the theory still plays a part in modern society. It is a theory that makes so much sense, yet most individuals don’t fully pay attention to all of the specificities that go into making the theory an actual method of philosophical analysis. When beginning to understand the concept of expressivism as Ayer had intended it to be interpreted, it is important to understand the many elements that make up the meta-physical theory. The elements
It includes the analytic meaning of the subject that is contained in the predicate of the claim, as well as the synthetic meaning of the subject that is not contained in the predicate, known as the empirical truth. Emotivism is a form of non-cognitivism, making it the equivalent of expressivism as a whole. The verification principle states that something is only true if there is some kind of experience in which it can be reduced to, such as proving that plants benefit from being exposed to sunlight and not darkness, with the exception of some species of plants. Non-cognitivism is an expression of a statement that is neither empirically true, nor empirically false. The opposite of non-cognitivism, cognitivism, is an expression of a statement that is either empirically true or
For example, a man named Jack kills his wife named Jill. Onlookers see that Jack has committed murder and think he has done something drastically wrong and horrific, whereas Jack does not see anything wrong with killing Jill. He has his own reasons for the murder of his wife, such as relief from a certain emotion towards her that he had been feeling. Ayer’s view of expressivism states that if Jack had been given a command, such as, “Don’t kill your wife,” the ethical statement would be considered to be open to individual interpretation from the listener, or the commandee. The command would not be able to be analyzed as true or false, but rather open for interpretation by those who were listening; Jack was free to do with the command as he