Moral anti-realism

• Mackie's error theory is a moral anti-realist & cognitivist , Mackie believes moral properties don't exist, they are mind dependent, when we speak about them we're making a false statement. Moral statements are truth-apt (always false) making his theory cognitivist.

  e "my unicorn is pink" is a false statement- they aren't real

  so, "murder is bad" is a false statement because "bad" isn't - we've made an error talking about it as if it is

  This is the case for all moral language, moral properties do not exist, and a moral statement is false as we are speaking of something that is not real.
• Ayer's emotivism is a non-cognitivist, moral anti-realist theory.

  Ayer believes moral statements express your feelings, your approval/disapproval of an action.

  E.g.

  • "Stealing is bad" is like saying "Boo! I disapprove of stealing"
  • "You should be honest" is like "Yay! I approve of honesty"
• Ayer's theory is different to subjectivism which suggests, "stealing is bad" is like saying "most people think stealing is bad" or "you should be honest" is like "most people think honesty is good.

  • Ayer highlights subjectivism is a cognitivist, realist theory- a form of moral naturalism as you could survey to everyone to find is these statements are true or false
  • Also, he argues they are often not right as e.g. if saying "racism is bad" is like "most people disapprove of racism" and historically this hasn't been the case.
• Ayer's theory is also different to speaker subjectivism which suggests saying "stealing is bad" is like saying " Boo! I disapprove of stealing, therefore, stealing is bad". Ayer argues speaker subjectivism makes a faulty leap from a feeling to an attempted fact
• Stevenson builds on Ayer's emotivism and says the purpose of moral judgments is not to state facts, but to express one's own emotions and use them as dynamic tools with which to influence other people's attitudes and actions.
• Hare's prescriptivism theory is non-cognitivist and anti-realist, Hare believes moral language prescribes and describes in two ways:

  • Imperatives: A direct instruction e.g "sit down" or can be implied through a statement e.g "eating meat is wrong" implies you should not eat meat
• Hare's prescriptivism theory is non-cognitivist and anti-realist, Hare believes moral language prescribes and describes in two ways:

  • Value judgement: Calling something e.g"good" places a positive value on it, therefore prescribing and not just describing. E.g "these strawberries are good, they are sweet and juicy" is not just describing or the statement would be like "these strawberries are sweet & juicy, they are sweet & juicy". The moral language of "good" is clearly a prescription, to take a strawberry.
• Hare believes moral language still does describe. If someone calls chocolate "good" the chocolate has a cocoa flavour and a creamy texture. The moral language has also described the chocolate.

  Hare believes the standards for the goodness of chocolate, teachers, strawberries, lying or anything do not exist in the external world, but we have constructed them and chosen to adopt the properties.