Term Papers on On The Need For Normative Ethics: A Study Of Subjectivist Thought

Term Paper Title	On The Need For Normative Ethics: A Study Of Subjectivist Thought
# of Words	929
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.72

On The Need For Normative Ethics: A Study Of Subjectivist Thought

On the Need for Normative Ethics:
A study of Subjectivist thought

Foremost is a brief description of Subjectivism, particularly Emotivism.
     Subjectivist thought rests on the idea that morality is a function of one's individual emotions, and that is all.  The strength of Emotivism over other avenues of Subjectivism lies in its awareness of the other purposes of language.  Rather than statements designed to convey information, Emotivism relies on utterances that can be deemed neither true nor false.  Moral judgments are interpreted as either commands (seen as an attempt to influence conduct rather than state fact) or exclamations (used, not to state one's opinion or report of one's feelings on a particular matter, but only to express some attitude irrelative of whether one actually possesses the attitude).
     As a result, the emotivist argument transcends the main objections to the earlier Simple Subjectivism.  It circumvents the premiss that, "If Subjectivism is correct, than each of us is infallible in our moral judgments". (Rachels p.40)  By choosing to interpret moral judgments as commands and/or expressions of some attitude, the theory thereby eliminates their qualification as true or false.  The question of fallibility, then, is quashed.
     The second of the previous objections overcome by the emotivist conception is the allowance for moral disagreement.  The slight alteration in the perception of how moral judgments are to be defined highlights the idea that, while individuals may wholly agree as to the relative truth of any pertinent facts (even agreeing as to what each other's feelings are on the matter), they may each desire different and irreconcilable ends.
     Emotivism, by way of linguistic gymnastics, eliminates the most obvious flaws of the earlier simple argument.  Its proponents still ascribe to the same fundamental ideal of the Subjectivist that 'morality' is, as Hume implied, "…the object of feeling, not reason", and that it is a notion belonging solely to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought.
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     This conviction leaves no real platform for why one 'ought' to do or believe any one thing over another.  Individuals need only ask themselves what their 'attitude' is on a particular matter.  The theory seems to nullify the whole conception of moral norms as prescriptions and proscriptions of universal truths. Determination of rights and wrongs seems here reduced to questions of societal benefit, preservation of consistency, or simply individual whim.
     Subjectivism may be seen as a reaction to the apparent inability to provide concrete proof as to the correctness of particular moral judgments.  The seeming impossibility of obtaining recognizable empirical evidence, as in that of the scientific tradition, spurs the push away from morality born of reason alone.  As a consequence, thought also drifts from such notions as Kant's categorical imperatives (Singer p.159).  Not only do these objective standa...

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