What Truth Does the Emotive-Imperative Answer to the Open-Question Argument Leave to Moral Judgments?

The emotivist-imperativist theory of moral judgements invites treatment as a response to the problem exposed by G.E. Moore's open-question argument, which remains in the field after the associated charge is refuted that it is a naturalistic fallacy to identify good with any descriptive characte...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of value inquiry 2003-01, Vol.37 (3), p.341-352
Main Author: Braybrooke, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Deception
Emotions
Ethics
Injunctions
Moore, George Edward
Morality
Natural law
Philosophy
Truth
Values
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Summary:The emotivist-imperativist theory of moral judgements invites treatment as a response to the problem exposed by G.E. Moore's open-question argument, which remains in the field after the associated charge is refuted that it is a naturalistic fallacy to identify good with any descriptive characteristic. Moral judgements have to be moving, at least in suitable contexts and for a suitable audience, and both emotions and imperatives are essential to their being so. It is still important to sort out the right, justifiable imperatives and expressions of emotions from the wrong, unjustifiable imperatives and expressions of emotion. There are two different connections in which it is awkward to dismiss the concept of truth from ethics. The first connection in which truth presses to come back in is this: the word true is the normal form of serious endorsement in ethics as in other branches of discourse. A second connection in which truth presses to come back in is in its use to endorse, not moral judgements of the first instance, but assertions that the grounds or criteria invoked to warrant them are those that have been identified as appropriate.
ISSN:0022-5363
1573-0492
DOI:10.1023/B:INQU.0000013346.36601.b9