IB Philosophy 4.2.3 Ethical Language Key Definitions

Emotivism is the meta-ethical theory that moral statements do not express propositions but rather express the speaker's attitudes and attempt to influence others. Saying "stealing is wrong" is not stating a fact but expressing disapproval, sometimes called the "Boo/Hurrah" theory.

Ethical language refers to the words and statements used to make moral claims (such as “good,” “right,” “wrong,” and “ought”). Meta-ethics asks whether ethical language describes moral facts, expresses attitudes, issues prescriptions, or performs some other linguistic function.

Naturalism in meta-ethics holds that moral properties are identical to or reducible to natural properties discoverable through empirical inquiry, such as what promotes pleasure, satisfies desires, or contributes to human flourishing. The view promises to place ethics on a scientific footing but must answer Moore's open-question argument, which contends that no natural description can fully capture the meaning of moral goodness.

Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that moral statements do not express beliefs or state facts but instead serve to express emotions, issue commands, or voice attitudes, rendering them neither true nor false. Prominent versions include Ayer's emotivism, which treats moral utterances as exclamations of feeling, and Hare's prescriptivism, which interprets them as universalisable imperatives.