Moral Statements as Commands
One version of emotivism claims that moral statements are “action-guiding” commands: “X is good” means “Do X!” The trouble with that is that a command can be obeyed or disobeyed, and one needs a reason to obey it. I mean, who are you to tell me what to do? The obvious rejoinder to “Do X!” is “Why should I?” And that brings up back to cognitivism and even naturalism: “You should, because in doing it you will conform your soul to the Good or because you will enjoy it,” which is a proposition which is either true or false, and also a reduction of the term “good” either to conformance to a moral ideal or to pleasure.
Posted: March 24th, 2009 under Ethics, Philosophy.