A Reply to Mr. Taylor

Abstract

IN HIS recent article, The Normative Function of Metaethics,' Mr. Paul Taylor makes a number of criticisms of an earlier paper of mine that was addressed to the same subject.2 In that paper, I argued that, whatever merits the emotive theory may possess, it is not an accurate description of the way ordinarily use moral words; and I tried to show how the adoption of an emotivist metaethic would modify the style of the moral life although not necessarily its content. My arguments were not intended to show that the emotive theory must be rejected, but rather that its acceptance should not be urged on the ground that it is descriptively accurate. My primary interest was the general problem of the relation of analyses to first-order moral and I used the emotive theory simply as a specimen metaethic to suggest that, at least one case, the prevailing view of the relationship between these different levels of moral discourse might be mistaken. Taylor's criticism of my line of argument is twofold. First, he thinks I have confused the emotive theory with subjectivism. He agrees that there are genuine discrepancies between subjectivism and the precritical assumptions of common sense, but he is sure that this is not true of the emotive theory, at least in its more recent and sophisticated form. Second, even when subjectivism and the earlier, less sophisticated emotivism do run counter to the common sense view, they are not therefore, as Taylor says I tend to suppose, misdescribing the way actually use moral words but rather contradicting certain second-order beliefs, assumptions, or views about [one's] own and others' first-order moral discourse, which may very well be erroneous.3 Taylor thinks that, if I had observed this crucial distinction, I would not have been misled into the belief that must either reject the emotive theory or find a way of defending it that does not involve the claim that it is descriptively accurate. Taylor's own view is that we may accept the emotive theory (or whatever 'theory' would constitute a faithful explication of ordinarymoral discourse) both as a true descriptive account of ordinary moral discourse and at the same time as an acceptable guide for changing our moral life, including ultimately changing