Revising the History of Meta-ethics: the Case of Ayer’s Emotivism

Abstract

The aim of this paper is double. In the fi rst part I argue against the traditional interpretation of Ayer’s emotivism. According to this interpretation, in Language, Truth and Logic Ayer based emotivism on his “radical empiricist” (positivist) view. I argue that this is not so. Then, in the second part I develop a new interpretation of emotivism according to which Ayer’s analysis of moral vocabulary does not depend on positivism. The purpose of the article is to contribute to the history of metaethics by presenting a correct account of Ayer’s analysis.