A.J. Ayer: An Expressivist Approach A.J. Ayer champions the notion of expressivism. He rejects that ethical judgment is either true or false, as cognitivist Moore maintains. Instead, he argues that moral statements simply express our attitudes about things in a non-descriptive manner and try to persuade others to share our own attitudes. Moral disagreement means a clash of different ideas and emotions. Ayer proves that moral statements are meaningless. Ayer first proposes that meaningful statements are either analytic or synthetic. A statement is analytic if its truth or falsity can be determined by the definition of the terms. For example, frozen water is ice. A synthetic statement should be verified by some degree of sense experiements.
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Ayer believes that an assertion simply expresses feelings about a certain type of action without any verifiable moral facts. In the “Day of Rage,” Palestinians and Israelis are not disagreeing on some objective moral fact. Instead, they are expressing different emotions which are influenced by their religions and cultures. Palestinians hold that Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem infringes upon their human rights whereas Israelis believe that they should legitimately protect their capital. Furthermore, these ethical terms — such as good and right — also serve to “arouse feelings and stimulate actions.” Not only do Palestinians articulate their emotion against violations of human rights, an ethical judgment like breaching human rights is wrong aims to arouse international community’s sympathy. Meanwhile, it gives the sentence “an effect of commands” (Ayer, 511) in a sense that “[you] don’t violate human rights.” In moral disagreement like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, two sides have different feelings on the action which Trump recognized Jerusalem as the Israel’s capital. They both express their disparate emotions and intend to demand their counterpart to stop disruption and to persuade others (international community) to support the same
Ayer believes that an assertion simply expresses feelings about a certain type of action without any verifiable moral facts. In the “Day of Rage,” Palestinians and Israelis are not disagreeing on some objective moral fact. Instead, they are expressing different emotions which are influenced by their religions and cultures. Palestinians hold that Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem infringes upon their human rights whereas Israelis believe that they should legitimately protect their capital. Furthermore, these ethical terms — such as good and right — also serve to “arouse feelings and stimulate actions.” Not only do Palestinians articulate their emotion against violations of human rights, an ethical judgment like breaching human rights is wrong aims to arouse international community’s sympathy. Meanwhile, it gives the sentence “an effect of commands” (Ayer, 511) in a sense that “[you] don’t violate human rights.” In moral disagreement like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, two sides have different feelings on the action which Trump recognized Jerusalem as the Israel’s capital. They both express their disparate emotions and intend to demand their counterpart to stop disruption and to persuade others (international community) to support the same