Meta-ethics delves into the nature of what makes a moral judgement. Moral judgements are believed to be calculations or opinions formed as to whether some action, inaction etc. or a person and their behaviour is seen as good or bad, which is measured against some standard of Good (Gensler, 1998, Chapter 5). It is argued that moral judgements contain two features, practicality and correctness. From this, many philosophers have discovered that these two features have underlying tension in making a moral judgement. However, it can be argued that the non-descriptivism position can account for correctness in moral judgements.
One feature of a moral judgement is practicality. Practicality of moral judgements suggests that our moral judgements motivate us at least to some degree. Moreover, if moral judgements are beliefs that motivate, they can only be beliefs about how to get something that we already want. However, some moral judgments, such as the judgement that murder is wrong, are not judgements about how to get something that we already want. Therefore, either they are not beliefs at all, and consequently not objective, or they cannot motivate us, and therefore not impractical (Singer, 1991, pp455-458).
However, according to the Humean Theory of Motivation, Hume (1739) argued that beliefs (attitudes about how things are) alone cannot motivate us and that motivation requires something like a desire (attitudes about how we want things to be), or, in Hume’s words, “a passion”. For example, the belief that it is raining will only motivate someone to wear a raincoat if they have the desire to stay dry. The belief that it is ringing does not motivate us to act unless it is relevant to one of our desires. But moral judgements motivate without further desires, so they cannot be beliefs. Desires give us the destination of what we want to achieve, whilst the belief gives us the information of how to achieve the desire. Therefore moral judgements motivate us and must be reports of our desires (Hume, 1739). This leads on to Hume’s theory that moral judgements are based on passions, also referred to as secondary impressions. They originate from the first impressions of pain and pleasure. One example would be to put ones fingertip on the edge of a sharp knife and getting the desire to remove the fingertip immediately to stop the pain. Furthermore, the passions play a significant role in showing us the reasons we have for our actions. Following Hume’s perspective, they have the implication for action that is that they communicate specific guidelines on whether they involve pleasure or pain. From this, Hume suggests that these consequences that struggle between passion and reason can never be possible. As a passion can never be wrong unless it is supplemented with a false belief or the choosing of wrong means for the end of the particular desire, they never actually come into "conflict". When actually, what happens is that; "The moment we perceive the falsehood of any supposition, or the insufficiency of any means our passions yield to reason without any opposition" (Hume, 1739, Sect. III).
This argument leads to the Descriptivist Subjectivism position in that our moral judgements are beliefs about our desires or attitudes. Descriptivists argue that our moral judgments are beliefs that try to describe the world, with subjectivists arguing that moral judgements are grounded upon our attitudes. Simple subjectivism is the belief that “X is good” which also means “I like X”. These beliefs are expressions of one’s personal subjective state of mind, and therefore can be true or false in relation to that subjective state of mind.
However, there are objections to simple subjectivism. The first objection is the ‘Open question argument’ put forward by G. E Moore (1903) in which suggests that is not immediately obvious whether it is right or wrong, and the answer is not immediately apparent, but can be understood without knowing the answer. The second objection is ‘infallibility’. The subjectivist claims that the truth of moral judgements is reliant on the subjective state of mind of a given person, suggests that any given person is infallible in their moral judgement. From this, the question arises that if moral judgements are reports on our feelings then how can it be wrong. There is a gap between self-knowledge and moral knowledge with self-knowledge not always being infallible. Furthermore we often experience that our moral judgements may be changed by debating and discussing an issue – clearly this adjustment then amounts to compromise our personal fallibility. The third objection of simple subjectivism is the possibility of disagreement. Simple subjectivists argue that the occurrence of disagreement on matters of morality shows that there are no mind-independent facts in morality. Though some might seem to disagree, there simply is no disagreement, as all participants expressing their moral judgements have voiced their individual states of mind, and since the truth of a moral judgement depends simply on the subjective state of mind of a given person, they might all speak the truth. A situation where people are making differing statements is not possible, as there never was a possibility for conflict. (Singer, 1991, p414-416)
Furthermore, Ayer (1936) suggests that simple subjectivism faces these problems because saying something is good is not to make a statement about your feelings. In fact moral claims are not statements at all as they do not express beliefs, they express attitudes. From the position of subjectivism, one could suggest that we need to give up moral disagreement. However, this contradicts our personal intuition, in that we do disagree and also we do think that in expressing conflicting views we are talking about one and the same thing. This leads on the position of non-descriptivism in that moral judgements are not beliefs, they are expressions of our desires or attitudes (ways we think or feel about something). Ayer’s version of non-descriptivism is known as Emotivism. For example, “X is wrong”: “Boo! X” or “Do X.” Ayer describes emotivism using the example “Thus if I say to someone, 'You acted wrongly in stealing that money,' I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, 'You stole that money.' In adding that this action is wrong I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it” (Ayer, 1936, Chapter 6). One can suggest that the theory is called Emotivism, because it's developed on the premises and emotive effect of moral language.
On the other hand, the other weird feature of moral judgements, being correctness, suggests that we are concerned to get the answers to moral judgements right and we think we can get them wrong and if someone disagrees with us, we think they are mistaken and provide reasons for them to change their mind. The objectivity of moral judgement proposes that there are moral facts that are determined by circumstances, and that our moral judgements express our beliefs about what these facts are. When using moral judgements, describing something about the way things are as something external. Objectivity is assumed in ordinary use of moral language as supported by the quote “The ordinary user of moral language means to say something about whatever it is he characterises morally… as it is in itself, or would be if it were realised, and not about, or simply expressive of, his, or anyone else’s, attitude or relation to it” (Mackie, p. 33-34).
However there is a problem with correctness, and that is the Non-Rationality of Desire. Hume suggests that attitudes, like desires, are non-rational. “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions” (Hume, 1739, p415). Our desires are non-rational, not the sort of things you can get right every time and can make a mistake upon desires, founded upon a false belief. Subjectivism holds the view that moral judgements state our desire-like attitudes, Emotivism holds the view that moral judgements express our desire-like attitudes, but if Hume is right, we can’t reason about our desire-like attitudes, which suggests that they can’t be correct or incorrect. David Hume responds to this with the quote “It is not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness to an Indian or person wholly unknown to me” (Hume, 1739, p416).
There are two responses to the ‘Non Rationality of Desire’. The first is Non-rational subjectivism. This is the argument that we cannot reason about “basic” principles of morality. When we argue rationally about morality we are simply arguing about matters of facts. The second response is moral realism. This is the result of descriptivism (moral judgements are grounded upon our attitudes) and objectivism (moral judgements aren’t simply grounded upon someone’s attitudes but other external factors) leading to the suggestion that moral judgements are beliefs about objective moral facts. From this, the position of naturalism suggests that moral facts are facts about what types of behaviour would lead to human prosperity to then motivate us. Moreover, moral facts are facts about what any person who was fully informed and impartial would approve of: facts about what such a person would approve of motivates us. On the other hand, non-naturalist stories suggest that moral facts are facts about what we have reason to do, i.e. the facts about what we have reasons to do motivates us. Furthermore, moral facts about whether our behaviour is impartially justifiable (whether it can be justified from an impartial point of view, purely from another side and not in favour), i.e. facts about whether out behaviour is impartially justifiable motivates us. From this, one can suggest that when we make moral judgements it feels as if we’re trying to find out the truth about the way things are. In addition, trying to work out what is right or wrong is something external, in trying to seek out the moral truth.
The two weird features of moral judgements, both practicality and correctness both seem to be in tension. Moral Realism, the result of objectivism and descriptivism, fits well with Correctness, but has problems with Practicality. On the other hand, Subjectivists and Non-Descriptivists explain Practicality easily, but struggle with correctness. The belief that moral judgements about our desires or are not beliefs at all. In fact imperatives on their own can motivate us. But it struggles to explain how it can be right or wrong.
Non-Descriptivists try to accommodate Correctness by arguing that we can reason about non-descriptive utterances. In other words, something doesn’t have to be a belief to be true or false. They also try to give an adequate account of correctness by claiming that apparent moral argument is just argument about matters of fact and that we can’t argue about basic moral claims. Hare’s Rational Non-Descriptivism position states that “there are rules of reasoning which govern non-descriptive as well as descriptive speech acts.” (Hare, Singer, 1991, p.455-458). In addition, the Universal Prescriptivism position suggests that moral judgements must meet the Universalisability requirement, “Treat relevantly similar cases the same!” An example to show this is “X is wrong” equates to “You (and anyone relevantly like you) do not do X and do not do anything relevantly like X” (Hare, Singer, 1991, p.455-458). Hare also suggests that moral judgements are types of imperatives and/or commands. Imperatives are the types of things that can be correct or incorrect, and there are also inconsistent imperatives, “If, as is certainly the case, there can be logical inconsistency between contradictory imperatives, someone who wants the totality of the imperatives, or in general prescriptions, that he (or she) accepts to be self-consistent will have to observe the rules which govern consistency” (Hare, 1991, p. 455). Hare suggests that we can use the general feature of lack of inconsistency and special features of moral judgements to reason for our actions. Therefore, it can be argued that non-Descriptivists can give an adequate account for correctness in that moral judgements are purely arguments about matters of fact and that they account for reasoning against non-descriptive utterances, such as imperatives.