Global Journal of Management and Business Research, A: Administration and Management, Volume 22 Issue 9

that ethical judgments are truth-apt. In expatiating Ayer's theory of emotivism, Stevenson agreed that ethical statements express the speaker's feelings, but that there exists an element of prescriptivism when uttering moral sentences: 'Your ethical judgment has a quasi- imperative force which, operating through suggestion, and intensified by your tone of voice, readily permits you to begin to influence, to modify someone else’s interests.' 16 Statements of fact are either logically necessary (true by definition) or observable. But, moral statements are neither analytically nor synthetically verifiable, so there are no moral facts.In summary, Stevenson’s claim is that when one says that an ethical judgment is true, what he is really doing is reaffirming that ethical judgment. His example is as follows: “When Mr. A says “Jones ought not to have done it,” and Mr. B replies: “that is true,” what is the force of B’s reply? Rather obviously he too has said, in abbreviated form, the equivalent of “Jones ought not to have done it.” His “that is true” permits him as it were to repeat A’s remark, thus expressing an attitude (apart from hypocrisy) that is in agreement with A’s.” 17 Stevenson argues that this sense of truth, as reaffirming what others have said, is not an unusual sense of truth, insofar as it is also typical for factual contexts. However, the important point here is that even if Stevenson’s considerations are correct and ethical judgments are truth-apt in this sense of truth, it does not make ethical judgments truth-apt in the ordinary (and interesting) sense of truth. 18 The claim that moral language only expresses attitudes seems to imply that there is no contradiction involved in moral disagreement. That is, if one person says: ‘Telling lies is (morally) wrong’ and another person say: ‘Telling lies is not (morally) wrong,’ they are not contradicting each other in any way; but only expressing different personal preferences. However, if the emotivist wishes to deny that the two parties have moral disputes, he or she needs to explain why it looks like they do; since they are clearly trying to argue for something, not just expressing their personal preferences. 19 In this regard, Ayer is in agreement with subjectivists in saying that ethical statements are necessarily related to individual attitudes, but he says they lack truth-value because they cannot be properly understood as propositions about those attitudes. He takes subjectivism to be the thesis that actions are right or good if a person or group of persons approves of it. 20 The subjectivist thinks, according to Ayer, that one can translate statement of value into statements of empirical fact. But, he also thinks that ethical sentences are expressions, not assertions of approval, because while an assertion of approval may always be accompanied by an expression of approval, expressions can be made without assertions. 21 He used “boredom” as an illustration. For Ayer, "boredom" can be expressed through the stated assertion "1 am bored" or through non-assertions like tone of voice or any other way of communicating various other verbal statements. He holds that such statement like "Homosexuality is wrong" would be a non-propositional sentence that is an expression of disapproval, and thus not equivalent to the proposition: "I disapprove of Homosexuality." 22 Ayer went further to say that ethical discussions are about the facts. Thus, when arguing over homosexuality, contending parties are constantly bringing facts to each other's attention. One person points out how much homosexuals suffer in searching for identity, and another person points out how much more sophisticated it is to legalize gay marriages, and so on. If they both agree on the facts, but still disagree morally, there would be nothing left to discuss. 23 b) Homosexuality and Moral Standards Ethics is the practical normative science of the rightness or wrongness of human conduct, as known by natural reason. The subject matter of ethics is human conduct, those actions which are performed consciously and wilfully, and for which one can be held accountable. 24 Ethics also has been defined as that branch of philosophy, moral philosophy, which addresses moral problems and offers the criteria for judgments. It equips us with the tools for critical ethical judgments. 25 Ethics deals with the principle of human behavior, analyzing those elements responsible for our behaviour. It scrutinizes moral questions and offers rational and objective answers to them. Ethics therefore reminds us of the negative consequences of bad action and offers us the approbation that follows good deeds. There is no consensus in ethical opinions regarding how we come to know right and wrong actions. While some thinkers opine that conscience should be used as a moral standard, others claim that it is the consequences 71 Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XXII Issue IX Version I Year 2022 ( ) A © 2022 Global Journals The Ethical Emotivism of A. J. Ayer and C. L. Stevenson: A Tendentious Explanatory Matrix for Human Homosexual Behaviour 16 Charles L. Stevenson , (1907) "The emotive meaning of ethical terms, "from Darwall S. Mora, Discourseand Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 74. 17 Charles L. Stevenson, (1963) Facts and Values: Studies in Ethical Analysis, (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. 217-218. 18 Nathan Nobis (2004) “Ayer and Stevenson’s Epistemological Emotivisms,” Croatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1):59-61. 19 Giulio Pietroiusti (2022) “Having a Disagreement: Expression, Persuasion and Demand,” Synthese 200 (1):1-3. 20 Kyle Swan (2002) “Emotivism and Deflationary Truth,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 83 (3):270–272. 21 Gunnar Bjömsson (2002) “How Emotivism Survives Immoralists, Irrationality, and Depression,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 40 (3):327-329. 22 Gunnar Björnsson (2001) “Why Emotivists Love Inconsistency,” Philosophical Studies 104 (1):81 - 83. 23 William S. Wilkerson (2009) “Is It a Choice? Sexual Orientation as Interpretation,” Journal of Social Philosophy 40 (1):97-99. 24 Austin Fagothiey, Right and Reason: Ethics in Theory and Practice, (California: The C.V. Mosby Company, 1953) p. 18. - 25 Brian F. Chellas (1971) “The Language of Morals,” Journal of Symbolic Logic 36 (1):180-181.