Ethics in Language, Truth and Logic by A. J. Ayer

Alfred J. Ayer, in his book Language, Truth and Logic, maintains that ethical judgments such as “stealing is bad” are neither true nor false, because ethical judgments are non-cognitive mental states. When a person says “stealing is bad,” they are in fact telling us that stealing is not to their liking, and this utterance cannot be evaluated as true or false. His view stands in opposition to views that hold ethical beliefs. Non-cognitive mental states, like desires, cannot be true or false; therefore, if Ayer can show that ethical judgments are nothing but non-cognitive mental states, he achieves his aim. Beliefs are cognitive mental states and can be true or false. One of my beliefs is “stealing is bad”; this belief can be true or false. Some people in Saudi Arabia hold the belief that “women driving is wrong”—this is a belief they have; in my view, this belief is false. Now, if Ayer disagrees with this common ethical judgment in Saudi Arabia, he says that the Saudis are expressing their feelings and desires, and I am expressing my own feelings and desires. Neither of these expressions is true or false. It should be noted that Ayer’s view differs from that of subjectivists in ethics. The subjectivist says

“Stealing is bad” is true in my opinion

but Ayer says

“Stealing is bad” cannot be true or false at all.

In Ayer’s view, if I say “stealing is bad,” my utterance is meaningless, but when I say “I regard stealing as bad,” I am speaking about a fact; if I do regard stealing as bad, this proposition is true, and if not, it is false. For Ayer, uttering phrases like “stealing is bad” or “using foul language is wrong” is in fact akin to giving a thumbs-down or making a “tut-tut” sound when confronted with stealing. Whereas when the subjectivist says “stealing is bad,” they mean “stealing is bad in my opinion,” and it can be true or false. Why does Ayer hold such an absurd view about ethics?

According to Ayer, only propositions that are verifiable by sense experience or are tautological truths are meaningful. Any proposition that cannot be tested by sense experience or is not a tautology is meaningless. A judgment like “stealing is bad” is neither verifiable by sense experience nor a tautological truth; therefore, in Ayer’s view, this judgment is meaningless. If an expression is meaningless, it cannot have a truth value either (and vice versa!).

One might say that all human beings in the world believe that stealing is bad, and this fact has been obtained from sensory experience (for example, through observation or interviews). But even if this observation is correct, it is only a descriptive fact and shows what all human beings believe; it does not show that stealing is bad. In one way, Ayer could preserve the meaningfulness of ethical judgments. He would have to show that ethical concepts (such as "good" and "duty") can be described by means of non-ethical, empirical concepts. If this were to happen, he could place ethical concepts and expressions under propositions that are verifiable by sensory experience. For instance, utilitarians say that if an action leads to an increase in people's happiness, that action is right. In this case, the rightness or wrongness of a moral action is tied to a fact and is measurable. For example, we can examine whether, if someone tells a lie, this action leads to an increase in general happiness or not. So, utilitarianism has given us a definition, and ethical concepts are tied to empirical matters and are measurable. It seems that Ayer could accept the utilitarian definition of moral "rightness." But he does not! In his view, if we accept the utilitarian definition, we cannot say "stealing is wrong but it leads to an increase in general happiness," because it is contradictory. Ayer ultimately states that existing definitions of morality cannot be turned into real definitions, and therefore, the only possibility of preserving truth-value for ethical judgments is lost in his view. Citing G. E. Moore's argument in the book Principia Ethica, which states that ethical concepts cannot be reduced to other concepts, Ayer accepts that this cannot be done. G. E. Moore himself believed that morality could be understood through rational intuition, just as we understand that 2+2 equals 4, and we understand this through rational intuition; we grasp right and wrong in the same way. But Ayer concludes from G. E. Moore's book that ethical concepts are meaningless and cannot be defined.

We humans issue ethical judgments every day, condemning some and morally approving of others. Does Ayer really want to say that every ethical judgment made is completely meaningless and not understandable at all? No! Meaningfulness for Ayer belongs to propositions that culminate in knowledge or cognition. His criterion of meaningfulness (verifiability by experience or being tautological) is a criterion for the possibility of knowledge. What is obtained through sensory experience can be false or true; if it is true and, in Ayer's view, verifiable, then it yields knowledge. Tautologies are also always knowledge-producing. Ethical judgments and evaluations are neither obtained through sensory experience nor are they tautologies; therefore, ethical knowledge does not exist. That is, one cannot say I know that stealing is bad, or I believe stealing is wrong. If you state that stealing is bad, you are merely expressing your feelings or inclinations. Therefore, to the extent that morality is the expression of feelings, it is meaningful, but if we restrict meaningfulness to beliefs that have truth-value and are knowledge-producing, morality is not meaningful. In fact, if we can say that "meaningfulness" is used in two senses, the first being the colloquial sense and the second the propositional sense, Ayer believes that morality is "meaningful" in the colloquial sense, but from the propositional sense, it is meaningless because its content does not refer to reality and cannot have truth or falsity value. When I say, "Discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia is wrong," according to Ayer, I am saying two things. I am saying, "There is discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia," which is a proposition that refers to a fact and is true; I am also saying that this discrimination is morally wrong. The fact that I say this fact is wrong has no connection to the fact itself and is merely an expression of my feelings towards this fact.

If that is the case, should we then leave ethics to its own devices? Ayer says there are still a few things one can do with ethics. We can analyze ethical concepts, for instance, analyze the word "good" or "duty." Ayer assigns this responsibility to philosophers. We can examine propositions that describe the ethical beliefs of different individuals and groups. For example, when it is said that in Saudi Arabia some believe that women do not have the right to drive or vote, we can investigate the causes behind the formation of this belief in that land. In Ayer's view, this task falls to psychologists and sociologists.

One of the most important dimensions of ethics is ethical disagreements. If ethical statements like "stealing is bad" cannot be true or false and are akin to jeers and tut-tutting, how can we understand and resolve ethical disagreements? For Ayer, a disagreement over the statement "stealing is bad" (that is, one person says "stealing is bad," another says "stealing is not bad") does not result in a contradiction, because this statement is not meaningful, has no relation to facts, and possesses no truth-value. Therefore, something called an ethical disagreement is not meaningful for him at all. In what appears to be an ethical disagreement, people might actually be disagreeing about matters of fact; if so, they can settle that part. For instance, someone says, "Discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia is wrong." Someone else might say there is no discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia. This part of the disagreement can be examined by investigating the concept of discrimination and the realities of Saudi society. But suppose someone says that discrimination against women is not only not bad, but is actually good. This disagreement, in Ayer's view, cannot be resolved. In his opinion, if we reach an agreement with a person on all the facts and then cannot agree with them on the moral value of actions, we must "abandon the attempt to convince him by argument" (p. 111).

Ayer accepts G. E. Moore's "open question," meaning he accepts that ethical concepts cannot be reduced to natural concepts. While G. E. Moore concludes from this idea that our ethical concepts and judgments are made through rational intuition, Ayer concludes that ethical judgments are meaningless. Therefore, Ayer's argument depends on the validity of G. E. Moore's open question argument, and in the next stage, he must deny rational intuition as a criterion in ethics. Ayer does not provide a compelling argument to deny the possibility of rational intuition in ethical concepts.

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Ethics in Language, Truth and Logic by Alfred J. Ayer

Zohair Bagheri Noaparast

Alfred Ayer is the English philosopher who introduced logical positivism to the English-speaking world. He taught philosophy at the University of Oxford alongside Peter Strawson; the two had many disagreements. Ayer was a philosopher who engaged with the general public; he was a supporter of England's Tottenham Hotspur club and was well-known among the team's fans.

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