On the Need for Normative Ethics:
A study of Subjectivist thought
Foremost is a brief description of Subjectivism, particularly Emotivism.
Subjectivist thought rests on the idea that morality is a function of one's individual emotions, and that is all. The strength of Emotivism over other avenues of Subjectivism lies in its awareness of the other purposes of language. Rather than statements designed to convey information, Emotivism relies on utterances that can be deemed neither true nor false. Moral judgments are interpreted as either commands (seen as an attempt to influence conduct rather than state fact) or exclamations (used, not to state one's opinion or report of one's feelings on a particular matter, but only to express some attitude irrelative of whether one actually possesses the attitude).
As a result, the emotivist argument transcends the main objections to the earlier Simple Subjectivism. It circumvents the premiss that, "If Subjectivism is correct, than each of us is infallible in our moral judgments". (Rachels p.40) By choosing to interpret moral judgments as commands and/or expressions of some attitude, the theory thereby eliminates their qualification as true or false. The question of fallibility, then, is quashed.
The second of the previous objections overcome by the emotivist conception is the allowance for moral disagreement. The slight alteration in the perception of how moral judgments are to be defined highlights the idea that, while individuals may wholly agree as to the relative truth of any pertinent facts (even agreeing as to what each other's feelings are on the matter), they may each desire different and irreconcilable ends.< ...