Professional Documents
Culture Documents
* His latest book, Facts and Values, Yale, 1963 reached us too late for consideration
in this article.
1. These were, in order of publication: 'The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms'
published in Mind, 46, 1937 (reprinted in Readings in Ethical Theory, edd. Sellars
and Hospers, pp. 415-429); 'Ethical Judgments and Avoidability' published in
Mind, 47, 1938 (reprinted in Readings in Ethical Theory. 549-559); Persuasive
Definitions' published also in Mind, 47, 1938, 331-350. In addition to these, we
note a paper called' The Nature of Ethical Disagreement' delivered at the Centro
di Metodologia, Milan and reprinted in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, edd.
Feigl and Sellars, 587-593.
2. Yale University Press, New Haven. Our edition is a reprinting of March, 1950.
3. Mary Warnock says of it: The book seems to me to suffer from inflation and
from a resulting failure of impact, compared with the articles. It is as if Stevenson
had become over-self-conscious about Methodology and there is a good deal of
reflexive commenting upon his own procedures, which add little or nothing to the
actual ethical theory' (Ethics since 1900, 106).
4. The phrase is Mary Warnock's (lac. cit.).
89
90
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
C L STLVENSO;-';:
MORALS AS PERSUASION
91
because the fact that most people approve of a thing need not give
a man 'a stronger tendency to favour it'. All interest-theories
and all merely empiricist theories, including Hume's, are ruled out
on the third count; for there is always some residual meaning in
the ethical term' good " which is not accounted for in empirical
or scientific substitutes. 'Ethics must not be psychology'.
Statements about what things are and how people react do not
make people react, as the term ' good' does. Moore's method is
still valid: of any set of ' scientifically knowable properties' which
may be substituted for' good', it is always possible to ask' Is the
thing possessing these properties good?' Clearly, ttlere is
some sense of ' good' which is not definable, relevantly, in terms
of anything scientifically knowable. That is, the scientific method
is not suflicient for ethics.!J
Stevenson next proceeds to state his own theory in outline. He
claims for it that it can meet all three conditions of substitutability,
without having recourse to any 'other-worldly' or 'mysterious'
hypothesis such as 'Platonic Idea or . . . Categorical Imperative
or ... unique unanalysable property'. His theory is, he allows,
a kind of ' interest-theory'. Traditional interest theories, however,
made the mistake of interpreting ethical statements as though they
described, or gave information about, the interests of people. But
the distinctive feature of ethical judgments, Stevenson urges, is that
they actively redirect, modify or recommend interests. This is
totally different from describing interests, or stating that they exist.
Ethical judgments are quasi-imperative, not descriptive or cognitive.
Ethical argument is simply an attempt to exert influence over
another man's conduct: and reasons in ethics arE' simply means
supporting this influence. The originality of Stevcnson's theory is,
he argues, that it calls attention to the power of words, and
especially etl1ical words, to changc attitudes by their power of
suggestion. 'Ethical terms are instruments used in the complicated
interplay and readjustment of human interests'. People's moral
attitudes vary in function of the way words are used in their
community.Io Coming to more detail in the elaboration of his
theory, Stevenson distinguishes two uses of words:
on the one hand we use words (as in science) to record, clarify and
communicate helie[s. On the other hand we use words to give vent
to our feelings (interjection) or to create moods (poetry), or to
incite people to actions or attitudes (oratory).
typical '. (He adds that the same may be true of the reference to Hobbes.) He
refers to Ethics and Language for a more adequate treatment of Humc's views.
Here however (273-276) we tind the same error, of treating Hume as though he
were giving a criterion of verification for ethical judgments, instead of trying to
show what makes ethical' feelings' ethical and distinguishes them from non-ethical
feelings.
9. Readings in Ethical Theory, 416-8.
10.Op. cil. 418-421.
92
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
The first use he calls' descriptive', the second' dynamic '. The
distinction depends on the purpose of the speaker. The possibility
of using words dynamically is connected with the fact that, in
addition to their 'propositional' meaning, words have also, as
Ogden and Richard showed, an 'emotive' meaning; they carry
an ' aura of feeling' created by long emotional associations; they
have acquired tenacious 'tendencies to produce affective
responses '.11
Now, Stevenson's theory goes on, ethical use of language is
dynamic use of language. Previous attempts by empiricists to
analyse' This is good' in terms of' I (or we) like this' have failed
because they suppose the latter sentence to be a descriptive use of
words. But' We like this' has a function similar to ' This is good'
only when it is used dynamically-to influence the likes of others
by the suggestive power of the speaker's enthusiasm. 'This is
good' is a statement to be made true by the success of the speaker's
oratory. Yet no translation will exactly replace the ethical term
or fully discharge its function. For example the formula, 'I do
like this; do so as well', has something like the same meaning as
, This is good'. But yet it has not the same effect or effectiveness.
Its imperative part' appeals to the conscious efforts of the hearer'.
But this is its weakness; for a man ' can't like something just by
trying'. The irreplaceable power of ethical words is that they work
'in a much more subtle, less fully conscious way'. Also they
turn the hearer's attention' not on his interest, but on the object
of interest', and this extravert quality greatly facilitates suggestion.
When we apply the above analysis to strictly moral uses of
, good', we must, says Stevenson, keep in mind the distinguishing
features of the latter. The moral term' good' signifies' a stronger
sort of approval' than the non-moral term. When a person
morally approves of something, he has ' a rich feeling of security
when it prospers and is indignant or " shocked" when it doesn't' .12
Moral and non-moral expressions containing the term ' good' are
both, therefore, in part statements about the speaker's ' favourable
interest'; but their significance is not conveyed by any analysis
which omits their emotive meaning and consequent suggestive force.
It is the presence in them of the latter element which makes ethical
terms strictly indefinableP
Stevenson's theory fulfils his three conditions for any analysis of
ethical terms. There is no need to point out that it allows for the
, magnetism' of moral words: that is the heart of the theory.
Stevenson claims that it allows also for disagreement in moral
judgments. But it puts ethical disagreement in its true light, as
11. 421-3.
12.423-5.
13.425.
C L STEVENSON:
MORALS AS PERSUASION
93
But 'the empirical method' is far from being able to settle all
our ethical disagreements. Many are rooted more deeply in
differences of emotional temperament, social and class differences,
etc. In these cases, the appeal to empirical facts is useless. When
ethical disagreement is not rooted in difference of belief, there is
in fact no rational way in which it can be removed. But there is
a non-rational way; that is, by working on the temperaments and
emotions of others through the contagion of one's own feelings.
This is a valid way of obtaining ethical agreement; indeed it is the
characteristically ethical way; and it is not to be despised because
neither empirical nor rational.
Empirical statements, therefore, while they have their role in
ethics, can never replace ethical utterances. Psychology can never
replace ethics; for at most it can tell us how interests are directed;
but ethics actually directs interests and 'that's quite another
matter '. The logic of G E Moore is stiJI explicitly operative ill all
this. Stevenson says:
[4.426.
94
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
95
96
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
97
98
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
99
100
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
101
102
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
103
104
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
105
~roans
etc, self
106
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
Moore's slogan, ' " Good" is indefinable, just like yellow', to the
Ayer-Stevenson slogan, '" Good" is indefinable, just like "hurrah".'
There is, indeed, Stevenson grants, an important place in ethics
for empirical descriptions, facts, reasons ;-we shall be dealing with
this in the next section. But when all this has been allowed for
there is an irreducible residuum, an indefinable meaning, of ethical
terms which is their most characteristically ethical meaning; and
this is ' emotive meaning', and is non-rational. When all the facts
have been described, all the reasons exhausted, then ' no reasoned
solution of any sort is possible ',50 and there remain only' nonrational methods' of securing ethical agreement.
The most important of the non-rational methods will be called
, persuasive', in a somewhat broadened sense. It depends on the
sheer, direct emotional impact of words-on emotive meaning,
rhetorical cadence, apt metaphor, stentorian, stimulating, or pleading
tones of voice, dramatic gestures, care in establishing rapport with
the hearer or audience, and so on. 51
Coming to a personal moral decision is quite a similar process
of self-persuasion or auto-suggestion. Thus we chide our bad self,
cheer on our 'true self', conducting
a kind of persuasion in soliloquy which shames certain impulses
into quiescence and gives to the others increased activity.
The process resembles 'rationalisation', but, unlike the latter,
it does not involve self-deception and does not depend on false
beliefs. 52
The trend of Stevenson's theory forces us to ask, 'What, then,
is the difference, if any, between ethical language and rhetoric or
propaganda?' Stevenson faces the question, in a chapter entitled
'Moralists and Propagandists '. 'A moralist . . . is one who
endeavours to influence attitudes'; 53_ but so do salesmen,
advertisers, journalists, novelists, politicians, clergymen . . .; so
do propagandists. How does the moralist differ? The conclusion
of this chapter is that it all depends on how we use the words.
, Moralist' is usually a term of respect, 'propagandist' a term
carrying a stigma. But if we could 'neutralise' these terms,
completely emptying them of emotive content and concentrating
only on their descriptive meaning, then we could decide to
say with tranquillity that all moralists are propagandists or that
all propagandists are moralists. 54
50.138.
51. 139-140; cfr. 115, 152, 156, 159,234-6. He likens the moralist to the writer
of a didactic novel (144-5). Compare also' The Nature of Ethical Disagreement'
in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, 590-2.
52. Ethics and Language, 148-151.
53.243.
54.252, and the whole section, 243-252; cfr. 162-4.
107
Yet Stevenson sees very well that this will not do, and he is
forced to make ethics a special kind of propaganda. There is
good persuasion and bad persuasion. We must learn which to
accept, which to reject; but persuasion is what gives enthusiasm
to life, vigour to action, influence to the moral reformer; we
cannot banish it from our lives. 55
Running through all this discussion, however, is a malaise which
has troubled all naturalists, and which we can note in Hume, the
logical positivists and Ayer, as well as in Stevenson's papers. In
order to make it plausible to assimilate ethical judgments to, say,
feelings or exclamations, they call ethical judgments special sorts
of feeling or exclamation. But then, when they have to give content
to the word 'special', they come round, in the end, to calling
ethical judgments moral kinds of feeling or exclamation; and the
whole of their naturalist translation has collapsed. Stevenson is
exactly in the same dilemma. He wants to assimilate ethical
language to emotive and persuasive language; therefore he says
ethical terms are one kind of emotive-rhetorical expression of favour
or approval for some object. But he has to grant that ethical
terms are a special kind of emotive expression of a special kind of
favour: It is when he comes to explain in what ways ethics is
, special ' that we find the theory breaking down.
Thus he says, 'morally good'
refers not to any kind of favour that the speaker has, but only to
the kind that is marked by a special seriousness or urgency.56
He admits that
'This is good' is more nearly approximated, in its full meaning,
by 'This is worthy of approval' than by , I approve of this'; for
, worthy' has an emotive strength which 'approve' lacks. And
, worthy' like' good', lends itself to discussions that involve agreement or disagreement in attitude. 57
We have seen him, in the paper on 'The Emotive Meaning of
Ethical Terms " remark that part of the subtle persuasive force of
ethical terms is that they centre' the hearer's attention not on his
interests but on the object of interest' :,8 We shall see, in the
next two sections, the importance Stevenson now attaches to the
fact that ethical words demand to be reinforced by 'empirical
descriptions' and by reasons. We have noted above that a
distinctive character of ethical experience for him is the requirement it contains of seeking to obtain the agreement of others
through discussion.
55. 163-4.
56.90; compare 105: '" Good" is emotively strong in a way that" approve"
is not '.
57.107.
58. Readings in Ethical Theory, 425.
108
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
109
110
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
III
112
PHILOSO:PHlCAL STUDIES
113
114
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
115
116
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
117
The man who condemns some particular action but who does not
regard this condemnation as committing him to condemning any
other action ... is thereby showing that his condemnation is not
moral condemnation.
Moral judgments carry with them a demand that we 'should bring
a certain consistency into [our] system of condemnings and
condonings " and to reject this demand is 'tantamount to an
admission that [our condemnings and condonings] are not moral
ones at all '.89 Moral condemnations commit me, as emotional
repugnances do not, to avoiding the actions I condemn, and all
actions like them in the relevant respects; and to condemning such
actions done by others. The characteristics of ethical judgments
underlined by Hughes are clearly rational characteristics. It must
be noted that they are intrinsic to moral judgments qua moral.
Stevenson makes the rational features of ethies extrinsic to the
'peculiarly moral' features, which remain non.. rational.
We note one last point, before passing to another topic, namely
that Stevenson suggests a wider use of the word 'true' in which
ethical judgments could be called 'true'.
Although . . . reasons are related to the truth of . . . ethical
utterances, they are related in a way that makes the use of 'valid'
wholly inappropriate. They do not show that any ethical utterance
is true but rather alter attitudes, by means of beliefs, in a way that
makes the utterances true. 90
Reasons, sllPporting emotive-persuasive suggestion, give' truth' to
ethics by bringing it about that people agree in attitudes. The
pragmatist resonances of this are obvious, and the suggestion is
still permeated with naturalism. But Stevenson was nor far from
hitting on an important truth about ethical judgments. These are
not just facts to be known but ideals to be lived; their truth is not
solely a piece of cognitive informa(ion; they are true, but also they
have to be made true, by moral effort, in Ollr lives and in society.
8. Stevenson's Naturalism
Stevenson's task, throughout his writings on ethics, is to work
out an analysis of ethics which shall distinguish it from science,
but shall admit no 'non-natural' qualities and allow no opening
to metaphysics. Ethics must neither be a natural science nor a
, non-natural' science. This is what he means when he speaks of
the constructive aim of this study-that of setting up a practicable
analysis of ethics without departing from the world of experience. 91
89. This paper, with others, all specially written for the volume, is published in
r Melden. University of Washington Press. Seattle,
1958, 108-134.
118
PHILOS01'HICAL STUDIES
119
120
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
107. 1. 'Its second object " he goes on, , is to characterise the general methods
by which ethical judgments can be proved or supported.'
lOS. 104. On p. 1, he says that it 'has the limited task of sharpening the tools
which others employ.' All this is, of course, strongly Moorean.
109.1, 104, 110, 113, 251.
110. 113, 156-162, 210.
111. What Stevenson says about the relationship of moral philosophy to moral
judgments is strikingly similar to what Ayer said in Language, Truth and Logic about
the relationship of philosophy to scientific propositions: 'It is impossible, merely
by philosophising, to determine the validity of a coherent system of scientific
propositions. For the question of whether such a system is valid is always a
question of empirical fact; and, therefore, the propositions of philosophy, since
they are purely linguistic propositions, can have no bearing upon it. Thus the
philosopher is not, qua philosopher, in a position to assess the validity of any
scientific theory; his function is simply to elucidate the theory by defining the
symbols which occur in it' (152).
121
between the material and the formal modes of speech. The former
is the commonsense use of language to refer to objects, and it is
verifiable by reduction to scientific statements about sense
experience. The latter is the using of language to talk about
words, not about things; it gives us, not object-sentences, but
syntactical sentences. This is the philosophical mode of speech.
'The method of logical syntax, that is, the analysis of the formal
structure of language as a system of rules, is the only method of
philosophy'.112 Stevenson is re-echoing this when he says that
ethical philosophy does not use ethical words but talks about
them. The whole theory of philosophy as linguistic analysis
remains strongly marked by its logical positivist heredity. This is
true of contemporary linguistic analysts in general. It is particularly
true of Stevenson. Moore's influence is also evident in this
theory.
We have observed already that, as an attempt to give philosophy
a function and a method distinct from those of science, the theory
breaks down. Stevenson's dilemma is inescapable: if moral
philosophy simply describes how people do use moral language, it
is either lexicography or empirical psychology and sociology; if it
prescribes how people ought to use moral language, it is non-rational
persuasion and is itself using moral language or moral ising. We
have flequently noted the emotive-persuasive character 0
Stevenson's allegedly neutral 'analysis'.
Stevenson fails, as do the linguistic analysts generally, to find a
distinctive method for philosophy or criteria for the assessment of
philosophical analyses. In one passage, Stevenson speaks as
though its method were purely logical:
Analysis is a narrow, specialised undertaking, requiring only close
distinctions, careful attention to logic, and a sensitivity to the ways
of language.1l3
But this will not do, for it merges philosophy into logic, if not
making it a purely tautological or lexicographical explicitation of
the meanings of words; or else it turns philosophy into an
empirical study of linguistic usages. Stevenson's more usual
thought is that moral philosophy explains
how, as a matter of psychological fact, people are ... led to decide
what they will call . good'; . . . to describe how people make
ethical decisions.l 14
But here again, philosophy has been eliminated, its place being
taken by empirical psychology. The naturalistic elimination of
both philosophy and ethics is the inexorable face of Stevenson's
theory at every stage.
112. Philosophy and Logical Syntax, 6179. The quotation is from p. 99.
113. Ethics and Language, 222.
114.0p. cit. 270. Compare p. 159, examined in par. 7' above,
122
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
l' L STEVENSO);:
MORALS AS PERSUASION
123
124
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
125
126
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
C B DALY