What is "emotivism"

n. (context ethics English) The meta-ethical stance that ethical judgments, such as those containing the words "should" and "ought to", are primarily expressions of one's own attitude and imperatives meant to change the attitudes and actions of another.

Emotivism is a meta-ethical view that claims that ethical sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is colloquially known as the hurrah/boo theory. Influenced by the growth of analytic philosophy and logical positivism in the 20th century, the theory was stated vividly by A. J. Ayer in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic, but its development owes more to C. L. Stevenson.

Emotivism can be considered a form of non-cognitivism or expressivism. It stands in opposition to other forms of non-cognitivism (such as quasi-realism and universal prescriptivism), as well as to all forms of cognitivism (including both moral realism and ethical subjectivism).

In the 1950s, emotivism appeared in a modified form in the universal prescriptivism of R. M. Hare.