O emotivismo e a filosofia analítica da moral: limites e repercuss es da meta-ética

A teoria emotivista elaborada por Alfred Ayer (Truth, Language and Logic, 1936) e Charles Stevenson (Ethics and Language, 1944) considera os enunciados morais desprovidos de valor de verdade por fugirem ao modelo das proposi es analíticas e por n o serem verificados empiricamente. A ética, com efeito, n o encontra nenhum valor no mundo (Wittgenstein). Para o emotivismo, o julgamento moral exprime uma atitude, uma disposi o do sujeito. A conduta moral diz respeito à express o emotiva do juízo, uma vez que o discurso moral t o-somente manifesta os sentimentos do sujeito falante. Todavia, tal teoria n o foi capaz de fornecer uma justifica o aceitável ao papel das emo es nas determina es do comportamento moral, nem tampouco de esclarecer os conteúdos simbólicos do discurso normativo. Nossa artigo destina-se a demonstrar os contornos dessa incompletude mediante a análise das origens, desdobramentos e influências dessa corrente meta-ética. Emotivist Theory, created by Alfred Ayer (Truth, Language and Logic, 1936) and Charles Stevenson (Ethics and Language, 1944), considers moral statements as lacking truth value, on account of both their falling out the model of analytic propositions and their being unable to be empirically verified. Ethics, in fact, finds no value in the world (Wittgenstein). According to the Emotivist Theory, moral judgement expresses an attitude, a disposition of the subject. Moral conduct concerns to the emotional expression of the judgement, for the moral discourse merely makes manifest the speaker's feelings. Such a theory, however, was unable to provide an acceptable justification for the role played by the emotions in the determination of the moral behavior, neither was it able to clarify the symbolic contents of the normative discourse. Our article aims at demonstrating the contours of that incompletude by means of the analysis of the origins, developments, and influences of the meta-ethical current.