A Failure of Aesthetic Emotivism

Author(s): Peter Kivy

Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic
Tradition, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Nov., 1980), pp. 351-365
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4319426
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 PETER KIVY

A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM

(Received 22 January, 1980)

In eighteenth-century Britain, such confirmed rationalists in mora

John Balguy and Richard Price were inclined, despite their rational
ciples, to concede aesthetics to the subjectivist opposition.' That at
still reflected today in the widespread belief that although the emot
of ethics is not a plausible one, its aesthetic counterpart is. Some
E. F. Carritt argued this position vigorously, concluding that

our moral and aesthetic judgments differ fundamentally in this: It is at leas

tionable if, on reflection, we can believe that things have what we call beaut
other hand, reflection on our moral judgments more and more convinces m
relations in which we stand to our fellows are in objective fact grounds of real

I want to argue here in exactly the opposite way: that one of the
features of ethical emotivism is completely lacking in the aesthetic
will not, I want to make clear, be arguing that the emotive theory o
a plausible theory. To the contrary, I am convinced (as are a lot
people) that it is not. Nor will I be arguing that aesthetic emotivis
plausible theory (although I am convinced it isn't). I am arguing, me
there is one plausible feature of ethical emotivism which fails to be
in the corresponding aesthetic formulation of the doctrine.

The eighteenth century knew, as well as we, that there is (eve

perhaps there ought not be) 'arguing' about taste. That is to say, as
as possible, people do seem to disagree, sometimes violently, about
ness and badness of works of art. People do not simply express thei
ences and aversions and leave it at that. They try to 'defend' them.
to bring other people around to their point of view. This is not th
behavior consistent with the premise that all we are doing when we
thing beautiful, or a good work of art, is expressing our preferen

Philosophical Studies 38(1980) 351-365. 0031-8116/80/0384-0351$01.50

Copyright ? 1980 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Bost

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 352 PETER KIVY

seems, in fact, to be as
morals. This is a 'given'
It is obvious, therefore, that any aesthetic theory sophisticated enough to
be worthy of notice must somehow leave room for real aesthetic disagree-
ment; or at least bring us to understanding what we are really doing when we
seem to be disagreeing. It is the same requirement that Charles Stevenson laid
down for ethical analysis: "In the first place, we must be able sensibly to
disagree about whether something is 'good"'3. And we cannot plausibly
accept the requirement in the moral sphere and dismiss it unreflectively in the
aesthetic without manifestly begging a very important question.
The heroic line would be, I suppose, to dismiss questions of aesthetic
(artistic) value as pseudo-questions. There was a time when many kinds of
questions were sent to Coventry in this way. But it was the result, so to
speak, of arguing from above. As J. 0. Urmson has pointed out, the early
emotive theory of value emerged from "considerations... of a very general
epistemological character and did not arise out of a careful and close reflec-
tion on the nature of value judgments"4. Today, however, these consider-
ations, once so compelling, have rather evaporated away. Nor do there seem
now to be any other arguments of a general philosophical kind to take their
place.
We must turn, therefore, to some other, less simple-minded form of emo-
tivism than the kind which sees aesthetic value judgments as instances of
personal preference expressions, pure and simple, if we are to have a hope of
finding a successful account of them in that direction. The emotivism of
Stevenson and A. J. Ayer provides such a model. But I will argue, the account
of ethical disagreement cannot be plausibly translated into aesthetic terms;
and that is the substance of my claim that one attractive feature of ethical
emotivism dissipates in the aesthetic atmosphere.

II

Ayer's emotive theory of ethics was born, as Urmson has remarked, not of
any real philosophical interest in ethical judgment but out of a need to
defend an epistemological theory against a threat from that direction. And if
his interest in ethics was ancillary, his interest in aesthetics was even further
from the center of his philosophical attention. Mention of it only comes in
offhand way, it being felt that what applies to ethical discourse "will be

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 353

found to apply, mutatis mutandis, to the case

and, apparently, that the latter are in need o
their own. This was Ayer's view when Language, Truth and Logic first
appeared in 1936, and it seems to have remained unchanged ten years later
when the book was reissued with a new and extensive preface.6
It is Ayer's view (or was) that ethical sentences do not express proposi-
tions; have, therefore, no factual (descriptive) content: "in saying that a
certain type of action is right or wrong, I am not making any factual state-
ment, not even a statement about my own state of mind". But there are two
things the utterer of a moral pronouncement is doing: "expressing certain
moral sentiments", and intending to "arouse feeling, and so to stimulate
action"7. And since no factual claim is made in ethical sentences, no ethical
disagreement can exist; for

the man who is ostensibly contradicting me is merely expressing his moral sentiments. So
that there is plainly no sense in asking which of us is in the right. For neither of us is
asserting a genuine proposition.8

What, then, is going on when two apparently intelligent agents engage in what
we are all used to calling ethical disagreement? There is, Ayer insists, no real
disagreement at all; or, rather, no real disagreement about value, only a
dispute about fact, disguised by ethical language. That is how we save the
appearance of ethical discourse.

For we certainly do engage in disputes which are ordinarily regarded as disputes about
questions of value. But, in all such cases, we find, if we consider the matter closely, that
the dispute is not really about a question of value, but about a question of fact. When
someone disagrees with us about the moral value of a certain action or type of action, we
do admittedly resort to argument in order to win him over to our way of thinking. But
we do not attempt to show by our arguments that he has the 'wrong' ethical feeling
towards a situation whose nature he has correctly apprehended. What we attempt to
show is that he is mistaken about the facts of the case.9

It is Ayer's claim, as we have seen, that this view of ethical discourse can
be fitted, point for point, to aesthetic discourse. To that claim we now turn.
Ayer's discussion of aesthetics is extremely brief, and I shall quote it almost
in full. Ayer writes:

our conclusions about the nature of ethics apply to aesthetics also. Aesthetic terms are
used in exactly the same way as ethical terms. Such aesthetic words as 'beautiful' and
'hidious' are employed, as ethical words are employed, not to make statements of fact,
but simply to express certain feelings and evoke a certain response. It follows, as in
ethics, that there is no sense in attributing objective validity to aesthetic judgments, and
no possibility of arguing about questions of value in aesthetics, but only about questions
of fact.... [Tihe purpose of aesthetic criticism is not so much to give knowledge as to

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 354 PETER KIVY

communicate emotion. The critic, by calling attention to certain features of the work
under review, and expressing his own feelings about them, endeavours to make us share
his attitude towards the work as a whole. The only relevant propositions that he formu-
lates are propositions describing the nature of the work. And these are plain records of
fact.'0

It will be noticed that Ayer's theory of aesthetic judgment does indeed

parallel the ethical theory closely, as he suggested it would, with one clear
and rather important exception: there is no reference to action in the aesthe-
tic analogue. (Indeed, how could there be?) Ethical terms, Ayer maintains,
are capable of inciting to action by arousing emotion. But in the aesthetic
case no such claim is made, the arousing of emotion being there, apparently,
an end in itself and not a means of inciting to action. I shall return to this
important point in my criticism of the emotive theory.
Further, I want to draw attention to the way Ayer must try to save the
appearances of aesthetic disagreement. It is a requirement, it will be remem-
bered, of any theory of aesthetic value that it allow for aesthetic disputes about
value. In the case of moral disagreements, Ayer claims, as we heve seen, that
what is really in dispute is the factual background of the moral situation. The
same claim is made for aesthetic disagreements: they are disagreements about
aesthetic facts, the facts consisting in 'the nature of the work'. I shall return
to this point too in my criticism. But before I do, I want to have an aesthetic
version of Stevenson's analysis of value terms before us as well; for the rest of
what I have to say about Ayer will, to a large extent, apply to Stevenson also.

III

Stevenson expounded over the years what he called two 'patterns of ana
for ethical terms. I intend to discuss both of them here, as each provi
possible analysis of aesthetic terms as well.
The first pattern of analysis takes as its 'working model' an explicatio
the proposition 'X is good'. According to Stevenson it "has something l
the meaning of 'I do like this; do so as well"' 1. In a later formulation,
rendered: "I approve of this, do so as well"12. The analysis certainly be
affinities with Ayer's. But there are noteworthy differences.
To begin with, Stevenson appears to construe 'I do like this', or 'I appr
descriptively. Unlike Ayer, he takes expressing, it would seem, as describ
state of mind. Second, the state of mind expressed, which Ayer usually
describes as an 'emotion' or 'feeling' (and only infrequently as an 'attitude'),

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 355

Stevenson calls most frequently an 'attitude', a

or 'interest', although he consistently refers to
cal terms. Urmson has painstakingly sorted out
tion of the emotive theory.13 But as it has n
purposes, I shall leave it mentioned but unexpl
The second pattern of analysis involves wha
definitions': attempts to redirect attitudes by
positive or negative emotive meaning. The em
the reference of the term is changed, so trans
praise or dispraise which the term carries.
Interestingly (and oddly), it is the notion of
Stevenson believes, captures the meaning of 'b
analysis, he writes, "is conveniently applicabl
ethical terms and likewise to 'beautiful"' 14
suspect, in the word 'specific'.
There are, I think, at least two distinct ways
is (or at least has been) understood. One way is essentially an omnium
gatherum of positive artistic or aesthetic evaluation. In this sense, to call
something beautiful is to call it aesthetically good, aesthetically satisfactory,
and the like. It would be the sense in which any great, outstanding or satis-
factory work of art merits the appelation 'beautiful', regardless of its features:
Diirer's portrait of his mother as well as Boticelli's Venus, the Grosse Fuge as
well as Eine kleine Nachtmusik. (Thus the eighteenth century called the fme
arts the beaux arts, indicating that their essential feature, at least when they
are well-executed, is beauty.) But there is another sense (or use) of 'beautiful'
in which we would want (say) to contrast a pretty face with a beautiful one,
or a sublime composition with a beautful one, although 'pretty' and 'sublime',
like 'beautiful', are expressive of positive aesthetic evaluation. It is this speci-
fic sense that, I should think, Stevenson had in mind when he suggested that
the second pattern of analysis is more appropriate to 'beauty' than is the first
pattern. And it is, on the other hand, the more general sense that Ayer is con-
cerned with, I think, in his remarks.
If we distinguish these two ways in which 'beautiful' can be understood -
the general and the specific - we can, I think, present two Stevensonian
analyses, one on the first pattern and one on the second, the latter explicitly
sanctioned by Stevenson.
For the first sense of 'beautiful', let us substitute the words 'aesthetically

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 356 PETER KIV'Y

(or artistically) good'. O

say that 'aesthetically
mately) as 'I approve, do so as well'.
The second sense of 'beautiful' suggests, on a Stevensonian account, that
there is (or was) some generally agreed upon descriptive content to the term,
such that we can distinguish between those aesthetically good things we want
to call 'beautiful' and those we want to call 'pretty', or 'sublime', or what-
ever. In aesthetic discourse we will expect to find this second sense of 'beauti-
ful' coming up in the form of attempts to persuasively defme. Suppose Smith
insists that Doxie is 'beautiful', and Dale that she is only 'attractive'. "Her
nose is too long, and her chin too weak for a truly beautiful face", Dale
argues. But Smith replies: "True beauty is not that bland, blond regularity of
the Nordic goddess; it is a face with character, with expression, with defects
- not a face with perfectly symmetrical features". Here, one might insist, is
the classic persuasive definition as Stevenson envisaged it, revealing a disagree-
ment in attitude toward certain kinds of faces, Smith trying to redirect Dale's
attitude by availing himself of the positive emotive meaning of 'beautiful'.

IV

We have, then, three emotive analyses of 'beautiful' before us. Taking the
general sense of 'beautiful', something like 'aesthetically good', we have, first,
Ayer's analysis, in which, when I say 'X is beautiful', I am expressing or
evincing (but not describing) my positive emotive response toward X and
urging my hearers to adopt a like one. We have, secondly, the Stevensonian
analysis in which 'X is aesthetically good' can be understood to mean 'I
approve of X, do so as well', 'I approve' being construed as a description of
the speaker's state of mind, and 'do so as well' as the appeal to the attitudes
and interests of others. Finally, we have the more specific sense of 'beautiful',
with its more palpable descriptive content, such that we can distinguish,
among those things we want to call 'beautiful' in the sense of 'aesthetically
good', those that are 'pretty', those that are 'sublime', etc., and, of course,
those that are 'beautiful'. This second sense of 'beautiful' will be involved, at
times, in persuasive defmitions. At these times, it will, like the general sense,
be expressive of attitudes rather than beliefs.
With these three analyses of the term 'beautiful' laid out, I want now to
turn to three serious objections. The first two constitute what the title of my

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 357

paper suggested I would be talking about: that i

aesthetic emotivism. The third will go a little bey
Now these first two objections I want to consider
tion set down early on that the emotive analysi
any analysis, for that matter - must allow for a pla
agreement. To begin with, let us remind ourselve
and Stevenson's analyses of ethical terms treat o
ask whether the same approaches will do for aes
argue that on at least two counts they fail.
Ayer construes 'genuine disagreement' strictly. Two people, on Ayer's
view, cannot be truly said to disagree unless they are formally contradicting one
another: unless one is asserting a 'genuine proposition' and the other is
denying it, either directly or by implication. For Ayer, a clash of opposing
moral attitudes is not a genuine disagreement. The only disagreements there
are, for Ayer, are disagreements about facts towards which attitudes may be
directed. Genuine moral disagreements are disagreements about such facts.
And since there are plenty of complicated enough facts to disagree about,
there are plenty of genuine moral disagreements. But although Ayer does not
construe clashes in attitudes or emotion as genuine disagreements, he recog-
nizes that we often desire to alter attitudes or emotions of others in order to
influence their behavior (if, for example, our behavior seems to be on a
collision course with theirs).
Stevenson, like Ayer, recognizes that many moral disputes turn out to be
factual ones. And thus Ayer's account of moral disagreement is open to
Stevenson. But Stevenson goes far more deeply than Ayer into the nature of
'disagreements' in attitude, vividly pointing up the practical interest that one
party may have in the opposing attitude of another. And if such clashes in
attitude are not, strictly speaking, disagreements on the emotivist's view, they
are, nevertheless, of such great practical consequence to us that they invite
not only attempts at resolution by laying bare the facts, but by various rhe-
torical means as well. For clashes of attitude are not just of intellectual
interest. Attitudes result in behavior: divergent attitudes in behavior that may
clash. Conflicting attitudes are liable to lead to mutually exclusive courses of
action: the thwarting of one person's desires by another's; the substituting of
what I like for what you prefer. Thus the combination of disagreement in
facts and disagreement in attitudes accounts for a wide variety of ethical
discourse which, on a more generous construal of 'disagreement' than Ayer

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 358 PETER KIVY

would be willing to all

It appears, then, that
the existence of ethical disagreement and, indeed, the existence of ethical
judgments at all, is by appealing to the desires of ethical disputants to alter
behavior and initiate action. The arousing of emotion or attitude makes no
sense as the end of ethical discourse: it is only plausible as the means to the
end of initiating and altering actions. Nor, in ethics, would this be an unwel-
come conclusion. For we all recognize the intimate relation that ethical
discourse bears to human action: another name for it is, after all, practical
reasoning.
But where is the analogue in aesthetic discourse? What actions could I have
the need of initiating in calling a painting beautiful? What interests of mine
are thwarted if I approve of Bach's music and you do not? What need, then,
have I for wanting to arouse in anyone an attitude of aesthetic approval or
disapproval? Here, clearly, the unexamined assumption of an analogy
between ethical and aesthetic discourse breaks down, and Carritt's notion th
aesthetic emotivism is a more plausible theory than the ethical kind become
quite incomprehensible. And this was already implicit in Ayer's formulation.
For the reference to action, so apparent (and essential) in the discussion of
ethics silently vanishes, without a trace or mention, from the discussion of
aesthetics.
At this juncture two possible objections might be raised. I am suggesting
that there is no counterpart in art-critical contexts to the crucial place of
action in moral disputes. But, it might be argued, there are, to begin with, the
perceptual 'actions' of seeing, or reading, or hearing a work of art in a certain
way, which the utterer of an aesthetic judgment intends to motivate, just as
the moralist intends, by his judgments, to motivate certain moral actions, or
discourage certain immoral ones. And, second, cases readily come to mind in
which someone might have a direct practical interest in arousing a positive
aesthetic attitude (or a negative one) for the purpose of motivating physical
actions of various kinds. I might want to change an opera manager's attitude
towards Mozart so that he will schedule more of Mozart's operas, being a
Mozart-lover myself; or I might try, by persuasion, to disuade some revolu-
tionary from destroying the Pietd by trying to convince him or her of its high
artistic merits. Many such examples can easily be imagined.
As regards the first objection, I have no particular aversion to calling a way
of reading, or seeing, or hearing an 'action' (although there is obvious signifi-

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 359

cance in our being tempted to protect ourselv

quotation marks). But it is a far cry from this
conflicts with the interests of others, has vic
the kind of action that calls for the redirectio
emotive use of language. We ordinarily contr
of contemplation. It is this sense of 'action' I
action does not seem to belong to the realm o
although I have no objection to someone insist
plation is an 'action'. A cat can look at a king
else than look that he gets into trouble.
As to the second of these objections, my re
most part, the physical actions envisaged inva
prudential or the moral, and the fact that the
and people's aesthetic or artistic attitudes fail
of special 'artistic' or 'aesthetic' imperatives. I
be in a position where manipulating someone's
might have indirect practical applications, eith
moral attitudes, or their prudential ones. But such cases are bound to be
uncommon, and peripheral. I have not been convinced by any of the recent
suggestions to the effect that there are 'artistic' or 'aesthetic' obligations apart
from the obvious moral obligations we put ourselves under in our transactions
with works of art and aesthetic objects, any more than I think there are any
special sexual obligations apart from the obvious moral ones we put ourselves
under by engaging in sexual activity. To destroy a statue is morally wrong (or
sometimes morally right). To try to get the music I like performed more
often is an act of prudence. But neither moral questions about art and the
aesthetic, nor prudential ones can provide for aesthetic discourse - except
in a remote, tangential way - the counterpart of moral action that makes the
emotive theory of ethics at least an initially plausible model in this regard.
Whatever the weaknesses of the emotive theory of ethics, and they are
well-known, it does at least attempt to do some kind of justice to the 'dynamic'
intent of moral discourse. It is at least initially attractive because it can draw a
connection between ethical language, motivation, and moral behavior. But it
is just this connection that the aesthetic counterpart lacks: the dynamic
aspect of ethical discourse finds no echo in the aesthetic variety. If what
Stevenson called the 'quasi-imperative' element of ethical terms is a necessary
part of the emotive theory of value, it is a theory ill-suited, on that account,

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 360 PETER KIVY

to judgments of aesthe
imperative element hel
aesthetic disagreement
themselves in ethical d
not exist; and the aesth
have no raison d'etre. T
expressions of approva
the capability of the theory to give an adequate account of disagreement.
(More of that in a moment.) And to construe them as quasi-imperatives
makes little sense. So what is a distinct virtue in emotivism as an ethical
theory turns out, in aesthetics, to be a palpable vice.

At this point the aesthetic emotivist may have to concede that aesthetic value
judgments, unlike ethical ones, lack an imperative force and amount only to
expressions of approval. This means, as I suggested above, that their account
of aesthetic disagreement will be greatly impoverished. What will be left will
be the ploy that apparent disagreements in aesthetic value are in reality only
disagreements in aesthetic 'facts'. And this brings me to my second objection.
I do not believe this strategy can possibly have the same success in aesthetics
that it at least initially has in ethics.
What 'facts' could be in aesthetic dispute? They are, one assumes, the
features that characterize aesthetic objects. As Ayer says, the "only relevant
propositions" that the critic formulates - i.e. the only propositions properly
so called - "are propositions describing the nature of the [art] work. And
these", he concludes, "are plain records of fact". What might the disputed
facts be in an ethical argument? Clearly, two major kinds would be the
possible consequences of actions and the motives behind them. And when
we think about how complicated the causal chains are in this world, even in
the ordinary cases, how dark and hidden from scrutiny the motives of men,
we see that just deciding on consequences and motives can provide a rich field
for genuine disagreement. But what about aesthetic 'facts'? Do they really
leave that kind of room for debate? The painting is before us. How can there
be any real disagreement about what its features are, disagreement complex
enough to account for our protracted critical debates? It is square or round,
red or blue; a cow (or is it a horse?) in the lower right, a tree in the back-

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 361

ground, and so on. Surely there can be no su

these aesthetic 'facts'. How, then, can aestheti
agreements in facts, unless the disputants are
But surely these are not the kinds of facts
mind, it will be objected. This is just a straw m
interesting, more debatable, and more proper
critic's interest. We do not argue over whethe
or blue, or green. We do, however, argue over
garish, or unified, or expressive - over what
concepts': those that, he thought, require "the exercise of taste, percep-
tiveness, or sensitivity, of aesthetic discrimination or appreciation..."15. We
do not argue over whether a character named Claggart appears in a novella
called Billy Budd, or whether another, named Vere, condemns a man to
death. But we do argue over how to 'interpret' these characters' motives, and
actions, and the narrative in which they appear. And if we can reach agree-
ment about these aesthetic 'facts', we quite possibly may reach agreement
about the aesthetic or artistic value of the art works in question. Further,
these 'facts' are complex enough, evasive enough, controversial enough to
generate genuine disputes among informed connoisseurs. It is such disputes
over aesthetic 'facts' that we take as disputes about aesthetic value. They are
sufficient to save the appearances of critical disagreement.
There is a good deal of merit in this reply. For it does point up a large, and
very important category of aesthetic features that play a vital role in aesthetic
disputes and evaluations. It is likely, however, that the emotivist will not
accept 'aesthetic concepts' or 'interpretations' as factual at all. For terms such
as 'garish', 'balanced', 'unified', 'expressive', and the like, are just the sorts of
terms which the emotivist will either treat as outright emotive terms, or will
handle with Stevenson's second pattern of analysis, since, it will be insisted,
as Michael Tanner does in fact, that "what we might regard as exclusively
aesthetic terms almost invariably do have evaluative force..."16. Disputes
about whether works of art are 'garish', 'unified', 'balanced', 'expressive', will
be construed as out-and-out disputes about aesthetic value, hence disagree-
ments in attitude, not fact; or as attempts to persuasively define. And Steven-
son himself, on two separate occasions, expressed the view that literary inter-
pretations - indeed, artistic interpretations tout court - are irretrievably
normative, thereby committing himself to an emotive construal of interpre-
tive statements.'7 Thus, disputes over aesthetic concepts, as well as disputes

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 362 PETER KIVY

over literary, musical,

the card-carrying emo
ones, disguised clashes
there will be no aesthe
over which there can
left with no way of ac
discourse.
The emotivist faces a
'aesthetic fact' widely
'balanced', 'expressive', and the like, as well as interpretive statements of
various kinds, he can indeed give a plausible account of aesthetic disagree-
ment - but at the price, really, of turning away from emotive orthodoxy. For
if it be acknowledged that disagreements over aesthetic concepts and artistic
interpretations are disagreements in fact, the emotivist's game has essentially
been given up.18 These disagreements are too intimately connected with
aesthetic evaluation for a purely emotive theory of aesthetic value to be
sustained if they are to be construed as questions of fact. Aesthetic emotivists
adhere, I presume, to some kind of fact-value distinction, and claim that no
conjunction of factual statements ever implies a statement of aesthetic value.
Suppose I reply that a conjunction of interpretive statements and statements
about aesthetic concepts might very well imply an aesthetic value statement.
I think the emotivist would likely, agree, but would argue that I have not
thereby bridged the fact-value gap. Rather, he would argue that the value
question had already been begged in making those statements about a work
of art, for they are all value-laden, and therefore emotive. If the emotivist
construes such statements as factual, I think there would be little reason for
him to claim that the aesthetic value judgments they support are emotive. But
if, to avoid this, the emotivist keeps his 'facts' restricted to colors, shapes, a
description of the plot, and that sort of thing, and rules out as facts aesthetic
concepts and interpretations, he so impoverishes their potential for genera-
ting believable disputes that his theory fails to fulfill the most basic condition
for any successful theory of aesthetic value judgment: he will just not have
enough flat-out facts to account for aesthetic disagreements in the way the
emotivist is wont to do.

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 363

VI

My fmal point takes its departure from a general criticism of the concept
emotive meaning to be found in Urmson's Emotive Theory of Ethics. I hav
no doubt that this line of argument will be a familiar one. My excuse fo
putting it through its paces again is to draw from it a result for aesthetics
that might, perhaps, be novel.
Consider the provocoteur who harrangues a crowd with 'Yankee go hom
We can, following Austin, distinguish between its illocutionary force and
perlocutionary effect: that is, essentially, we can distinguish between wha
is and what it does. 'Yankee go home!' is an incitement to rebellion; and i
illocutionary force it has by way of meaning convention. If a person does
know that 'Yankee go home!' is an incitement to rebellion, his knowledge
its meaning is to that extent defective. But the utterance of 'Yankee go
home!' may do various things. It may indeed incite to rebellion; but it may
also arouse fear, or loathing, or feelings of patriotism, or nothing at all. And
these perlocutionary effects are contingent: they cannot be part of the
meaning of 'Yankee go home!' In short, illocutionary force is a meaning
concept, perlocutionary effect is not.
Now in that the emotive theory, in ascribing emotive meaning to value
terms, ascribes it in virtue of the perlocutionary effect of uttering these
terms, it is making a basic conceptual error. For perlocutionary effect, unlike
illocutionary force, cannot be a matter of meaning. To quote Urmson,

A convention of a linguistic kind can determine that an utterance is an expression of

feeling, or an incitement to feeling, but not that it should arouse a feeling. The meaning
of a word can hardly be a function of the suggestibility of its auditors.19

If, then, we want to emphasize the 'arousal' aspect of ethical or aesthetic

language - that is, its perlocutionary effect - we must not represent what we
are doing as analysis of meaning. What the emotivist must do if he wishes to
present a theory of 'emotive meaning' is to restrict himself to illocutionary
force. But here he must avoid the suggestion which the name 'emotive theory'
carries along with it that what 'emotive' words incite us to are emotions. For
it makes little sense to talk about inciting someone to something that it is not
in his or her power to do. I cannot incite you to grow a tail (although perhaps
I could cause you to with hormone injections); and likewise I cannot incite
you to adopt emotions at another's behest (although I could perhaps cause
you to have a particular emotion by a careful choice of words).

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 364 PETER KIV'Y

It would seem, then, that 'attitudes' are more likely candidates than
emotions. And so the emotivist might argue that the illocutionary force of
ethical terms is to incite or recommend attitudes of certain kinds. But if this
seems like a plausible view of ethical discourse (I do not say it is), it seems so,
to begin with, because, as we have argued before, ethics has intimately to do
with action and action is at least in part contingent on attitudes. However,
when we attempt to give a similar analysis of the illocutionary force of
aesthetic value terms, that prima facie plausibility, as we have seen, evaporates.
That all, or most aesthetic value terms should have the recommending of atti-
tudes as their sole or major illocutionary force seems odd; for it is difficult to
understand what possible purpose such illocutionary force could serve in the
context of aesthetic discourse. Why should I want to recommend attitudes to
no further purpose of action? That surely would be language on holiday.
There must, one assumes, be some kind of connection between illocutionary
force and the use to which language is customarily put.
What, then, are we about when we make aesthetic value judgments? Some
linguistic utterances are made in contexts in which the purpose of moving to
action is absent; and their illocutionary force is at least in large part descriptive.
We tell the truth as we see it, sometimes, often in fact, to no further end: that
is a characteristic of truth-telling. Describing is, often, though not always, an
end unto itself. Ifjudgments of aesthetic value are themselves uttered character-
istically in contexts which preclude the further purpose of excitation to action,
are they not, at least in this respect, more like statements of what is the case
than incitements or imperatives or recommendations; and is this not at least
some grounds for taking their illocutionary force to be describing rather than
these other things? I am far from suggesting that this consideration alone
compels us to take such a line. I do suggest that it is a prima facie reason for
calling into question the all-too-familiar claim that disagreements over the
goodness and badness of works of art are clearly disagreements in attitude
rather than belief.
It is one of the ironies of intellectual history that aesthetics has, at least
since the seventeenth century, been a philosophical breeding ground for
'subjectivist' theories of value. It is no accident, for example, that Francis
Hutcheson introduced his moral sense philosophy with a treatise - perhaps
the first - on aesthetics: in other words, essentially 'aestheticizing' morality
with the emotive virus of 'taste'. But if I am right, the aesthetic soil is far less
hospitable to the subjective virus than the ethical. So it is high time, it seems

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 A FAILURE OF AESTHETIC EMOTIVISM 365

to me, that aesthetics cease to be seen, both

easy mark for 'subjectivism', 'emotivism', an
is far more 'robust' than has been credited h

Rutgers University, New Brunswick

NOTES

See Richard Price, A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals,

(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1948), p. 57; and John Balguy, A
Moral and Theological (London, 1734), pp. 60-61, and 155-156. Balg
his mind and became a rationalist in aesthetics as well. See: A Colle
226-227.
2 E. F. Carritt, 'Moral positivism and moral aestheticism', Philosophy 13 (1938
Charles L. Stevenson, 'The emotive meaning of ethical terms', reprinted in: F
Values: Studies in Ethical Analysis (Yale University Press, New Haven and Lond
p. 13.
' J. 0. Urmson, The Emotive Theory of Ethics (Oxford University Press, N
1969), p. 15.
A. J. Ayer, Language Truth and Logic (Dover Publications, New York, n.d.), p. 103.
6 Ibid
6 Ibid., pp. 20-22.
7 Ibid., pp. 107-108.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., pp. 110-111.
10 Ibid., pp. 113-114.
' 'The emotive meaning of ethical terms', Facts and Values, p. 25.
12 Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (Yale University Press, New Haven, 194
p. 26.
13 Urmson, op. cit., pp. 40-48.
'4 Stevenson, 'Persuasive definitions', reprinted in: Facts and Values, p. 53.
" Frank Sibley, 'Aesthetic concepts', reprinted in: Philosophy Looks At the Arts,
by Joseph Margolis (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1962), pp. 63-64.
16 F. N. Sibley and Michael Tanner, 'Objectivity and aesthetics', Proceedings of t
Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 62 (1968), p. 66.
17 See Stevenson's 'Interpretation and evaluation in aesthetics', Philosophical Analys
ed by Max Black (Cornell University Press Ithaca, 1950); and his 'On the reasons that c
be given for the interpretation of a poem', Philosophy Looks At the Arts.
"' For an extended defense of something like the 'factuality' of 'aesthetic concepts', s
Peter Kivy, Speaking of Art (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1973).
19 Urmson, op. cit., p. 30.
20 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American
Society for Aesthetics, the University of Arizona, Tucson, 26 October, 1979. I am mo
grateful to my commentator on that occasion, Marcia Eaton, for her very helpfu
comments and criticism.

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