Morgan asked:

To what extent should our emotions be considered an important aspect of our ethical and aesthetic
judgements? And do we have to think scientifically in order to find the truth?

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Earlier in the century (A J Ayer in 1936 and C L Stevenson in 1944) there was an ethical theory called
Emotivism which held that a moral judgement that something is good is a report that you like it with
an implicit urge to persuade others that it is good. To say that murder is bad is to say you don't like it.
The problem is that we want judgements to be true and false — murder isbad, and the claim that we
don't like it is not strong enough. The theory is too subjective and doesn't allow for moral arguments,
nor of course, does it give much support to the law.

In the 18th century David Hume in his essay On the Standard of Tasteoutlined a theory of aesthetics
which was similarly subjective, such that to think that a work of art of good is a matter of sentiment, of
liking it. He introduced the idea of an ideal judge who had refined taste, experience, and was
unprejudiced etc. as an attempt to allow some sort of objectivity to a judgement so that we can say
that if this ideal judge were to think the work of art good, then my sentiment if I judged the work good
would be correct. The same notion could be introduced into an emotional ethical theory. But who is
the judge? And if there were an ideal judge he couldn't say one work of art was better than another,
since there are not criteria for comparison, and if there were criteria, the idea of the judge would be
otiose and aesthetic judgement would be an empirical matter reduced to techniques. Art would
become a craft.

A problem with subjective emotional approaches is also that they ignore the rational aspect in
judgements, and a theory such as Kant's in the Metaphysics of Moralswould hold that emotions
should not be involved in ethical judgements to any extent. A moral action is to act in accord with a
categorical imperative, which is contrasted with the hypothetical imperative. The hypothetical
imperative would for example be ifyou wanted to be a good person, express your love, etc thenyou
would act morally. This disregards the idea of the unconditional duty towards others as rational
beings which we have as rational beings ourselves. We should do good for its own sake. While this
view is regarded as cold I would recommend it on the grounds that to love and care is to love and
care, and not to be moral. To act morally is not to act in accord with your feelings, but to do what is
right. This need not be to say that you do notlove and care, but this should not be whyyou do the
right thing.

As to the Aesthetic judgement, again Kant in his Critique of Judgmentheld that a judgement was not
a matter of sentiment, of a liking, but was a matter of pleasure, involving the play of the imagination,
implicit in which is the judgment that anyone would find the work of art beautiful. This is still subject to
the problem of the truth and falsity of aesthetic judgment, but it allows that a judgment is not
completely arbitrary and a matter of individual taste, because the feature of universality is not
involved in merely subjective individualistic likings.

As to scientific thinking, science leads us to empirical truths about the world. For aesthetic and ethical
judgements scientific thinking is not relevant since we are not talking of primary qualities (shapes)
and secondary qualities (colour) qualities alone but an essentially subjective response. Intersubjective
truth, an agreement in response, is the most that we can hope for.

Rachel Browne