Frege Geach Response

Expressivism is the equivalent to emotivism. This means that you are expressing your emotions when claiming that something is wrong. Expressivists are saying “down with X” when saying something is wrong, they want to eliminate it, but they are not using statements of facts, but rather, they are more “grunts and groans” than propositions (Oderberg 23). In a moral sense, this view would claim that however you feel about a certain situation (with emotions) will determine whether or not that action is morally good or evil.

The Frege-Geach response works by stating that you cannot replace a moral proposition with anything besides a statement of fact. This would mean that a moral proposition cannot be a command or expression of emotion (Oderberg 24). The example in the book that we looked for the expressivist was:

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1. “If down with prostitution!, then down with living off the earnings of prostitution
2. Down with prostitution!
3. Therefore, down with living off the earnings of prostitution!” (Oderberg 24)

The issue with this is when you replace a premise with a command or emotion, it makes the other premise meaningless and unequivocal to the command or emotion which is why this response undermines expressivism. If you have a meaningless argument, or a premise that is not equivalent, then the argument falls apart. Because this displays a “moral modus ponens” it is not a strong theory to decipher whether or not an action is moral. By that I mean, expressivism doesn’t display the true meaning of a moral statement which will make the argument invalid.

The Frege-Geach response is not denying emotion or logical connections between certain premises in this argument. What they are discussing is the relationship it sets up once put into a modes ponens argument form. They way that this argument is set up when you are declaring that “prostitution is wrong” is that it is driving a certain emotion/response from the argument. It is not setting the argument up to be debated with or declared true or false (Oderberg 27). In other terms, the expressivists cannot account for other, more simple, arguments when they are brought forth in their more basic forms because the arguments would be in moral modes ponens which is invalid, or the premises do not relate in a way that is equal. The expressivist would justify that a moral issue is deemed right or wrong based on the emotional response evoked from that situation. Meaning that the emotion comes first, and the moral truth comes second which justifies an expressivists argument.

In my own analysis, I believe that it is hard to deem an action morally right or wrong based purely on emotion. I think depending on where you grew up and your culture, different emotions would be evoked for different people. Let’s look back at cannibalism. One culture would deem that eating their lost ones is a sign of respect and keeping that spirit alive, so their emotion for cannibalism would be positive and deemed right. But, when you look at other cultures who believe that is wrong, their emotions would deem it right, it’d literally be an argument that “cannibalism is right” or “cannibalism is wrong” each evoking and justifying that through their own culture and emotion tied to it. Unfortunately, relating back to Frege-Geach, it doesn’t actually explain or define the meaning of these moral statements leaving each premise unanswered and, ultimately, invalid. Sure, there are circumstances that you could use as a premise for either cannibalism scenario, but it wouldn’t leave the argument open to truly examining whether or not you can agree/disagree or argue it true or false.

In conclusion, expressivists are driving their arguments with emotion, and although there are correlations between premises it is not enough to equivocate to causation which leads to an invalid moral modes ponens pattern. Frege-Geach display these issues in their response, leading us to believe that using an expressivist view to discover whether a moral issue is right or wrong would not be effective.

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