Consider the argument: 'Murder is wrong. This is murder. Therefore, this is wrong.' If 'Murder is wrong' is merely an expression of disgust (as simple emotivism holds), what problem arises?
AThe argument is invalid because it uses modus ponens incorrectly
BThe first premise cannot function logically, because mere expressions of emotion are not truth-apt and cannot serve as premises in valid inferences
CThe argument is a tautology — 'murder is wrong' and 'this is wrong' say the same thing
DEmotivism has no problem with this argument since emotions can be shared and communicated
This is the Frege-Geach problem. Logical inference requires truth-apt premises — statements that can be true or false. If 'Murder is wrong' means 'Murder — boo!,' it has no truth value and cannot serve as a genuine premise in a syllogism. The word 'wrong' in the conclusion is supposed to follow from its meaning in the premise, but if the premise is expressive rather than assertoric, there is no consistent meaning to carry over. This forced expressivists beyond simple emotivism.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
What is the core claim of expressivism about moral statements like 'Torture is wrong'?
AThe statement is true if and only if torture is in fact harmful to human wellbeing
BThe statement expresses an attitude, commitment, or emotional stance rather than asserting a fact about the world
CThe statement is neither true nor false because moral facts don't exist
DThe statement is a disguised command: 'Do not torture!'
Expressivism holds that moral statements express psychological states — attitudes, emotions, commitments, norms — rather than describing facts. The statement has the grammatical form of a proposition but is not functioning as a truth-apt claim about how the world is. This is distinct from error theory (answer C), which says moral statements are truth-apt but all false. Expressivists typically argue that moral statements can legitimately be called 'true' in a deflationary sense within moral discourse.
Question 3 True / False
Expressivists hold that moral disagreement is a dispute about objective facts, similar to scientific disagreement.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
False. This is a key contrast between expressivism and moral realism. Expressivists hold that moral disagreement is a clash of attitudes, commitments, or endorsed norms — not a dispute about who has correctly identified a moral fact. This is sometimes cited as an advantage: it explains why moral disagreement is so persistent (we are expressing different evaluative stances, not making competing factual claims that evidence could decisively settle).
Question 4 True / False
The Frege-Geach problem arises because moral statements appear to function logically in arguments, which is difficult to explain if they are merely expressions of emotion.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
True. The problem is that moral terms appear as premises in arguments, embedded in conditionals, and combined with quantifiers — positions where they must carry stable meaning across contexts. 'If murder is wrong, then convincing others to murder is wrong' requires 'murder is wrong' to have the same meaning in the antecedent as it would if asserted outright. A mere expression of disgust cannot do this work. The Frege-Geach problem is why simple emotivism was replaced by more sophisticated expressivist theories.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why did simple emotivism prove inadequate as an expressivist theory, and what problem forced more sophisticated accounts?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Simple emotivism (Ayer, Stevenson) treated moral statements as mere expressions of emotion — roughly, 'Torture — boo!' The Frege-Geach problem showed this is inadequate: moral statements appear in logical arguments as premises, embedded in conditionals, and combined with quantifiers. A mere emotional exclamation cannot function as a logical premise because it lacks truth-aptness and stable meaning across contexts. This forced expressivists to develop accounts in which moral statements have enough logical structure to participate in reasoning.
The Frege-Geach problem is the central challenge for all expressivist theories. Hare's prescriptivism, Blackburn's quasi-realism, and Gibbard's norm expressivism are all attempts to solve it by giving moral expressions enough logical structure to function in valid arguments. The degree to which any succeeds is one of the live debates in contemporary metaethics.