Subjectivism versus emotivism in ethics

Subjectivism is a result of someone making a decision based on their feelings, which can affect the outcome of situations. "Simple Subjectivism: What does it mean to say that ethics is subjective? The simplest version of the theory says that if you say "x is wrong" then what you mean is "I disapprove of x."

In other words, you are reporting on your own attitude. It is hard to imagine anyone being mistaken about their own attitude (e.g. thinking they are pro-life but really being pro-choice), so if simple subjectivism is true then nobody who says "x is wrong" is likely to be wrong. This sounds strange. If someone says "Courage is bad" aren't they wrong? Well, it depends what you mean by 'wrong'. If you mean morally wrong then subjectivism does not say. Remember that it is not a theory about what is right and what is wrong. According to simple subjectivism people are only infallible in their moral judgments in the sense that people cannot be mistaken about what they feel is right or wrong. Strange as it might sound, this could well be right. After all, a mistake is a kind of accident, and people's beliefs about ethics might be misguided but they are surely never accidents.

So perhaps we really cannot be mistaken in our moral judgments" (Subjectivism in Ethics). Therefore, there cannot be a one moral code for everyone, which makes subjectivism valid.

Discussion

In Jim Holt's essays about Sartre, it is clearly presented that Sartre believes that people create their own world in order to deal with their reality. Within his ideas, "Memories seem unimportant to Pablo now. The woman he loves no longer seems important. Death itself is an aberration, almost impossible to conceive. But psychologically the characters do pass from life to death before the guards come to take them away. However, there is an ironic twist to the ending" (the WALL Jean-Paul Sartre). This completely supports the idea of subjectivism because people create their own world in order to deal with reality, which means their feelings affect their moral judgment.

People justify everything by their own psychologically reasons, which are not by society's standards like Sartre's story of the woman with the unfortunate husband. "The Bedroom' begins with a woman suffering from some unnamed illness, lying in bed. She and her husband are concerned for their daughter whose husband is descending into some kind of hereditary and degenerative madness. The father wants his son-in-law put in an institution, and goes to see his daughter. She refuses to give up her husband. Not only that, she goes along with her husband's hallucinations, to the extent that they almost seem real to her too" (the WALL Jean-Paul Sartre). Sartre and Holt show people create their own psychologically escape in order to deal with reality, which subjectivism is based on.

Nietzsche believes there is an "order of rank" to where people's spiritual strength can be measured. Due to the fact that people are different, there cannot be one moral code to all people (Nietzche good and evil sparkle notes). "Nietzsche suggests that the strongest people are marked by a cruelty to themselves, according to which they mercilessly expose their every prejudice and assumption in order to dig more deeply into themselves. At bottom, however, everyone has prejudices" (Nietzche good and evil sparkle notes). This can be proven in the society because people follow their own path, which indicates there cannot be one moral rule for everyone and subjectivism is valid.

Everyone sees things differently because everyone has different information, and everyone's brains are wired different. The same fact presented to two people will be interpreted and stored in two different ways. it's almost as if there is no "real" world... just millions of versions of the world and we just haven't got the mental power as living beings to see what is real and what is not. Logic and consensus are the only ways of ascertaining what is real and what isn't, but we can only ever know to the extent that experience gives us only a fuzzy and inaccurate picture of reality, and consensus is merely a diplomatic compromise with only logic and reason to back it up. To rely, however, on logic and reason leads to problems where one person concludes that anothers' experience is false. For example a psychiatrist concludes that a patients' experience of government conspiracy is a false experience - even though it's an experience the person has been having consistently for ten years - at the end of the day it's only one persons' point-of-view vs. another and logic is not self-affirming of the world, only self-contained (Subjectivism).

In the Sound of Silence in the Tao, silence is when a person can hear that small voice that speaks to us only when we are ready to hear. In order to hear this voice, people must be quiet, cease talking and really listen because it is solitude and in meditation when they are alone (the Sound of Silence). This proves that subjectivism is valid because people do not have the same inner voice due to person experience. Therefore, as human beings, moral judgment comes from within our own personal experience and that is what subjectivism is based on.

Most people listen to the silence because it teaches them from right and wrong. Within our society and culture is common for people to think about what they do and how they live. By listening to that inner voice, people analysis what they do and think about the consequences of their actions rather than being impulsive. It has been thought television shows poke fun of how our society acts when we do not listen to that inner voice. For example, in the cartoon, the Simpsons, Lisa is the only character that represents what society is supposed to be by listening to the sound of silence.