Emotivism claims that ethical sentences do not express propositions that can be verified in the real world but merely emotional attitudes. Emotivism in its current form was developed by A. J. Ayer in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic and in later works by C. L. Stevenson.
Ayer, a logical positivist, states that there is no observable truth value in a statement like
stealing is wrong.
At best, the statement expresses my opinion that stealing is wrong. Moral statements, according to Ayer, are little more that noises of approval (hurray) or disapproval (boo); emotivism is thus sometimes known as the boo/ hurray theory.
Ayer admitted that a statement like stealing is wrong implied both that the speaker disapproved and that others should also do so. The statement has more ‘force’ than a simple statement of fact but it does not amount to an imperative.
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