Alex O’Connor’s Ethical Emotivism: A Logical Appeal to a Logical Fallacy
TL;DR
Alex O’Connor’s ethical emotivism suffers from two fatal flaws:
Internal collapse: Emotivism reduces all moral claims to expressions of emotion. This makes the appeal to emotion fallacy, substituting psychological force for rational justification, the foundation of ethics, not a mistake to avoid.
External collapse: Defending emotivism requires rational argument. But rational argument presupposes normative authority (you ought to accept what logic demonstrates). Emotivism denies normative authority exists. The position refutes itself in the act of defending itself.
The bottom line: You cannot use reason’s authority to argue that reason has no authority. You cannot appeal to logic’s binding force while denying that anything binds. Emotivism is philosophically unstable - it borrows what it denies.
Executive Summary
The Internal and External Collapse of Ethical Emotivism
Ethical Emotivism, the view that moral claims are merely expressions of emotional attitude (non-cognitivism), suffers from a dual-layered logical failure. Internally, it attempts to ground an entire branch of philosophy in a recognized logical fallacy (argumentum ad passiones). Externally, it commits a performative contradiction by appealing to the normative authority of logic to deny the existence of normative authority.
I. The Internal Appeal: Canonizing the Fallacy
In standard logic, the Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy because it substitutes psychological pressure for justificatory evidence. Emotivism does not merely commit this fallacy; it defines morality by it.
The Reduction: Emotivism claims “Murder is wrong” is functionally identical to “Boo, murder!”
The Consequence: By reducing “ought” to a “preference,” emotivism removes the distinction between rational persuasion and psychological manipulation.
The Logical Failure: If moral discourse is simply the transmission of aversions and desires, then there is no “reasoning” occurring, only causal influence. The theory does not commit the fallacy accidentally. It redefines morality as nothing but the fallacy. More precisely: what logic classifies as a fallacious substitution of psychological force for justificatory force becomes, on emotivism, the entire substance of moral discourse. What is an error in reasoning becomes the foundation of ethics.
II. The External Appeal: The Performative Contradiction
The defense of emotivism (as seen in the work of Alex O’Connor) relies on the very normative standards it claims do not exist. This is the External Appeal.
The Demand for Consistency: Emotivists frequently use logical tools (like the “Name the Trait” argument) to force interlocutors into moral consistency.
The Parasitic Nature of the Argument: To say an interlocutor should be consistent is to appeal to a Normative Fact.
The Contradiction: If the Law of Non-Contradiction has normative authority (you ought to believe what it entails), then normative facts exist. If it has no such authority (just a preference), the argument for emotivism loses rational force.
III. The Sovereignty of Reason
The emotivist attempts to use the “Navigator” (Reason) to prove the “Compass” (Emotion) is the only thing that matters. However, if the Navigator has the authority to tell us how to organize our Compass, then the Navigator is the true authority.
DomainOntological ClaimPerformative RealityEthicsNo facts, only feelings.Appeals to “better” or “worse” arguments.LogicJust a tool for consistency.Treated as a binding law of thought.LanguageExpressive (Boo/Hoorah).Used as Truth-Apt (True/False).
IV. Summary
Ethical Emotivism is not a stable meta-ethical position; it is a parasitic one. It lives off the inherited capital of Rationalism while officially denying its validity. To be an emotivist who argues logically is to be a person who uses a megaphone to shout that sound waves do not exist. Every argument mounted in emotivism’s defense presupposes the normative authority of reason. But that presupposition falsifies the theory.
Detailed Analysis
Alex O’Connor describes himself as an ethical emotivist. The position has a fatal flaw, and it is not subtle.
Emotivism reduces all moral claims to expressions of attitude. “Murder is wrong” means nothing more than “I disapprove of murder” or “Boo, murder.” There are no moral facts. No binding obligations. No normative authority beyond psychological force.
Yet when emotivists argue, they depend entirely on the normative authority they deny exists.
That dependence takes a specific form: the appeal to emotion fallacy.
The fallacy at the center
In ordinary logic, the appeal to emotion fallacy occurs when emotional arousal is used instead of relevant reasons or evidence to secure acceptance of a claim. It is fallacious because it sidelines justification in favor of psychological pressure.
Emotivism does not accidentally commit this fallacy.
The fallacy is the foundation.
In effect, ethical emotivism is an attempt to found morality on a logical fallacy. It denies that moral claims answer to anything beyond attitudes, then re-describes the appeal to emotion—using psychological force where reasons should go—as the entire content of moral discourse.
Here is why: Emotivism claims that moral judgment just is the use and modulation of attitudes. There is nothing further, no fact or binding norm, to which moral discourse can appeal. Moral claims express emotional states and attempt to generate those states in others.
Once that reduction is complete, what logic classifies as a fallacy (emotion in place of reasons) becomes, on emotivism, the entire content of moral “reasoning.”
On emotivism, every “ought” reduces to a preference, whether for kindness, for truth, or for consistency. All that remains in moral discourse is the attempt to transmit or amplify those preferences in others. That is exactly what the appeal to emotion fallacy is: substituting psychological force for justificatory force.
Emotivism does not merely sometimes commit this fallacy. It identifies moral reasoning with it.
Since there are no moral facts and no binding oughts, the only ground for moral claims is the psychological force of attitudes. When the emotivist says “factory farming is wrong,” this reduces to: “I have a strong aversion to factory farming, and I am attempting to generate that aversion in you.”
No amount of emotional intensity transforms “is” into “ought.” Widespread strong feelings about X do not make X wrong. But emotivism has nothing else to offer. Emotional force is treated as if it does normative work. It does not. It does psychological work. Those are not the same thing.
This means emotivism cannot distinguish between:
A sound moral argument that happens to evoke strong feelings
Pure emotional manipulation that bypasses reason entirely
Both produce the same result: attitude change. And on emotivism, that is all there is. The method does not matter because there is no standard external to the emotional response itself.
Yet emotivists do not argue this way.
The performative contradiction
When Alex O’Connor argues morally, he does not try to maximize emotional impact regardless of rational merit. He appeals to consistency. He points to logical implications. He treats rational argument as having authority that mere emotional persuasion lacks.
That is a performative contradiction.
A performative contradiction occurs when the content of a claim contradicts the act of making it:
“I deny that reason has authority” (stated while giving reasons)
“All claims are mere power moves” (asserted as if true)
“There is no such thing as communication” (said to communicate)
Emotivism commits the same error.
The theory claims: Moral language expresses attitudes, nothing more. There is no normative authority. There are no binding oughts. Moral disagreement is just clashing preferences.
But the practice of moral argument assumes the opposite. When you argue morally, you:
Treat inconsistency as a defect, not just a different preference
Appeal to logical coherence as binding
Assume your interlocutor should revise their view if shown to be inconsistent
Distinguish good moral arguments from bad ones
Recognize rational persuasion as different from manipulation
All of that requires normative authority. All of that treats moral reasoning as answerable to something beyond mere attitude.
The emotivist cannot say, “I am just expressing my preference for consistency.”
Because if that were true, there would be no difference between:
Showing someone their logical error
Threatening them until they agree
Shaming them into conformity
Manipulating their emotions
Making a sound argument
All are methods of attitude transmission. If moral discourse is just attitude expression, the method is irrelevant. Only the outcome matters.
But the emotivist does not act this way. O’Connor argues rationally. He expects rational engagement. He treats logical consistency as mattering.
That expectation requires what emotivism denies: a normative standard independent of the attitudes being expressed.
The content of the theory (no normative authority) contradicts the practice of defending it (appealing to normative standards of argument).
The normative trap
This is not a problem emotivism can fix. The contradiction is structural.
Consider how the emotivist defends emotivism. Even granting their own premises, the argument follows this pattern:
Premise 1: Accept worldviews that are logically consistent
Premise 2: Moral realism is logically inconsistent
Premise 3: Emotivism is logically consistent
Conclusion: Therefore, you ought to accept emotivism
Notice the “ought” in the conclusion. This is not emotive expression. It is presented as rational obligation. The argument claims to prove something, not merely express a preference.
But if we take emotivism seriously, the emotivist faces an inescapable trilemma. Each horn refutes the position.
Option 1: The “ought” is binding because logic has normative authority.
If you ought to accept emotivism because the argument is sound, then logical validity creates obligation. Rational consistency binds. The conclusion follows with normative force.
But if logic has normative authority, then normative facts exist. The ought in “you ought to believe what follows from sound arguments” is not reducible to attitude. It is a fact about what rationality requires.
Result: Emotivism is false. Normative authority exists.
Option 2: The “ought” is just emotional expression.
If the conclusion reduces to “Yay emotivism!” or “I strongly prefer you accept emotivism,” then the argument has no rational force. It is not a proof. It is a suggestion backed by preference.
Anyone can respond: “I understand you feel that way, but I do not share your preference for logical consistency.” And emotivism has no further move. There is no appeal to what reason requires, because reason creates no requirements.
Result: The argument fails. Emotivism cannot be rationally defended, only advocated.
Option 3: Stop arguing for emotivism altogether.
The emotivist could refuse to argue, avoiding the trap entirely. Simply express the attitude without defending it.
But that is performative abandonment. If emotivism cannot be defended through argument, then every philosophical discussion O’Connor engages in, every debate he participates in, every appeal to consistency he makes, is incoherent on his own terms.
Result: The position cannot be maintained in practice.
Every path leads to refutation. The trilemma is inescapable.
Reasons versus causes
The problem runs deeper than inconsistent practice. It concerns the nature of justification itself.
Logical arguments give you reasons to believe. They are truth-directed. When a sound argument demonstrates a conclusion, you have a reason to accept it because the conclusion is true.
Emotional manipulation gives you causes to believe. It is effect-directed. When someone shames or pressures you into accepting a claim, you have been caused to believe it, but you have no reason to think it is true.
Emotivism collapses this distinction.
The quasi-realist attempts to reconstruct “reasons” as features that a fully coherent set of attitudes would endorse. A reason, on this view, is something that would survive reflective equilibrium within an ideally organized system of attitudes.
But this reconstruction still leaves reasons hostage to psychological fact. Whether something counts as a reason depends entirely on what attitudes the agent happens to have, even after idealization. There is no standard external to those attitudes by which to judge them correct or incorrect.
This means that once moral reasoning is reduced to attitude transmission, there is no difference between:
Being shown you are wrong (reason)
Being pressured until you change your mind (cause)
Both produce belief change. But only the first answers to truth. Only the first involves justification rather than mere causation.
The emotivist cannot explain why rational persuasion is better than manipulation, because “better” would require a normative standard external to the attitudes being shaped. But that is exactly what emotivism denies exists.
So when O’Connor argues rationally rather than manipulating emotionally, he reveals that he recognizes a distinction his theory cannot account for. He treats reasons as having authority that mere causes lack.
That authority is normative. And it refutes emotivism.
The vegan arguments prove the point
O’Connor’s former vegan advocacy demonstrates this with perfect clarity.
In his 2019 video “A Meat Eater’s Case for Veganism,” O’Connor built his argument on logical consistency, not emotional appeal. His central move was the “name the trait” argument: if you think it is wrong to force a dog into a gas chamber but acceptable to force a pig into one for bacon, you must identify the morally relevant difference between them. Intelligence? Then can we kill humans with lower intelligence? Species membership? That is arbitrary, like appealing to race or gender.
He used John Rawls’ veil of ignorance: if you did not know what creature you would be born as, would you design a society that permits factory farming? His answer: “Nobody in their right mind, from this position, would design a society that permits the meat industry as it exists today.”
Notice the method. He did not try to maximize emotional impact. He appealed to consistency. He used philosophical thought experiments. He treated moral argument as answerable to logic.
This is incompatible with emotivism.
On emotivism, all O’Connor is entitled to say is: “I have a strong aversion to animal suffering, and I want you to share it.”
That is advocacy. Not obligation.
Yet that is never how he argued. He pointed to inconsistencies as if they were defects, not merely different preferences. He treated logical coherence as binding. He assumed his interlocutor should revise their view if shown to be inconsistent.
All of that requires a normative standard independent of attitude.
And notice what happens when pressed. If someone responds, “I understand you feel strongly, but I do not share your aversion,” emotivism has no further move. There is no appeal to rightness or wrongness. There is no claim that the other person should revise their attitudes. There is only: “I feel this way, you feel that way.”
But O’Connor clearly does not argue this way. He distinguishes good moral arguments from bad ones. He treats rational persuasion as having authority that mere emotional manipulation lacks. He acts as if some moves in moral argument are better than others.
That distinction requires exactly what emotivism denies: normativity that transcends attitude.
The irony deepens when we consider that O’Connor later abandoned veganism in 2023, citing difficulty maintaining a healthy plant-based diet. Critics noted that instead of providing logical arguments, he offered vague language that concealed the absence of reasoning. When the rational framework could no longer be maintained, the whole structure collapsed.
This reveals something important. O’Connor’s veganism was never grounded in emotivism. It was grounded in the very normative authority emotivism denies. When that authority could no longer be sustained, mere attitude was not enough.
Quasi-realism does not save this
Some will object: “Quasi-realism solves this problem.”
It does not.
To be clear: this critique engages with the sophisticated quasi-realism that Alex O’Connor explicitly endorses, following Simon Blackburn’s projectivism. This is not a strawman version of emotivism. It is the position as its defenders present it.
Simon Blackburn argues that projectivism can account for the normative force of moral language without moral facts. The normativity arises from the structure of attitudes themselves: endorsement, criticism, coherence demands. We can legitimately use moral language (right, wrong, ought, better) because attitudes have internal logic that mirrors truth-conditional discourse.
Quasi-realists claim they can, without inconsistency, (i) deny stance-independent moral facts and yet (ii) legitimately use ordinary normative vocabulary as projections of a suitably organized set of attitudes. They insist: “There is no contradiction in using logic; the norms of logic are themselves part of our practical outlook, not metaphysically independent laws.”
But this just moves the appeal to emotion up a level.
On quasi-realism, “you ought to be consistent” expresses a higher-order attitude favoring consistency. Every “ought” bottoms out in attitudes, whether first-order (about cruelty, suffering) or higher-order (about coherence, truth-tracking, epistemic virtue).
So when the emotivist appeals to consistency or epistemic norms, what is really doing the work is just another preference: “I strongly favor having my attitudes cohere and track evidence, and I want you to share that.”
But why should anyone care about consistency?
On emotivism, the answer can only be: “Because I have a strong preference for consistency, and I am trying to generate that preference in you.”
That is still the appeal to emotion. You are just appealing to preference for consistency rather than disgust at cruelty.
Consider what happens when attitudes clash. You prefer not to harm dogs. You are fine harming pigs for bacon. These attitudes conflict. The emotivist points to the inconsistency.
But inconsistency is never more than an unpleasant pattern of attitudes (to someone who already prefers coherence). To say it is a fault one ought to resolve goes beyond mere description of attitudes and smuggles in the very normativity the theory denies.
Without a standard that is not itself just more preference, inconsistency is a psychological fact about a person’s states, not a defect they are bound to correct.
The quasi-realist tries to bypass this by treating “like cases should be treated alike” as a higher-order attitude. But “like cases should be treated alike” is itself a normative claim. On emotivism, it reduces to attitude.
So the argument becomes:
You have attitude A (prefer consistency)
You have attitude B (okay with pigs in gas chambers, not dogs)
A and B clash
Why does that clash matter?
Only if there is a normative standard that says: “Clashing attitudes should be resolved in favor of consistency.”
But emotivism denies that standard exists. So the “clash” is just two attitudes you happen to have. There is no obligation to resolve it. There is no binding reason to change.
The moment you say someone ought to resolve the clash, you have crossed into normativity that transcends attitude. But that is exactly what emotivism denies exists.
If moral argument is just attitude-expression dressed up in normative language, then there is no difference between:
Showing someone their inconsistency
Shaming them until they conform
Threatening them into agreement
Manipulating their emotions
All of these are forms of attitude-transmission. Emotivism cannot distinguish better from worse forms of moral influence because it has no standard external to attitude itself.
Yet O’Connor clearly treats rational argument as different from manipulation. He treats logical inconsistency as a defect, not merely as an attitude he happens not to share. He acts as if some forms of moral persuasion are legitimate and others are not.
That distinction requires exactly what emotivism denies: a normative standard independent of the attitudes being expressed.
Quasi-realism does not solve the problem. It relocates it. Internal norms and higher-order attitudes are still just attitudes. The appeal to emotion remains foundational, just dressed in more sophisticated language.
Why higher-order attitudes don’t save emotivism
The quasi-realist might respond: “When I appeal to consistency, I am expressing a higher-order attitude—a preference for coherence itself. This is not circular; it is what grounds rational discourse.”
But this fails at three levels.
First, it still reduces normativity to preference. To say “I have a higher-order preference for coherence” is still just to describe a psychological state. It does not explain why anyone else should care about coherence.
The emotivist can say: “I strongly value consistency, and I want you to value it too.” But that is still just preference transmission. The fact that it is a preference about other preferences does not make it any less a preference.
Someone can respond: “I understand you value coherence, but I do not. I am fine with inconsistency.” And emotivism has no further move. There is no appeal to what rationality requires, because rationality itself is just another preference.
Second, it creates an infinite regress. Why should anyone care about higher-order attitudes?
If the answer is “because I have a meta-meta-attitude that favors caring about higher-order attitudes,” the regress continues. At some point, the emotivist must say: “This attitude is just basic. There is no further justification.”
But once they say that, they have admitted: some attitudes are basic, foundational, and not rationally justifiable. Reason bottoms out in arbitrary preference.
That is the opposite of what the quasi-realist needs. The whole point of appealing to higher-order attitudes was to show that rational discourse has internal standards. But if those standards themselves are just brute preferences with no further justification, then reason has no authority beyond the preferences we happen to have.
Third, it collapses the distinction between rationality and irrationality. On emotivism, a person who values coherence and a person who does not are just different configurations of attitudes. Neither is better in any normative sense. They are just different.
But that eliminates the distinction between rational and irrational, which refutes emotivism’s claim to defend any position rationally.
Consider two people:
Person A values logical consistency and revises beliefs when shown to be contradictory
Person B does not care about consistency and maintains contradictory beliefs without concern
On emotivism, these are just two different attitude sets. Neither is more rational than the other. They are simply different preferences.
But if there is no normative difference between rationality and irrationality, then the emotivist cannot claim their arguments are rationally compelling. They can only say: “I have these attitudes, and I am trying to transmit them to you.”
That is not argument. That is influence.
The higher-order attitudes move does not escape the problem. It admits that all normativity, including rational normativity, reduces to contingent preferences. And once that reduction is complete, there is no difference between persuasion and manipulation, between rational argument and psychological pressure, between better and worse forms of influence.
The emotivist can describe sophisticated structures of attitudes. They cannot explain why those structures bind.
The is–ought gap never closes
Emotivism attempts to bridge the is–ought gap by relocating “ought” inside psychology.
Moral norms become:
deep dispositions
socially entrenched attitudes
evolved concerns
stable patterns of approval and disapproval
But all of these are still descriptions. They are still is-statements.
Describing the psychological source of an “ought” does not explain its normative authority. To say “I feel strongly that X” is not yet to say “X binds.” Emotivism conflates the two by treating intensity or stability of attitude as if it generates obligation.
But no amount of intensity closes the gap. A deeply held preference is still just a preference. A stable pattern of approval is still just a pattern.
You can describe attitudes forever and never arrive at a reason why anyone ought to obey them.
So when emotivism speaks as if inconsistency is a defect, or cruelty is condemnable, it has already crossed the line it claims does not exist.
What emotivism denies
To be clear about the official position:
On emotivism:
Moral statements are not truth-apt
There are no moral facts
There is no objective or subjective moral knowledge
Moral disagreement is not about who is right, but about clashing attitudes
That means no binding obligations. No moral authority. No genuine “ought.”
Once moral claims are reduced to expressions of attitude, there is no longer a distinction between:
persuasion and justification
pressure and obligation
preference and principle
Yet those distinctions remain active in O’Connor’s discourse.
That is not an accident. That is what happens when you try to argue for a position that denies the possibility of argument.
Borrowed authority
The pattern is consistent.
Emotivism denies moral authority, then quietly relies on it. It rejects obligation, then assumes it. It dismisses truth, then argues as if error exists.
This is not accidental. It is unavoidable.
Moral discourse treats normativity as basic. It assumes that some claims bind, that inconsistency is a failure, that moral argument is answerable to something beyond attitude. Once you remove that grounding, you do not get a thinner morality. You get something else entirely. Social influence. Power. Preference coordination.
That is why emotivism can describe moral language but cannot justify moral judgment.
And that is why it must borrow the very normative authority it officially denies.
Final diagnosis
To be clear about what this critique claims:
I am not saying emotivists consciously endorse “manipulate emotions and ignore reasons.”
I am saying: once emotivism’s semantics is taken seriously, anything that counts as a “moral reason” is nothing beyond the configuration of attitudes and the causal routes by which those attitudes are shaped. The only thing in play is psychological force, however sophisticated.
That is why quasi-realist talk of “internal norms” does not escape the problem. It merely redescribes layers of attitude while still relying, in practice, on a distinction between good and bad persuasion that the ontology cannot underwrite.
This is ultimately a best explanation argument. Moral practice, as actually conducted by people like Alex O’Connor, is better explained by some substantive form of normativity than by a purely projectivist psychology. When O’Connor argues for consistency, points to arbitrary discrimination, or appeals to fairness, his practice purports to track something more than sophisticated preference structures. It purports to identify genuine errors, not merely different attitudes.
Quasi-realism attempts to reconstruct all of this “from within” our practice without postulating stance-independent moral facts. But the reconstruction fails to match what moral and rational practice actually purport to be. The gap between what the theory says and what the practice requires reveals the theory’s inadequacy.
Alex O’Connor’s ethical emotivism is psychologically plausible and rhetorically sophisticated. But it is philosophically unstable.
It reduces morality to emotional force (the appeal to emotion fallacy), then argues as if rational standards bind (performative contradiction).
It lives off inherited moral capital while denying the account that makes that capital intelligible.
You can deny moral facts. You can deny moral truth. You can deny moral obligation.
But you cannot do all three and still argue morally without borrowing what you have rejected.
The position is not deflationary. It is parasitic.
You cannot explain obligation by denying obligation.
And you cannot build a philosophy on a fallacy while pretending the fallacy does not matter.
What This Implies
This critique does not merely tear down. It points toward a positive alternative.
If moral practice purports to identify genuine errors and not merely different attitudes, if rational argument has authority that mere psychological pressure lacks, if consistency binds in a way that transcends preference, then some form of normative realism is required.
The exact form remains open to debate. Perhaps moral facts are irreducible features of reality. Perhaps normativity is grounded in the structure of rational agency itself. Perhaps practical reason has its own domain of truth that cannot be reduced to descriptive facts about psychology.
What is not open to debate is that emotivism fails. It cannot account for the normative structure of the very practice it claims to explain. Moral discourse treats normativity as basic. Any adequate meta-ethics must vindicate that treatment, not explain it away.
The choice is not between emotivism and some naive picture of moral facts floating in a platonic realm. The choice is between theories that can account for normative authority and theories that cannot. Emotivism cannot. Therefore, some alternative that can is required.
This essay has shown what does not work. The positive task of determining what does work remains. But we cannot begin that task while pretending that emotivism succeeds. It does not.