"Torture, Boo!" H-01 Group 3

Today the Philosoraptors had the pleasure of discussing the ideas and beliefs of Alfred Jules Ayer, an English philosopher that was influenced by David Humes contemplations on metaphysics as well as the early 20th century bore with metaphysics: If the sentence was neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable (or falsifiable), then it was, Ayer declared, meaningless. As simple as that.

 




The Philosoraptors thought that Ayers philosophy shared many characteristics with Pyrho's skepticism blended with Stoicism. For example, the sentence "My room is full of invisible angels that leave no trace."  seems to mean something, but Ayer's point was that it contributed nothing whatsoever to human knowledge, though it might sound poetic or could possibly contribute to a work of fiction. The sentence literally had no meaning to Ayer: it sounded like nonsense. Technically the sentence is grammatically correct and false; however, Ayer would claim to not even understand. A sentence is gibberish unless it is either 1) True by definition or 2) Empirically verifiable.

But Ayer applied his dogma to more than just metaphysics: religion and morality were subjected as well. One of his most challenging conclusions was that moral judgements were literally nonsense. This seemed like an outlandish thing to say, but it was what followed if you used his two-pronged test on moral statements. So through Ayer's perspective, saying "Torture is wrong"  is equivalent to "Torture, Boo!"
 
 When you say "Compasion, is good" all you are doing is showing how you feel: it's just like saying "Compasion, Hooray" It's a complete statement of opinion and not true by definition or empirical verification. Not surprisingly, his theory, known as emotivism, is often described as the Boo!/Hooray! Theory. The Philosoraptors thought this principle had almost no practicality because if this moral standpoint is taken, there would be no way to have organized society due to the lack of ethicality: there would be no social contract to keep everyone safe because people could do what they see fit and have no following consequence.

Another interesting tidbit of information is Ayer's religion. He is igtheistic: that special category of people who think that all talk of God existing or not existing is complete nonsense. Howeverlater in life, when he chocked on a bit of salmon bone and choked to the point of death, he had a vision while is heart had stopped beating. It was of a red light and two 'Masters of the Universe' talking to each other. This vision didn't make him believe in God, but it did make him question whether the mind could continue existing after death.

In the end, Dr. Oliver mad an interesting point on A.J. Ayers rogress as a philosopher. His youth was filled with firery disownments of all the great philosophers and their urbbish, but after his near death experience, he developed a sense of compassion towards other peoples beliefs, although still retaining is igtheistic standpoint.

-Jake