We shall set ourselves to show that in so far as statements of value are significant, they are ordinarily "scientific" statements, and that in so far as they are not scientific, they are not in the literal sense significant, but are simply expressions of emotion which can be neither true nor false. . . . What we are interested in is the possibility of reducing the whole sphere of ethical terms to non-ethical terms. We are enquiring whether the statements of ethical value can be translated into statements of empirical fact. . . . . . . . The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, "You acted wrongly in stealing that money," I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, "You stole that money." In adding that this action is wrong I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval of it. . . . It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker. . . . If now I generalize my previous statement and say, "Stealing money is wrong," I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning. It is clear that there is nothing said here which can be true or false. Another man may disagree with me about the wrongness of stealing, in the sense that he may not have the same feelings about stealing as I have, and he may quarrel with me on account of my moral sentiments. But he cannot, strictly speaking, contradict me. For in saying that a certain type of action is right or wrong, I am not making any factual statement. I am merely expressing certain moral sentiments. and the man who is ostensibly contradicting me is merely expressing his moral sentiments. So that there is plainly no sense in asking which of us is in the right. For neither of us is asserting a genuine proposition. . . . In every case in which one would commonly be said to be making an ethical judgement, the function of the relevant ethical word is purely "emotive." It is used to express feeling about certain objects, but not to make any assertion about them. . . .We can now see why it is impossible to find a criterion for determining the validity of ethical judgements. . . .. . . And we have seen that sentences which simply express moral judgements do not say anything. They are pure expressions of feelings and as such do not come under the category of truth and falsehood. . . .The task of describing the different feelings that the different ethical terms are used to express, and the different reactions that they customarily provoke, is a task for the psychologist. There cannot be such a thing as ethical science, if by ethical science one means the elaboration of a "true" system of morals. For we have seen that, as ethical judgements are mere expressions of feelings, there can be no way of determining the validity of any ethical system, and, indeed , no sense in asking whether any such system is true. All that one may legitimately enquire in this connection is, What are the moral habits of a given person or group of people, and what causes them to have precisely those habits and feelings? And this enquiry falls wholly within the scope of the existing social sciences. (LANGUAGE, TRUTH, AND LOGIC, 1936)