Editing G. E. Moore (section)

===Ethics===
[[Image:Principia Ethica title page.png|thumb|right|The title page of ''Principia Ethica'']]
His influential work ''[[Principia Ethica]]'' is one of the main inspirations of the reaction against [[ethical naturalism]] (see [[ethical non-naturalism]]) and is partly responsible for the twentieth-century concern with [[meta-ethics]].<ref>{{cite SEP |url-id=metaethics |title=Metaethics}} by Geoff Sayre-McCord.</ref>

====Naturalistic fallacy====
{{Main|Naturalistic fallacy}}
Moore asserted that philosophical arguments can suffer from a confusion between the use of a term in a particular argument and the definition of that term (in all arguments). He named this confusion the [[naturalistic fallacy]]. For example, an ethical argument may claim that if an item has certain properties, then that item is 'good.' A [[hedonism|hedonist]] may argue that 'pleasant' items are 'good' items. Other theorists may argue that 'complex' things are 'good' things. Moore contends that, even if such arguments are correct, they do not provide definitions for the term 'good'. The property of 'goodness' cannot be defined. It can only be shown and grasped. Any attempt to define it (X is good if it has property Y) will simply shift the problem (Why is Y-ness good in the first place?).

====Open-question argument====
{{Main|Open-question argument}}
Moore's [[argument]] for the indefinability of 'good' (and thus for the fallaciousness in the "naturalistic fallacy") is often termed the [[open-question argument]]; it is presented in [http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/s.13 §13 of ''Principia Ethica'']. The argument concerns the nature of statements such as "Anything that is pleasant is also good" and the possibility of asking questions such as "Is it ''good'' that x is pleasant?". According to Moore, these questions are ''open'' and these statements are ''significant''; and they will remain so no matter what is substituted for "pleasure". Moore concludes from this that any analysis of value is bound to fail. In other words, if value could be analysed, then such questions and statements would be trivial and obvious. Since they are anything but trivial and obvious, value must be indefinable.

Critics of Moore's arguments sometimes claim that he is appealing to general puzzles concerning analysis (cf. the [[paradox of analysis]]), rather than revealing anything special about value. The argument clearly depends on the assumption that if 'good' were definable, it would be an [[Logical truth|analytic truth]] about 'good', an assumption that many contemporary moral realists like [[Richard Boyd]] and [[Peter Railton]] reject.  Other responses appeal to the [[Frege]]an distinction between [[sense and reference]], allowing that value concepts are special and ''sui generis'', but insisting that value properties are nothing but natural properties (this strategy is similar to that taken by [[physicalism|non-reductive materialists]] in [[philosophy of mind]]).

====Good as indefinable====
Moore contended that goodness cannot be analysed in terms of any other property. In ''[[Principia Ethica]]'', he writes:

: It may be true that all things which are good are also something else, just as it is true that all things which are yellow produce a certain kind of vibration in the light. And it is a fact, that Ethics aims at discovering what are those other properties belonging to all things which are good. But far too many philosophers have thought that when they named those other properties they were actually defining good; that these properties, in fact, were simply not "other," but absolutely and entirely the same with goodness. (''Principia'', [http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/s.10#s10p3 § 10 ¶ 3])

Therefore, we cannot define 'good' by explaining it in other words. We can only indicate a ''thing'' or an ''action'' and say "That is good". Similarly, we cannot describe to a person born totally blind exactly what yellow is. We can only show a sighted person a piece of yellow paper or a yellow scrap of cloth and say "That is yellow".

====Good as a non-natural property====
In addition to categorising 'good' as indefinable, Moore also emphasized that it is a non-natural property. This means that it cannot be empirically or scientifically tested or verified{{mdash}}it is not analyzable by "natural science".

====Moral knowledge====
Moore argued that, once arguments based on the [[naturalistic fallacy]] had been discarded, questions of intrinsic goodness could be settled only by appeal to what he (following [[Henry Sidgwick|Sidgwick]]) termed "moral intuitions": [[self-evidence|self-evident]] propositions which recommend themselves to moral thought, but which are not susceptible to either direct proof or disproof (''Principia'', [http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/s.45 § 45]). As a result of his opinion, he has often been described by later writers as an advocate of [[ethical intuitionism]]. Moore, however, wished to distinguish his opinions from the opinions usually described as "Intuitionist" when ''Principia Ethica'' was written:

{{quotation|In order to express the fact that ethical propositions of my ''first'' class [propositions about what is good as an end in itself] are incapable of proof or disproof, I have sometimes followed Sidgwick's usage in calling them 'Intuitions.' But I beg that it may be noticed that I am not an 'Intuitionist,' in the ordinary sense of the term. Sidgwick himself seems never to have been clearly aware of the immense importance of the difference which distinguishes his Intuitionism from the common doctrine, which has generally been called by that name. The Intuitionist proper is distinguished by maintaining that propositions of my ''second'' class—propositions which assert that a certain action is ''right'' or a ''duty''—are incapable of proof or disproof by any enquiry into the results of such actions. I, on the contrary, am no less anxious to maintain that propositions of ''this'' kind are ''not'' 'Intuitions,' than to maintain that propositions of my ''first'' class ''are'' Intuitions.|G. E. Moore|[http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/preface#s0p5 ''Principia Ethica'', Preface ¶ 5]}}

Moore distinguished his view from the opinion of [[deontological ethics|deontological]] intuitionists, who claimed that "intuitions" could determine questions about what ''actions'' are right or required by [[duty]]. Moore, as a [[consequentialist]], argued that "duties" and moral rules could be determined by investigating the ''effects'' of particular actions or kinds of actions (''Principia'', [http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/s.89 § 89]), and so were matters for empirical investigation rather than direct objects of intuition (''Principia'', [http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/principia-ethica/s.90 § 90]). According to Moore, "intuitions" revealed not the rightness or wrongness of specific actions, but only what items were good in themselves, as ''ends to be pursued''.

==== Right action, duty and virtue ====
Moore holds that {{em|right actions}} are those producing the most good.<ref name="Schneewindp153">{{cite book |author=Schneewind |first=J. B. |author-link=J. B. Schneewind |url=https://archive.org/details/companiontoethic00sing/page/153 |title=A Companion to Ethics |publisher=Blackwell Publishers Ltd |year=1997 |isbn=0-631-18785-5 |editor=Singer, Peter |editor-link=Peter Singer |location=Oxford |page=[https://archive.org/details/companiontoethic00sing/page/153 153]}}</ref> The difficulty with this is that the consequences of most actions are too complex for us to properly take into account, especially the long-term consequences. Because of this, Moore suggests that the definition of duty is limited to what generally produces better results than probable alternatives in a comparatively near future.<ref name="Principia">{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=George Edward |title=Principia Ethica |date=1903 |publisher=Project Gutenberg |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/53430/53430-h/53430-h.htm}}</ref>{{rp|§109}} Whether a given rule of action is also a ''duty'' depends to some extent on the conditions of the corresponding society but ''duties'' agree mostly with what common-sense recommends.<ref name="Principia"/>{{rp|§95}} Virtues, like honesty, can in turn be defined as ''permanent dispositions'' to perform duties.<ref name="Principia"/>{{rp|§109}}