User:ES8592/Principia Ethica

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Principia Ethica is a 1903 book written by British philosopher, G. E. Moore. Moore questions a fundamental pillar of ethics, specifically what the definition of "good" is. He concludes that "good" is indefinable because any attempts to do so commit the naturalistic fallacy. Principia Ethica was influential, with Moore's arguments being considered ground-breaking advances in the field of moral philosophy.

Publication history
Principia Ethica was first published in October 1903 by Cambridge University Press. It was reprinted in 1922 and 1929. An Italian translation by Gianni Vattimo, with a preface by Nicola Abbagnano, was later published by Bompiani in 1964.

Summary

In Principia Ethica, Moore claims that ethics is about three basic questions: (1) "what is good?" (considered the most important), (2) "what things are good or bad in themselves?", and (3) "what is good as a means?" .

What is good?
The first question is concerned with the nature and definition of the term "good". Moore argues that the term is simple, non-analyzable, and therefore indefinable. It cannot be defined by means of personal or individual ideas of what one thinks is "good". More importantly, it is simple because there is no way to sufficiently explain it to someone who does not already have an idea of things that can be "good", Moore states. Additionally, simple terms do not have parts, making them not analyzable. This is contrary to complex terms, which do have parts and are definable. Parts are the components that make up the term. Moore's example of a simple term is "yellow," whereas he says "horse" is a complex term.

Moore suggests two forms, or ideas, of goodness have to be distinguished to formulate a definition: (1) things that are good in themselves or intrinsically good, and (2) things that are good as causal means in relation other things. They are different because our knowledge of value in itself comes from self-evident intuitions and is not inferred from other things, unlike our knowledge of goodness as a means.

What things are good or bad in themselves?
The second question of ethics asks about what kinds of things are good or bad in themselves. Moore discusses several traditional answers to this question, especially naturalism, which he contrasts with his own approach. He believes the main problem with naturalism in ethics is its tendency to associate value within natural properties, like pleasure. He accuses such positions of committing the naturalistic fallacy. In trying to define the term "good", a non-analyzable term according to Moore, the naturalistic fallacy is committed. If such definitions were true, then they would be uninformative tautologies, "'Pleasure is good' would be equivalent to 'Pleasure is pleasure'". But Moore argues, it is not a tautology but an open question (often known as the open question argument) whether such sentences are true. This is why the definition above, along with naturalism, fails.

Moore agrees with hedonism that pleasure is good in itself, but it is not the only intrinsically valuable thing. Another important 'good' that is valuable in itself is: beauty. For example: the beauty of mountains, rivers, and sunsets. Moore proposes a thought experiment, the "method of isolation", as a test to determine whether something has intrinsic (worldly) value. The test is meant to remove any considerations of the thing being good as a means by isolating the intrinsic values. The method consists in imagining a world that contains only the thing in question, for example, a world composed only of a beautiful landscape. Moore argues that such a world would be better than an ugly world, it would be beautiful, even though no one is there to enjoy it. This is to show that pleasure is not the only thing good in itself and cannot be a part of the definition of good.

Among the things that are good in themselves, there is an important difference between the value of a whole and the values of its parts. It is often assumed that the value of a whole just consists in the sum of the values of its parts. Moore rejects this view and insists that it fails for certain types of wholes: "organic unities" or "organic wholes". Cases of retributive justice are examples of organic wholes. Such cases are wholes comprising two negative things, a morally vicious person and pain inflicted on this person as punishment. But the value on the whole is less negative (or maybe even positive) than the sum of the values of the two parts. Again we have to depend on our intuitions to determine how the intrinsic value of a whole differs from the sum of the values of its parts.

What is good as a means?
Having answered the second question of ethics, Moore proceeds to the third question: "What is good as a means?". This question is of particular relevance since it includes the domain traditionally associated with ethics: "What ought we to do?" . For this, it is necessary to further limit the third question. The main interest is in "actions which it is possible for most men to perform, if only they will them; and with regard to these, it does not ask merely, which among them will have some good or bad result, but which, among all the actions possible to volition at any moment, will produce the best total result". 'Right acts' are those producing the most good. The difficulty with this is that the consequences of most actions are too vast 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. As the reference to causal means suggests, a detailed empirical investigation into the consequences of actions is necessary to determine what our duties are, because it is not accessible to self-evident intuitive insight. Whether a given rule of action turns out to be a duty depends to some extent on the conditions of the corresponding society, but duties agree mostly with what common-sense recommends. Virtues, like honesty, can in turn be defined as permanent dispositions to perform duties.

Reception
Principia Ethica was influential and assisted in convincing people that claims about morality cannot be derived from statements of fact. Clive Bell considered that through his opposition to Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, Moore had freed his generation from utilitarianism. Principia Ethica was the 'bible' of the Bloomsbury Group, and supported the philosophical foundation of their aesthetic values. Leonard Woolf considered that it offered a way of continuing living in a meaningless world. Moore's aesthetic idea of the organic whole provided artistic guidance for modernists like Virginia Woolf and informed Bell's aesthetics.

In A Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls compares Moore's views to those of Hastings Rashdall in his The Theory of Good and Evil (1907). Moore's views have also been compared to those of Franz Brentano, Max Scheler, and Nicolai Hartmann.

Geoffrey Warnock considers Principia Ethica less impressive and durable than Moore's contributions in fields outside ethics. John Maynard Keynes, an early devotee of Principia Ethica, would in his 1938 paper section "My Early Beliefs" repudiate as Utopian Moore's underlying belief in human reasonableness and decency.

References