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G.E. Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy and Open Question Argument Reconsidered by William Piervincenzi Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor Robert L. Holmes and Senior Lecturer John Gates Bennett Department of Philosophy The College Arts and Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, New York 2007

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Page 1: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

G.E. Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy and Open Question Argument Reconsidered

by

William Piervincenzi

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the

Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Supervised by

Professor Robert L. Holmes

and

Senior Lecturer John Gates Bennett

Department of Philosophy

The College

Arts and Sciences

University of Rochester

Rochester, New York

2007

Page 2: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

ii

© 2007, William Piervincenzi

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iii

Curriculum Vitae

The author was born in Bethpage, New York on May 24, 1969. He

attended the University at Stony Brook from 1988 to1992 and graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy. He came to the University of Rochester in

the Fall of 1994 and began graduate studies in Philosophy. He received a Rush

Rhees Fellowship in 1994 and held teaching assistantships for the subsequent four

years. He pursued his research in Ethics under the direction of Professor Robert

Holmes and received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Rochester in

1999.

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Acknowledgments

Completion of this dissertation would not have been possible for me

without the kindness and generosity of people too numerous to mention. I wish to

extend special thanks, however, to the following:

Eileen Daly and Eva Cadavid for inspiring me to stick with it and to question

others instead of myself; Greg Janssen for his friendship and encouragement over

the years; Keith McPartland for his enthusiasm and comments, with Greg, on

chapter drafts over coffee at Canal Town; my family, and especially my parents,

Bill and Edna Piervincenzi who stopped asking “when will you be done?” just in

time; Mary Schweizer for good times and pizza; the Diggin family, especially

Cecilia for love and support and especially for Kerry; John G. Bennett who gave

so much of himself through the final months of writing; Robert L. Holmes for his

patience and calming influence; Joe and Jeanne Norwin for being our spiritual

sherpas; all of the Delaware Park Olde Tymers for whom it is always summer;

and Chewbacca, Goldie, and Quincy for quiet comfort when it was needed most.

I extend the most special thanks and love to my wife, Kerry Diggin, to whom this

work is dedicated. (Heaven knows she’s earned it).

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Abstract

G.E. Moore is justly famous for his arguments against ethical naturalism;

however, after one hundred years of commentary, Moore’s arguments of the

opening chapters of Principia Ethica—his claim that most ethical theories commit

the naturalistic fallacy and his argument that moral goodness is a simple,

indefinable property—are poorly understood. This work seeks to augment our

understanding of these crucial arguments. This work offers an interpretation of

what it means to commit the naturalistic fallacy that is maximally consistent with

Moore's text and examples, distinguishes Moore’s claims about the naturalistic

fallacy from the open question argument, and corrects mistaken interpretations of

the open question argument. In pursuing these goals, I find that the naturalistic

fallacy and the open question argument are complementary, rather than redundant,

arguments. I also find that, contrary to the traditional reading, Moore’s open

question argument actually consists of two arguments, one of which is supported

by at least five sub-arguments, most of which turn on our intuitions about

language and meaning, and none of which is wholly successful. Moore uses the

open question argument to show that goodness is not identical with any complex

natural or metaphysical property. This still leaves the possibility that goodness is

identical with a simple natural or metaphysical property. His claim that

philosophers who attempt to define goodness commit the naturalistic fallacy

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undermines support for any such identification, even if it does not conclusively

refute such definitions.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Legacy of Principia Ethica 1

Chapter 2 Goodness, Simple and Indefinable 15

Chapter 3 What is the Naturalistic Fallacy? 35

Chapter 4 The Naturalistic Fallacy: A New Interpretation 88

Chapter 5 Moore’s Proof that ‘Good’ Refers to a Simple,

Non-natural Property 136

Chapter 6 Conclusions 194

Bibliography 211

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Chapter 1

The Legacy of Principia Ethica

I. Introduction

It is safe to say that after G.E. Moore published Principia Ethica,1 just

over one hundred years ago, philosophical ethics underwent a dramatic change.

All forms of ethical naturalism and metaphysical ethics,2 theories that accounted

for the majority of approaches to ethics, were under attack. Moore offered an

ambitious and vexing collection of arguments that inspired, and continues to

inspire, high praise and scathing criticism.3 And while his arguments did not

sound a death knell for naturalism, they did inspire the development of plenty of

alternative views.4

Moore’s intent in Principia Ethica was to create a new science of ethics,

one that better captured what we had in mind when we called an action or a state

of affairs good. He tried to accomplish this through observations about how we

1 G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1903). There are two versions of Principia Ethica in wide use,

which have the same text and different pagination. The newer version is the “revised edition” of

1993. Since this new version contains a useful, previously unpublished preface to a planned but

never written second edition of Principia Ethica, all future citations will be to the newer version.

The appropriate citation is G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica, revised edition, Thomas Baldwin, ed.

(Cambridge 1993) [henceforth ‘Principia Ethica’]. 2 Broadly defined, these are theories that hold that hold that goodness is identical with some

natural or metaphysical property. See, e.g., Principia Ethica, § 27. 3 Alisdair MacIntyre holds Moore’s arguments to play a key role in the decline of Anglo-

American ethical thought, and in the ongoing decay of Western culture. See Brian Hutchinson,

G.E. Moore’s Ethical Theory (Cambridge 2001) p. 3, citing Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd

ed. (University of Notre Dame Press) 1984, pp 14-19. 4 Most notably, by those who rejected Moore’s positive views, like A.J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson.

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use moral language, what we intend, what it is we seem to be attributing to an

action when we call it good, and through arguments that appear to demonstrate

that whatever we have in mind when we use moral language, it can not be

anything like what is proposed by ethical naturalists.

II. Overview of Principia Ethica.

Moore begins Principia Ethica by attempting to identify the scope of

ethical inquiry. He wants to answer the questions: What is the subject matter of

ethics? and, What is it that we purport to study when we engage in moral

reasoning? Clearly, the answer is conduct. But there are other disciplines besides

ethics that study conduct, so in order to differentiate ethics from those, Moore

takes his study a step further. What Ethics studies is good conduct. And since

“all conduct is not good; for some is certainly bad, and some may be indifferent,”5

Moore looks to see what all ethical judgments have in common as their subject

and determines that this common subject is goodness. This prompts Moore to

accept that ethics is the “general enquiry into what is good.”6

To determine what the nature of goodness is, in chapter I, Moore examines

what we mean by the word ‘good.’ We use the word ‘good’ in many ways, most

of which have nothing to do with ethics. For instance, I may say, “This eggplant

is really good” or write, “Good soil and high moisture ensure acceptable rates of

5 Principia Ethica, p. 54.

6 Principia Ethica, p. 54.

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propagation.” In these contexts, ‘good’ means tasty or fertile, clearly not what we

mean when using ethical language.

There is one sense of this word that Moore concludes is the uniquely

moral sense of the word. This is the sense that Moore calls ‘intrinsic goodness’ or

sometimes ‘intrinsic value.’ For simplicity, I will refer to this predicate as

‘goodness,’ throughout this work. When it appears in single quotes, as in

‘goodness’

I am talking about the word that refers to the property goodness. When it appears

in regular text, without quotes, I use it to refer to the property itself. Moore

asserts throughout Principia Ethica that people make a mistake when they attempt

to define ‘good.’ But clearly, the problem is not in defining the word ‘good.’

Linguistic definition is not what Moore is after. He writes, “A definition does

indeed often mean the expressing of one word’s meaning in other words. But this

is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a definition can never be of

ultimate importance in any study except lexicography.”7 A linguistic definition

might tell us how people tend to use a word, or it might define a word by

stipulation. One mistake people make is in claiming that a mere verbal definition

is supposed to be an analysis of the uniquely moral sense of ‘good,’ namely, the

property goodness. While it is a mistake to confuse a verbal definition with a

property analysis, Moore is concerned to illustrate and avoid a different mistake—

7 Principia Ethica, p. 58.

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that of defining the property goodness in terms of other properties, that is, the

mistake of analyzing goodness at all.

In the rest of the first chapter of Principia Ethica, Moore examines the

characteristics of this property. He concludes that goodness is a non-natural,

simple, indefinable property and an intrinsic kind of value. As we will see in

Chapter 2, Moore takes properties to be either simple or complex. An example of

a complex property is being-a-brother. Moore takes this property to be made up

of the simpler properties being-male and being-a-sibling. Perhaps each of these

can be further broken down. To give a definition of a property is to identify its

component properties and their relation to each other. Goodness, claims Moore,

is a property that admits of no such analysis. It is simple, without component

parts. As such, it is incapable of definition.

To say that goodness is an intrinsic kind of value is to say that it is a

property of objects that they possess in virtue of other properties those objects

possess. In particular, goodness is not part of the intrinsic nature of an object x,

but it is dependent on the intrinsic nature (the natural properties) of x. This makes

goodness an intrinsic kind of value. Using the word ‘intrinsic’ to describe both

the natural properties of an object (all those properties which make up any natural

object) and the object’s value (a non-natural property an object has in virtue of its

arrangement of natural properties) is an unfortunate use of language. Moore

clearly means two different things by this word, and leaves it to context for us to

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determine which.8 This distinction will be made clearer in Chapter 2, but for

now, it is worth noting that goodness depends on the natural properties of objects,

but is not itself a natural property.

Moore also claims in Chapter I that how valuable an object is, i.e., to what

degree goodness attaches to an object, while being determined purely by the

object’s intrinsic properties, is not necessarily the sum of the value of each of the

object’s parts.9 The value of each individual part of an object or state of affairs is

not determinative of the value of the whole. Moore calls such objects ‘organic

wholes’ or ‘organic unities,’ a term borrowed from Hegelian philosophy.

The final task of the first chapter of Principia Ethica, and the task about

which this author is most interested, is to explain why it is that ethical naturalism

fails. Among Moore’s claims is the view that a fallacy is committed by every

philosopher who offers a definition of goodness. He attempts to describe this

naturalistic fallacy in a number of ways, using examples10

and in the context of

arguing against naturalistic and metaphysical theories.11

Moore does not yet

define naturalism, but it is clear from context that naturalists are defining

8 Writing in 1921 or 1922, in the proposed preface to a never-published second edition of

Principia Ethica, Moore clarified his position on the relationship between goodness and the

intrinsic properties of good objects. Using ‘G’ to denote Goodness (to prevent confusion with

non-moral senses of the word ‘good’), he writes: “G is a property which depends only on the

intrinsic nature of the things which possess it” and “Though G thus depends on the intrinsic

properties of things which possess it, and is, in that sense, and intrinsic kind of value, it is yet not

itself an intrinsic property.” Principia Ethica, p. 22. 9 Principia Ethica, p. 79.

10 Throughout Chapter I.

11 In Chapters II-IV.

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goodness in terms of properties like those which are the subject matter of

disciplines like biology or psychology.12

As part of his proof that goodness is a non-natural property, and (possibly)

in support of his view that all forms of naturalism commit the naturalistic fallacy,

Moore offers his famous open question argument. The gist of this argument is

that for any complex property you consider as a possible definition of goodness, a

little reflection will show that it differs from goodness, and so, is inadequate as a

definition. This is somewhat of a simplification of the argument, and as we will

see in Chapter 5, there is not unanimity on what the open question argument

really is, nor on what it is supposed to prove.

One way to run the open question argument is as a test that uses our

intuitions about the meaning of the words we use to express moral concepts to

force the reflection required to see that any proposed definition fails. For

instance, if the suggestion was that goodness meant happiness-promoting, we

might substitute ‘happiness-promoting’ for ‘good’ in a sentence and see that that

substitution did not preserve the meaning of the original sentence, as in:

[1] Practicing vegetarianism is good

[2] Practicing vegetarianism is happiness promoting.

We can see that ‘happiness promoting’ has a different meaning than ‘good,’

Moore argues, because even if we accept [2], we may intelligibly ask,

12

He provides a working definition of naturalism in Chapter II.

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Is practicing vegetarianism good?

The fact that we can know [2] is true, while the truth of [1] is an open question—

i.e., that [2] does not make [1] trivial—shows that [1] and [2] have different

meanings. Moore would say that our suspicion that [1] and [2] do not mean the

same thing is grounded in the inadequacy of happiness-promoting as a definition

for goodness.13

Some version of this test and the naturalistic fallacy are Moore’s

most enduring impacts on moral philosophy and the primary subject of this

dissertation.

Chapters II, III and IV of Principia Ethica are devoted to showing that the

various forms of ethical naturalism and metaphysical ethics commit the

naturalistic fallacy and should be rejected. In Chapter II, Moore tells us that what

characterizes all forms of naturalism is that they purport to define goodness in

terms of some natural object (or property) or other. Moore offers two ways of

identifying natural objects and properties. The first, based on our idea of the

proper scope of scientific inquiry, defines natural properties and objects as those

things that are the subject matter of natural sciences and psychology. Biology,

chemistry, physics, and psychology collectively study such properties as being-

productive-of-life, being-alkaline, being-massive, and being-productive-of-

happiness, therefore these are natural properties. The second way Moore defines

natural objects and properties is in terms of metaphysics. He writes that these

13

This is a vastly simplified version of his argument. Moore’s more elaborate version is the

subject of chapter 5 of this work.

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properties are objects or properties that currently exist, have existed, or will one

day exist. He offers a test to help us make the determination—Can we imagine

that object or property existing alone in the universe? If so, it is a natural object

or property. This isolation test is purported to be especially useful in identifying

natural properties because Moore takes it to be perfectly conceivable that natural

properties are capable of existence in time (and space) independent of the objects

to which they are usually attached. But this is not the case for non-natural

properties. Naturalistic theories of ethics define goodness in terms of one of

these sorts of objects or properties.

All of these theories, including Hedonism, the subject of Chapter III, are

said to rest on the commission of the naturalistic fallacy. Spencer’s theory of

evolutionary ethics commits the fallacy because it identifies the normative

concept being-ethically-better with being-more-evolved. As Moore points out,

being more evolved may be better than being less so, but it may not be. Surely,

they are not one and the same concept.

Hedonists and all those who base their theories on hedonism—the theory

that goodness is pleasure—are also said to commit the naturalistic fallacy. J.S.

Mill is said to do so in virtue of thinking that the fact that pleasure is universally

desired proves that being-productive-of-pleasure is identical with goodness.

Ethical egoists—those who argue that we ought each to pursue our own best

interests—make two mistakes. Those who are hedonistic egoists commit the

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naturalistic fallacy by identifying goodness with being-productive-of-pleasure.

And all ethical egoists confuse a universal concept, goodness, with something not

universal—the agent’s benefit, i.e., a property that is necessarily different for

everyone. Utilitarianism, the view that what is right is the act that has the best

results (that which maximizes the proper end(s) of moral conduct), is praised as a

general theory, but criticized on the grounds that utilitarians typically choose as

their end either pleasure, which fails for the reasons Moore has already discussed,

or some other natural property, none of which are identical with goodness.

In Chapter IV, Moore turns his attention to metaphysical ethics. These are

theories that purport to define goodness by identifying it with some metaphysical

property or other—Moore calls these supersensible properties. These are

supposed to be real, existent properties that are beyond our comprehension. A

theory might hold that things are good insofar as they mirror this supersensible

reality. Moore rejects these theories on the ground that they commit the

naturalistic fallacy. This may seem odd, as they are not defining goodness with

respect to any natural property, but Moore notes that though the ultimate

definitions are not natural ones, the commission of the fallacy lies not in the

nature of the definition, but in the definition itself.14

14

This may be read as some proof that the naturalistic fallacy is just a definist fallacy—that to

commit the naturalistic fallacy is to give a definition of an indefinable property, goodness. But

when we attend closely to the text, we see that Moore does not say the fault lies in the mere

definition, but in inferring the definition on inappropriate evidence. See, e.g., Moore’s comments

on Green’s theory, Principia Ethica, p. 189.

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In Chapter V, Moore moves from discussions of meta-ethics—the

discussion of the nature of goodness, and what sorts of things possess goodness—

to a discussion of practical ethics. The proper question for practical ethics is

‘What ought I (we) do?’ Rather than asking about the value of objects and states

of affairs, it seeks to determine the rightness of actions that bring about such

objects or states of affairs. The answer Moore embraces is that our goal is to try

to maximize intrinsic goodness, and to accomplish this, we ought to do those

things that tend to produce better results in the foreseeable future, measured by

the production of intrinsic goodness.

The final chapter of Principia Ethica is where Moore tells us what things

are intrinsically valuable. To determine the value of objects and states of affairs,

Moore again turns to a kind of isolation test. What value would a thing have if it

existed alone in the universe? Something that has only instrumental value—a

thing that is good only as a means to some other thing—clearly has no value in

such a universe. Moore concludes that there are a great many intrinsically good

things, but two stand out as very great goods, namely love of beautiful things and

love of good persons.

Some effects of Principia Ethica

Principia Ethica has had a profound impact on subsequent analytic ethics.

Convinced by Moore’s assault on naturalism, many came to embrace Moore’s

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non-naturalism. Some, like W.D. Ross, accept non-naturalism, but reject the

centrality of goodness, opting instead to base their theories on the concepts of

rightness or duty.15

Others have taken a more radical approach, denying the view

that moral language has the kind of universal meaning Moore presupposes. These

views, varieties of noncognitivism, hold that the words we use to make moral

judgments, words like ‘good,’ ‘bad’ or ‘right,’ do not denote moral properties, but

are expressions of some one of our mental states or psychological attitudes. Thus

when I say, “Torture is bad,” I am not attributing the property badness to torture,

rather I am merely expressing an attitude I have (disfavor of some sort, depending

on the variety of noncognitivism) toward torture. Of course, some philosophers

maintain that some form of ethical naturalism is correct, but straightforward

identification of goodness with some natural property or other has become more

rare.16

Some of these naturalists are ‘non-reductive’ naturalists who do not

propose to define goodness in terms of any particular natural property at all.

Plan of this work

This dissertation consists of a close reading and explication of Chapters I-

III of Principia Ethica. After one hundred years of commentary, Moore’s views

on the central arguments of these chapters of Principia Ethica are poorly

understood. For instance, Darwall, Gibbard and Railton, in their "Toward Fin de

15

W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (1930). 16

Though there are still plenty of straightforward hedonists.

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Siecle Ethics"17

claim that fifty years ago, it was proved that there was no fallacy

involved in Moore’s naturalistic fallacy18

. At the same time, others criticize

theories like those of evolutionary ethics on the grounds that they commit the

naturalistic fallacy. What a curious thing it must be if it is no fallacy at all, yet the

reason to reject these theories. Moore, himself, claims not to know what he meant

by his claims that all forms of ethical naturalism commit the fallacy.19

It also

seems that critics of the naturalistic fallacy and open question argument generally

criticize Moore’s arguments without being sufficiently careful to distinguish the

open question argument from Moore’s claims about the naturalistic fallacy. One

would hope that after a century of scholarship we would be able to distinguish

theses central tenets of Moorean thought.20

My purpose in writing this dissertation is to offer an interpretation of

Moore’s central claims that demonstrates the subtlety and power of those

arguments. This involves three things:

1) Offering an explication of what it means to commit the naturalistic

fallacy that is consistent with Moore’s text and examples,

2) Distinguishing Moore’s claims about the naturalistic fallacy from the

open question argument, and

17

The Philosophical Review, Vol. 101, No. 1 (January 1992) 18

Probably referring to Frankena’s article “The Naturalistic Fallacy,” Mind 48: 464-77. 19

In his posthumously published preface to the unpublished second edition of Principia Ethica. 20

As we shall see, the failure is not to be laid squarely at the feet of the critics, as Moore is

difficult to interpret, even for himself.

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3) Correcting mistaken interpretations of the open question argument.

The heavy lifting begins in Chapter 2. There I describe the property goodness and

explain Moore’s claims about it. I focus on what it means for goodness to be

simple and indefinable.

In Chapter 3, I examine interpretations of the naturalistic fallacy offered

by Thomas Baldwin, A.N. Prior, and William Frankena. I also include some

comments made by Moore in the years after Principia Ethica was published. I

find that none of those interpretations, even Moore’s, maintain fidelity to the text

of Principia Ethica. The mistakes, however, are instructive. We will see that

Prior, for instance, conflates the naturalistic fallacy and the open question

argument. The consequences of this are dire, for it allows Prior to minimize both

claims by attacking only one.

In Chapter 4, I offer a close reading of Moore’s statements wherein he

describes the naturalistic fallacy and of his examples of philosophers who commit

the naturalistic fallacy. I find that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to make

one of three closely related errors. My interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy

suggests that while it is indeed an error, it is not the error that most critics think it

is.

In Chapter 5, I provide a reading of Moore’s open question argument that,

as in the case of the naturalistic fallacy, emphasizes fidelity to the text and rejects

the traditional interpretation. I find that, rather than proving that all natural

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definitions of goodness are false, the section of Principia Ethica wherein Moore

details the open question argument actually contains many arguments all in

support of the conclusion that goodness is simple and indefinable. I examine

these arguments in detail and offer one of my own that is intended to overcome

some of the problems normally associated with Moore’s arguments.

Chapter 6, the conclusion, summarizes my main points, and emphasizes

the proper role of Moore’s two major arguments of Principia Ethica, Chapter I. I

find that the open question argument is Moore’s proof that goodness cannot be

defined in terms of any complex natural property. But this leaves the possibility

that goodness is a simple natural property. The naturalistic fallacy is then

deployed against any possible simple definition. I argue that the naturalistic

fallacy does not disprove any proposed natural definition, but that commission of

the naturalistic fallacy undermines the rational support any naturalistic theory

could hope to garner.

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Chapter 2

Goodness, Simple and Indefinable

It is immediately obvious that when we see a thing to be good, its

goodness is not a property which we can take up in our hands, or

separate from it even by the most delicate scientific instruments,

and transfer to something else. It is not, in fact, like most of the

predicates which we ascribe to things, a part of the thing to which

we ascribe it.1

The main theses Moore defends in Principia Ethica are that goodness is a

simple and indefinable property, and that most naturalistic ethical theories commit

the naturalistic fallacy. Chapters 3 and 4 are about the naturalistic fallacy, and in

Chapter 5, I explain Moore’s argument for the indefinability of goodness. But

this does not tell us much about what goodness is. What features does this

property have? What does it mean for a property to be indefinable? This chapter

begins with an examination into what property it is that Moore claims is simple

and indefinable. This is followed by an examination into what it means to be

simple and indefinable.

I. Goodness

Moore’s claims about the naturalistic fallacy aside, perhaps the most

significant thesis he defends in Principia Ethica is the claim that goodness is

1 Principia Ethica, p. 175.

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simple and indefinable. Of what property is Moore predicating indefinability?

Moore begins his examination of moral theory by asking the question What is

good?2 He does not mean by this question ‘What things are good?’ but rather, he

is inquiring about the property, goodness, itself. By ‘good,’ he means to refer to

that property that he believes is unique to ethics, and upon which all judgments of

right and wrong rest, and not to the many other properties that go by the same

name but which are not relevant to ethics. For example, if I say, “Soup is good

food,” the word ‘good’ does not refer to the property relevant to ethics. I am

likely using the word to refer to some property like tastiness, or being-valued-for-

its-nutritional-content. The question of what things are good is an interesting one,

but before we can do a good job of answering it, we must first figure out what it

means to be good. To what does the word ‘good’ when used in its moral sense

refer? In other words, what property does the word ‘good’ pick out?

By ‘good,’ Moore means “the only simple object of thought which is

peculiar to Ethics.”3 At various times in his career, Moore believed that the other

concepts of ethics—examples include right, obligation, and virtue4—could be

2 Principia Ethica, p. 55.

3 Moore, Principia Ethica, p. 57. This quote raises a few issues worth footnoting. First, Moore

notes that goodness is not the only such property, but its converse, badness, is another. Together

they are the only simple objects of thought peculiar to Ethics. Second, by ‘object of thought’ he

actually means what we mean by ‘property.’ He takes ‘property,’ ‘notion,’ ‘concept,’ ‘object of

thought,’ ‘quality,’ and ‘predicate’ to mean the same thing, at least early in his philosophical

career. In Principia Ethica, Moore no longer uses ‘concept’ to denote objects and properties. As

the vocabulary and conventions of analytic philosophy became standardized, his use of these

words became standardized as well. 4 Note, Moore holds that virtue is not “an unique ethical predicate.” Principia Ethica, p. 231.

Page 24: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

17

defined, at least in terms of goodness. For example, in Principia Ethica, he offers

the following analysis of obligation:

‘S is obligated to do x’ means ‘x will produce the greatest amount

of good in the universe’5

But it is not clear whether Moore believed these other ethical properties

could be defined in terms of goodness throughout his career. In Ethics, for

instance, he does not give a definition of rightness in terms of goodness.6 It is

unclear whether this warrants concluding that he abandoned hopes of such a

definition, or whether he merely intended to distance his later work from the

controversy associated with Principia Ethica. In a letter to Russell, written in

1905, Moore writes in response to Russell’s article “On Denoting”7

“Your theory suggested to me a new theory about the meaning of

the ‘meaning’ of words, which might, I think, help us to settle the

question about whether the meaning of ‘right’ is indefinable. But I

can’t work it out right now.”8

Clearly, in 1905, Moore was unsettled about the definability of ‘right.’ Since we

have no evidence that Moore had, by 1905, changed his views about language, it

5 Principia Ethica, p. 198. We recognize that this is an incomplete analysis, because the right side

does not seem to require anything of S. Assuming that ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ we might solve this

by the addition of ‘and x is among the things S can do.’ Moore provides an analysis of rightness in

the same passage. 6 Moore, Ethics (1911) p 61.

7 Russell, B., “On Denoting,” Mind New Series, Vol. 14, No. 56 (Oct., 1905), pp. 479-493.

8 “Letter to Bertrand Russell of 23 October 1905,” reprinted in part in Philip Pettit, “The Early

Philosophy of G.E. Moore,” The Philosophical Forum, vol. IV, no. 2 (Winter 1972-73), pp. 260-

298, at p. 298.

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18

is clear that he was unsure whether rightness was definable (analyzable). We also

have inconclusive evidence from Moore’s reply to his critics in Schilpp. In that

essay, he defends, for the most part, the project of defining ethical properties in

terms of goodness, but in a telling passage, he admits that he is sometimes

inclined to think that no moral terms are names of properties at all, but only carry

emotive meanings.9

Regardless of whether goodness is really the only simple object of thought

peculiar to ethics, or whether some or all of the other concepts are simple as well,

or definable in terms of goodness, it is clear we have ways of thinking about

goodness and these other properties. Despite not being able to define goodness, it

is possible to recognize it for purposes of discussion.10

Similarly, basic properties

of physics—mass, for instance—may not be defined in terms of their constituent

parts, but only by relation to other properties or objects. Nonetheless, such

properties may be identified and discussed. We may think of Moore’s claim

about goodness as the analog to a physicist’s claim about mass. It is a basic

9 He writes: “I must say again that I am inclined to think that ‘right,’ in all ethical uses, and, of

course, ‘wrong,’ ‘ought,’ ‘duty’ also, are, in this more radical sense, not the names of

characteristics at all, that they have merely ‘emotive meaning’ and no ‘cognitive meaning’ at all:

and, if this is true of them, it must also be true of ‘good,’ in the sense I have been most concerned

with. I am inclined to think that this is so, but I am also inclined to think it is not so; and I do not

know which way I am inclined most strongly.” Moore, “A Reply to My Critics,” p. 554 in P.A.

Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, The Library of Living Philosophers collection, vol.

IV, Northwestern University Press (1942). 10

This very feature will be the motivating force behind Moore’s argument that ‘good’ is not

meaningless, i.e., that there is a property that we refer to by the name ‘good.’ This argument is the

second part of Moore’s proof that goodness is simple and indefinable, the subject of Chapter 5.

Page 26: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

19

property, we all know it is there, we recognize it, we can discuss it, but we cannot

define it.

Since Moore takes this property to be indefinable, he cannot tell us much

more than this. He can only rely on the fact that we are familiar with the property

in question, that we use it in our judgments about ethics, and that when we reflect

on it, we will recognize it. This is not necessarily problematic. Many disciplines

have core features that we may not be able to define. Nonetheless, we can talk

meaningfully about them. To use an analogy Moore comes back to frequently,

we can talk about yellowness even though I cannot define it. It is enough that we

can identify instances of it when we see it, etc.11

Moore writes “Whenever

[someone] thinks of ‘intrinsic value,’ or ‘intrinsic worth,’ or says that a thing

‘ought to exist,’ he has before his mind the unique object—the unique property of

things—which I mean by ‘good.’”12

Although in this dissertation I have avoided citing to Moore’s later work

except to contrast it with what appears in Principia Ethica, I must make an

exception here. Since Moore sometimes refers to this property as ‘intrinsic

11

Actually, though this is not anything I wanted to talk about in this dissertation, it strikes me that

we may very well be wrong about the features that we think allow us to pick out goodness for

purposes of discussion. 12

Moore, Principia Ethica, p. 68. We see in this quote one of the problems endemic to Moore’s

writing in Principia Ethica. Though it seems that he might be referring to the property being

intrinsically valuable and not the words ‘intrinsic value’ he offsets the phrase with single quotes.

As I have noted elsewhere, this can lead to use/mention problems, some of which Moore noted

himself in his Preface to the Second Edition. On the other hand, he is trying to express the thought

that these are other names for the property goodness. This suggests that they should be offset by

quotes, but then the quote ought to read “Whenever [someone] thinks of the property named

‘intrinsic value’. . . .”

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20

value,’ which brings to mind features of goodness that we might not otherwise

think of, Moore’s comments about intrinsic goodness from the Second Preface are

helpful. Moore identifies two important features of intrinsic goodness:

1) Intrinsic goodness is a property which depends only on the intrinsic

nature of the things which possess it, and

2) Though it depends on the intrinsic properties of the things which

possess it, it is not itself an intrinsic property.13

Moore sometimes writes as if (1) implies that if an object has intrinsic

goodness, it has it necessarily, but this implication is not literally true. In

particular, he makes two claims that seem to imply necessity. First, he writes that

judgments that “state that certain kinds of things are themselves good” are, if true,

universally true.14

Secondly, he writes that “a judgment which asserts that a thing

is good in itself . . . if true of one instance of the thing, is necessarily true of all.”15

By ‘necessarily true’ Moore does not mean true in every possible world. Clearly

there are worlds in which a given object, good in this world, would have intrinsic

properties that make it bad, just as my counterpart in Bizarro world might have no

beard and a malevolent streak a mile wide. What Moore means is that in any

world in which an object, good in this world, exists with exactly the same intrinsic

properties, it will be good regardless of the other characteristics of the world.

13

Preface to the Second Edition of Principia Ethica, p. 22. He believes that only predicates of

value have these two features. 14

Principia Ethica, p. 75. 15

Principia Ethica, p. 78.

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21

Whatever is good depends only on the non-relational properties of the object such

that for any object, no matter what the rest of the world is like, if an object is good

in one world, its exactly similar counterpart will be good in every world.

It seems that Moore is trying to establish that goodness is a kind of

emergent property, or that it supervenes on the intrinsic properties of the objects

that possess it. His descriptions seem to imply that the supervenience relation is a

strong, local form of supervenience.

We can state this view as follows: For any objects x and y, and any

worlds, w1 and w2, if x in w1 is indiscernible from y in w2 with respect to their

intrinsic properties, then x in w1 is indiscernible from y in w2 with respect to

goodness. On this view,16

the indiscernibility is at the level of individuals, not

whole worlds.

This is a variety of strong supervenience because the indiscernibility with

respect to goodness is across worlds. A weak supervenience view might claim

that if two objects were indiscernible with respect to their natural (or other)

properties in a given possible world, they would be indiscernible with respect to

goodness in that world. On Moore’s view, if an object is good anywhere, an

object exactly like it is good everywhere, whatever else may be true of that world.

The view is a variety of local supervenience because the moral supervenes on the

"local" properties of the objects in question. Relational properties and other non-

16

Unlike, say, a global supervenience view.

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22

intrinsic properties do not make up part of the supervenience base.

Moore also believes that most (maybe all) natural and metaphysical

predicates are either contingent or intrinsic. Intrinsic goodness is neither, so it

cannot be natural or metaphysical. We might create from this an argument that

goodness is not definable in terms of natural or metaphysical properties, and

while this would go a long way toward establishing Moore’s claim that goodness

is indefinable, it is not an argument Moore makes.

II. Goodness, simple and indefinable

Simplicity

Moore takes goodness to be simple and indefinable. For Moore, the

indefinability of goodness is a consequence of its being simple. To be a simple

property is to have no other properties as constituents. Complex properties, by

contrast, have such parts. Moorean definition consists in identifying those parts

and their relations to each other and the whole. This conception of properties is

examined briefly, below.

The simplicity of a property and its indefinability are distinct features the

property may have, though one is the consequence of the other.17

And the reason

17

Some doubt is cast on this claim by Moore, himself, in the Second Preface, where he writes that

in Principia Ethica he identified being simple with being indefinable. I do not find this

identification. To be simple is to admit of no definition, but given Moore’s conception of

definition, it appears that indefinability is a consequence of not having parts, rather than being

identical with simplicity.

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23

I take this to be so important is that no part of Moore’s proof that goodness is

simple and indefinable actually turns on the indefinability. What Moore does is to

present an argument from the premise that either goodness is simple (hence,

indefinable), or it is complex, or it has no unique meaning. We will see that

Moore does not show that no definition is correct.18

In fact, he only rules out

definitions that identify goodness with some complex property. He then argues

that ‘good’ is not meaningless—that there is some unique property we have in

mind when we use the word ‘good’ in the moral sense. What he does not do, and

this point has been missed by every author I have read, is present in this argument

any sub-argument to the conclusion that no simple natural property, like

pleasantness, is identical with goodness.19

Simplicity has some implications worth drawing, besides the

consequences for definability. To see this, we can consider the property

yellowness.20

Moore uses the analogy between goodness and yellow when he

describes the naturalistic fallacy and to give an example of a natural simple

property.

18

It is typically asserted by those who claim that Moore’s naturalistic fallacy is a definist fallacy

that Moore’s open question argument is designed to show that no definition is correct. But he

emphatically does not show this. Rather, he shows that Goodness is simple. From that simpleness

we might infer that Goodness is indefinable. But we could resist this inference. 19

Strictly speaking, identifying goodness and pleasantness is not to define either, at least in

Moorean terms. 20

Scott Soames, in Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press

2003) does a nice job explaining this analogy.

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24

Consider the statement ‘Lemons are yellow.’ It is perfectly reasonable to

assert or to believe this statement. Further, the statement does not assert that

lemons are necessarily yellow. We can conceive of an orange or green lemon—it

seems reasonable to think there could be such things, or a world in which such

things existed. And the truth of the statement does not follow from some deeper

necessary truth about lemons, as it might if lemons were defined as “the yellow

citrus fruit,” in which case, we would claim that the expression is analytic. So

Moore would claim that the statement “lemons are yellow’ is synthetic. This is

analogous to statements about good, such as:

Pleasure is good.21

We can hold that such a statement is true without holding that the relation

between pleasure and goodness follows from the definitions of either pleasure or

goodness.22

So, again, Moore would claim that this expression is synthetic.23

If someone were to attempt to define yellowness, by claiming that to be

yellow is to reflect light waves of wavelength Y, we might also take this to be a

synthetic statement. This is because from our knowledge of yellowness, nothing

21

Where the statement is taken as predicating goodness of pleasure. That is, that pleasure is a

thing that is good. 22

Moore takes pleasure to be a simple property as well, so no definition is possible for it. 23

He writes, “[P]ropositions about the good are all of them synthetic and never analytic.”

Principia Ethica, p 58. I think this might be an error on Moore’s part. If a property or object were

defined in terms of goodness, such as “to be a woozle is to be a morally good whatzit,” then the

statement “Woozles are good” would be analytic, and would be about the good, because woozles

would, by definition, be part of the good. Moore might have done better to say instead

“Propositions purporting to define the good (statements purporting to tell us all and only the good

things) are synthetic.” So, “pleasure is good” may or may not be synthetic, depending on the

definition of ‘pleasure,’ but “pleasure is the good” is synthetic (and, Moore would add, false).

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25

seems to follow about Y-ish light wavelengths. This is to say that it is not part of

our concept of yellow (and in fact, it is not part of the property yellowness) that

yellow things reflect any particular kind of light. As in the earlier case, we could

imagine a situation in which yellow things reflected wavelengths of a different

size, which suggests a certain contingency about the proposed definition. Thus, it

is synthetic, and not a successful definition.

The reason that goodness and yellowness resist definition in this way is

that they are both simple, and hence, unanalyzable properties. Hence, everything

we might say about them is synthetic.

Analysis

Moore takes this to be so because he takes these properties to be

unanalyzable. Of the many possible kinds of definition,24

Moore is interested in

the kind of definition we might call a property analysis. In Moorean terms, a

successful definition of a property is an analysis that tells us the parts that make

up the object, and perhaps, the relation that those parts stand in to each other and

the thing as a whole. As a consequence of this view of definition, simple

properties—those properties that have no parts—are incapable of being defined.25

Moore writes “definitions which describe the real nature of the object or notion

24

John Fischer, in his paper “On Defining Good,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 51 (1954), pp.

730-736, identifies sixteen different sorts of definition. His list is not considered authoritative. 25

Principia Ethica, p. 59.

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26

denoted by a word, and which do not merely tell us what the word is used to

mean, are only possible when the object or notion in question is something

complex.”26

Complex objects or properties, real or mythical, are subject to this

sort of definition. Moore illustrates with the examples of a horse and a chimaera.

Each of these can be analyzed into its component parts, and those parts might be

further analyzable as well, until you get to the level of simples, at which no

further analysis is possible.27

Mary Warnock, in Ethics Since 1900,28

comments on Moore’s contention

that the definition of ‘Horse’ is ‘hooved quadruped of the genus equus.’ This

contention is a source of concern for Warnock because Moore asserts it on several

occasions as an aid to clarify what he means by ‘definition.’ But the result, for

Warnock, is not clarity at all. It is evident that what Moore means by ‘definition’

is analysis, but the definition he offers for ‘horse’ does not look much like an

analysis to Warnock. She writes “No doubt one could list the parts of the horse,

and even state their relation one to another, but to do this would not be to say

‘Hooved quadruped etc.’, with a special meaning; nor would it be taken to be

defining ‘horse’ at all.”29

What Moore expects of a good analysis is that it makes

clear the parts which compose a thing and the relation in which they stand to each

26

Ibid. 27

Principia Ethica, p. 60. 28

Ethics Since 1900, 3rd

ed., (Oxford University Press 1978). 29

Warnock, p. 21.

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27

other. Warnock thinks this would not be a definition. An analysis of ‘horse’, she

thinks, simply would not contain pasterns, chestnuts, hooves and tails.

There seem to be two sources of concern underlying Warnock’s criticism.

The first might be that Moore has not given us a single complete and successful

analysis against which we could measure any future analyses we might make.30

With his examples of horses and chimaeras, he gestures in the direction he thinks

a successful analysis lies, but fails to offer one. He says of a chimaera that we can

describe its parts—a snake, a goat, and a lioness—and how it is put together. And

we can further divide each of its parts into parts, because snakes, goats, and

lionesses are, themselves, complex things. “[A]ll are composed of parts, which

may, themselves, in the first instance, be capable of similar division, but which

must in the end be reducible to simplest parts, which no longer can be defined.”31

In some ways, his choice of examples leaves much to be desired. The examples

of horse and chimaera, while illustrating the possibility for defining both concrete

and imaginary entities, are simply too complex to be useful. Additionally, the

lend themselves to a good deal of confusion about what we are actually defining.

And this, it seems, is the second concern underlying Warnock’s complaint.

Are we to consider these definitions of concrete entities or the properties

being a horse and being a chimaera? Moore wants to assert that a certain kind of

30

He gives such an analysis of beauty in Chapter VI, but it looks nothing like an analysis in terms

of parts, so it is not particularly illuminating. 31

Principia Ethica, p. 59.

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28

definition—a property analysis—is impossible for goodness, but the examples he

gives of property analyses look like analyses of concrete objects. He divides the

horse and the chimaera into pieces, it appears. This seems like a mistake. The

idea of property analysis as demonstrating the component parts of complex

properties is a defensible project, but I think it looks very little like these

particular examples.

There are some things that can be said in defense of the view that there are

complex properties and that they are made up of other, possibly simple

properties.32

Consider the property being a bachelor. It is reasonable to think that

this property is a conjunction of other properties, viz., being unmarried, being

adult, being male, and perhaps (to eliminate a problem raised by Richard Brandt

that I discuss in Chapter 5) being un-widowed and un-divorced. I embrace this

view of properties because I find the alternative unreasonable. The alternative is

that being a bachelor has no parts and is thus, simple. But then, instantiating that

property is not to instantiate all of its parts. But it seems for all the world like

being a bachelor does mean to be unmarried, and male, and adult, etc.33

I think it

would be a weird sort of world if my being a husband was something beyond my

being married and being male. It would have to be a whole other simple property

I instantiated. I am unsure whether my unease with such a view is that it leads to

32

See, e.g., Jeffrey King, “What is a Philosophical Analysis,” Philosophical Studies 90: 155–179,

1998. 33

Could it be a mere accident that people instantiating all those properties also instantiate

bachelorhood?

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29

a weird promiscuity of properties34

or that new property instantiations seem to

bring with them no new information about the object that instantiates them. At

any rate, these considerations suggest an initial plausibility to the kind of view

Moore must advocate.

If the idea of complex properties being composed of component properties

has some plausibility, Moore’s conception of definition as property analysis can

be motivated. The remainder of this chapter considers some requirements for a

successful analysis.

Nature of Analysis

Moore claims that ‘good’ is indefinable. Moore meant by this that the

concept to which the word ‘good’ refers, when used in the sense that is relevant to

ethics, is unanalyzable. In Principia Ethica, Moore offers little explanation of

what he really intended for a successful analysis. He writes that good is

indefinable in that “…it is not composed of any parts, which we can substitute for

it in our minds when we are thinking of it”35

and “…definitions which describe

the real nature of the object or notion denoted by a word…are only possible when

the object or notion involved is complex.”36

This gives us some idea of what he

expects from an analysis—that it only applies to things with parts and that it

34

This is something that does not bother me for other metaphysical entities, like events, or objects,

so why would it be strange here? 35

Principia Ethica, p. 60. 36

Principia Ethica, p. 59.

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30

should tell us what those parts are in a way that will enable use to substitute them

for the object when we have it in mind.

In his subsequent writing, for instance in his “Reply to my Critics” and in

his “Preface to the Second Edition of Principia Ethica” he gives a more thorough

treatment of the topic. What follows is an explication of successful analysis as

derived from these sources. Consider a sample analysis of x,

x iff y

Calling x the analysandum and y the analysans, Moore sets the following

criteria for a successful analysis:

1. Both analysans and analysandum must be concepts, ideas or

propositions, but not “mere” verbal expressions.37

This is to ensure that we are clear that we are doing conceptual analysis

and not linguistic analysis.38

The features of language, while interesting to

Moore, are not what he is out to discover. He writes “To define a concept is the

same thing as to give an analysis of it; but to define a word is neither the same

things as to give an analysis of that word, nor the same thing as to give an analysis

of any concept.”39

To be sure, in conceptual analysis, the analysandum and

37

Moore, “Reply to My Critics” in Schilpp, P.A., The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, Northwestern

University Press, Chicago, 1942 , p. 662 38

Moore uses the words ‘concept’ and ‘property’ interchangeably. To do a conceptual analysis is

not to analyze our way of thinking about a thing. It is to analyze the thing itself. 39

Moore, 1942, p 664

Page 38: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

31

analysans are expressed verbally, but what is being analyzed is the concept, not its

expression—the shape of the letters, spacing, syntax, etc.

2. Both analysans and analysandum must in some sense be the same

concept.40

The inclusion of ‘in some sense’ is terribly unsatisfying, but it might be

the saving grace of this condition. The problem is that when you are doing

conceptual analysis, the concept you are analyzing cannot be the same concept as

the analysandum. This would make the analysis useless. We usually think that

the analysans and analysandum would need to refer to the same object or property

in the world, but they should not be the same concept. This criticism, however is

a consequence of having been trained in post-Moorean philosophy of language

and metaphysics. Contemporary philosophers use the word ‘concept’ to denote a

way of thinking about a thing. Moore means something else. Philip Pettit writes

that for Moore everything that exists, and everything that is known—including

objects of perception—is composed of concepts.41

Similarly, words are

meaningful because they stand for objects, so the object for which a word stands

is a concept. Given this interpretation of ‘concept’, condition (2) seems perfectly

reasonable. The analysans and analysandum of a successful analysis should refer

to the same object, but in different terms. Consider the analysis of brother:

40

Moore, 1942, p. 666. 41

Pettit, P, “The Early Philosophy of G.E. Moore”, in The Philosophical Forum, vol. IV, No. 2,

Boston University 1972, p. 267 Existing things “can, if anything is to be true of them, be

composed of nothing but concepts.” Moore, “Nature of Judgment,” Mind, (1899) p. 182.

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32

x is a brother iff x is a male sibling

‘Brother’ and ‘male sibling’ both refer to the same objects (Moore would

say ‘concepts’) in the world.

3. The analysans must be such that nobody can know or verify that the

analysandum applies to an object without knowing that the analysans does also.42

This condition is troublesome to me. This, I believe, is the source of

Moore’s paradox of analysis. An analysis is not successful unless it meets this

condition, but this condition keeps such an analysis from being informative. It

can offer us no new information. Consider the folk philosophical analysis of heat.

This analysis, thought to be correct and successful, might be worded something

like this:

x is hot iff x has rapidly moving molecules.

Clearly, one might know that some object has rapidly moving molecules

without knowing that that object was hot. It is conceivable that one might have a

sophisticated molecular motion detector and not know that it is also a heat

detector. In fact, anyone unfamiliar with the analysis could know one side of the

bi-conditional applied without knowing that the other applied as well.

If Moore is actually giving an account of this property:

x is a successful analysis of y for S(someone),

then (3) might be a good condition.

42

Moore, 1942, p. 663.

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33

4. The expression used for the analysans must be synonymous with that

used for the analysandum.43

This particular condition is one that gave Moore some difficulty. He

thought it was necessary for any successful analysis but he also thought that it was

not satisfiable. This is because he is not sure what criteria to use for synonymy.

If synonymy of expressions means simply that two expressions refer to the same

object, then this condition is clearly correct. But he seems to want something

more of synonymy. In his “Reply to My Critics” he writes:

“It is obvious…that, in a sense, the expression ‘x is a brother’ is

not synonymous with, has not the same meaning as ‘x is a male

sibling,’ since if you were to translate the French word ‘frère’ by

the expression ‘male sibling’ your translation would be incorrect,

whereas if you were to translate it by ‘brother’ it would not”44

This suggests an alternate criterion for synonymy, which, I believe, ought

to be rejected. Issues of correctness in translation (particularly this translation)

are as much issues of style as they are of content. I think the proper response to

Moore’s concern about translation is one of two things: either reject translational

substitutivity as a criterion for synonymy, or reject his assertion that this is a bad

translation. Stylistically it is awkward, but in terms of content it is certainly

acceptable. Another possibility is to simply reject condition (4).

43

Ibid p. 663. 44

Ibid, p. 667.

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34

5. The expression used for the analysandum must be different from that

used for the analysans in two ways:

a) The analysans must mention explicitly concepts not used in the

analysandum.

b) The analysans must mention the method by which the concepts are

combined.45

For example, ‘being male’ and ‘being a sibling’ are not mentioned by

‘brother’ and the method by which the concepts male and sibling are combined is

conjunction.

Ultimately, Moore’s claim is that there is no analysis of intrinsic goodness

that satisfies (1-5).46

For Moore, good is unanalyzable because it is simple.

Simple concepts have no parts, unlike brother, which has other concepts as

constituents. Since it has no parts, there are no other concepts, which can be

combined in any way, which could stand as the referents of the analysans.

45

Ibid, p. 666. 46

There is nothing like unanimity on the requirements for a successful analysis. For Moorean

ethics purposes, the part/whole discussion may be enough.

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35

Chapter 3

What is the Naturalistic Fallacy?

“[F]ar too many philosophers have thought that when they named [the other

properties that good things have], they were actually defining good; that these

properties, in fact, were simply not ‘other’ but absolutely and entirely the same

with goodness. This view I propose to call the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’1

Introduction

Perhaps the most enduring impact of Principia Ethica is the addition of

the expression ‘the naturalistic fallacy’ into the lexicon of analytic ethics. It is the

one contribution of Principia Ethica most recognized and relied upon by other

philosophers, and it is the one holdover of Moore’s arguments that even non-

philosophers embrace.2 Those precious few pages of Principia Ethica in which

Moore describes the naturalistic fallacy have received a great deal of

commentary.3 None of this commentary, however, illuminates why the

naturalistic fallacy is held in such high regard by some and completely dismissed

1 Principia Ethica, p. 62.

2 Though the embrace is hesitant, and perhaps naive. My own informal observations suggest that

most non-philosophers take the naturalistic fallacy to be the attempt to derive an ‘ought’ from an

‘is’—the undertaking of attempting to reach moral conclusions from scientific, or other,

observations. See, e.g., Ursula Goodenaugh, “The Holes in Gould's Semipermeable Membrane

Between Science and Religion,” American Scientist, May 1999, wherein she reviews Stephen J.

Gould’s Rocks of Ages (Ballantine Books, 1999) Goodenaugh writes that “the book attempts to

make a . . . point, namely, that scientists are prone to commit the naturalistic fallacy—to derive

‘oughts’ from ‘ises’—on a grand, overbearing scale.” 3 In addition to the commentary I examine in this chapter, there are a vast number of papers and

book chapters devoted to it. See, e.g., Warnock, Mary, 1978, Ethics Since 1900, 3rd

ed., Oxford:

Oxford University Press, Ch. 1; Lewy, Casimir, “G.E. Moore on the Naturalistic Fallacy,”

Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol 50, (1965) pp 251-262; and Kolnai, Aurel, The Ghost of

the Naturalistic Fallacy, Philosophy, Vol. 55, No. 211. (Jan., 1980), pp. 5-16.

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36

by others. This is due, I believe, to a failure by commentators to tease out from

Moore’s somewhat cryptic text a coherent reconstruction of what committing the

naturalistic fallacy entails and what role the fallacy plays in Moore’s overall

project.4

Moore states that nearly all philosophers who advocate naturalistic

ethics—those theories that hold that good or some other moral property is

identical with some natural property or properties—and all, or nearly all,

philosophers who advocate metaphysical ethics—those theories that hold that

ethical truths follow from metaphysical truths5—commit the naturalistic fallacy.

6

Despite one hundred years of philosophical work on the subject, it is not clear

what is being asserted when a theory is said to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

Typically, commentators conclude that Moore’s claim that naturalistic theories

commit the naturalistic fallacy simply amounts to the claim that such theories

assert that good is identical with some natural property, or that Moore’s

comments are so hopelessly confused that his claim is meaningless. For example,

Tom Regan writes, “The ‘naturalistic fallacy’ is the name Moore gives to any

4 For instance, Thomas Baldwin, whose work is discussed in detail, below, writes that it is

Moore’s central claim in Principia Ethica that the naturalistic fallacy is committed by almost all

moral philosophers. I contend that, while this is a claim of Moore’s, it is far from his central

claim. See Baldwin, T., G.E. Moore, Rutledge (London 1990) p. 69. 5 He is not using the term ‘metaphysical’ as we do today. By a ‘metaphysical truth’ he means

some proposition about the metaphysical (i.e., part of the super-sensible) realm. See Principia

Ethica, p. 161. 6 See, e.g., Principia Ethica, pp. 90-93 and 176.

Page 44: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

37

attempt to identify Good with something other than itself.”7 Regan, who

provides a thorough treatment of the impact of Moore’s ethical philosophy and

the metaphysics underlying his claims, opts not to analyze just what the

naturalistic fallacy is, beyond this simple assertion. The two most significant

claims Moore makes—that most naturalists commit the naturalistic fallacy and

that goodness is simple and indefinable—are left unexamined. So, even though

Regan points out that nearly two-thirds of Principia Ethica is devoted to the

explanation of the naturalistic fallacy, and finding instances of it in others’ work,8

Regan sidesteps the very issue of what it means to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

I offer that this is because Moore’s text is brutally hard to interpret and subject to

a variety of challenges, including those coming from Moore himself. What error

do naturalistic theories (or those philosophers who assert their truth) commit? Is

it correct to call it a fallacy? In this chapter I examine answers to these questions

as proposed by Thomas Baldwin, Arthur Prior, and William Frankena.

Before examining this secondary literature, it is worth reviewing Moore’s

goals for Principia Ethica and, in light of these, identifying some of the confusion

surrounding the naturalistic fallacy. As we shall see, Moore’s own subsequent

commentary on the Principia Ethica is the root of some of the confusion.

Moore has as his primary purpose in Principia Ethica the scientization of

ethics. In order to establish a science of ethics on a par with the natural

7 Tom Regan, Bloomsbury’s Prophet (Temple University Press 1986), p. 193.

8 T. Regan, p. 197.

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38

sciences—which had seen substantial success by the time Moore wrote Principia

Ethica—Moore believes it is necessary to establish precisely what the proper

subject of ethics is. As noted in the first chapter, he takes the proper subject of

ethics to be goodness.

Goodness, unlike some of the properties that are the proper subject of the

natural sciences, is a property about which there is nothing like unanimity in the

views about its nature. The paradigms of sound reasoning—mathematics and the

natural sciences—might face this problem, especially at the peripheries of those

sciences,9 but not about their central concepts; there is something like unanimity

about what angles are or what it is that chemistry studies. And this is no surprise.

It takes a certain solidification about central concepts before advancement is

possible. In keeping with goal of solidifying the central concepts of ethics, a big

part of Moore’s work is to identify what goodness is.

One might infer from this that to identify what goodness is, it may help to

determine what it is not. Disabusing fellow philosophers of their false views

about the subject matter of ethics would go a long way toward establishing a core

science of ethics. One way to view Moore’s writing on the naturalistic fallacy,

then, is that it is an attempt to determine what it is that goodness is not.

9 For example, there is debate about the nature of fields in physics. See, e.g., Auyang, S. Y., How

is Quantum Field Theory Possible? , (New York: Oxford University Press 1995) cited in Michael

Esfeld, “Holism in Cartesianism and in Today’s Philosophy of Physics,” Journal for General

Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 30 (1999), pp. 17–36

available online at

http://www.unil.ch/webdav/site/philo/shared/DocsPerso/EsfeldMichael/1999/JGPhilSci99.pdf

Page 46: Moorean Nonnaturalism Reconsidered

39

Moore claims that the naturalistic fallacy is committed in the arguments

for nearly all forms of naturalism and by any other theory that attempts to define

goodness. The bulk of his critical work in Principia Ethica is an assault on

ethical naturalism. Ethical naturalism, as defined by Moore, encompasses those

theories that attempt to define goodness in terms of natural properties.10

As

examples of such theories, Moore offers Hedonism—the view that goodness is

pleasure—and Spencer’s evolutionary ethics—the theory that goodness is being

conducive to life, or alternately, that being more evolved is morally better than

not being so evolved.11

Both of these theories and all others that define goodness

in terms of some natural property or object are said to rest on a naturalistic

fallacy. Fully one third of Principia Ethica is devoted to showing that naturalistic

theories, and Hedonism in particular, commit the naturalistic fallacy.12

If we were

to take what Moore says about the naturalistic fallacy as a way to determine a

little about what goodness is not, Moore’s claim that every form of ethical

naturalism commits the fallacy suggests to us that goodness is not any natural

property or object. I take up Moore’s criticisms of ethical naturalism in an

attempt to determine just what committing the naturalistic fallacy entails in the

next chapter.

10

See, e.g., Principia Ethica, Ch II, sec. 27 11

In fact, one of Moore’s criticisms of Spencer’s view is that underlying his view is a form of

Hedonistic naturalism. 12

If we reserve about a third for the explanation of the naturalistic fallacy, and detecting it in

metaphysical theories, we get the two-thirds that Tom Regan pointed out above.

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40

Moore also argues that no metaphysical theory of ethics can be correct.

These theories define goodness in terms of metaphysical properties or objects.

Moore writes, “They all imply, and many of them expressly hold, that ethical

truths follow logically from metaphysical truths. . . . And the result is that they all

describe the Supreme Good in metaphysical terms.”13

As an example, Moore

offers the theory that goodness is the Absolute.14

Some of what Moore ultimately

says about goodness is true of these metaphysical properties—for instance, that

they are part of super-sensible reality and are non-natural. This other-worldly

aspect of metaphysical properties is not what Moore objects to, but rather it is the

derivation of moral conclusions from these non-moral facts that he condemns.15

In this respect, Moore’s assertion that theories of metaphysical ethics commit the

naturalistic fallacy sounds a lot like an application of Hume’s law.16

Indeed,

some Moore scholars have argued that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is merely

to violate Hume’s Law, that is, to derive a moral conclusion from non-moral

premises. This suggestion, often repeated in popular literature, is taken up and

effectively refuted by William Frankena,17

as we will see below.

13

Principia Ethica, p. 161. 14

This is the idea, embraced by British Idealists, of the universe as a rational whole. See

Principia Ethica § 66 (pp.161-164). 15

See Principia Ethica, Ch. IV. 16

See discussion of Frankena, below. 17

William Frankena, “The Naturalistic Fallacy,” Mind 48.192 (1939): 464-77.

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41

As noted above, Moore believes that both naturalistic and metaphysical

ethical theories involve the naturalistic fallacy.18

If this is the mistake these

theories make that makes them false, we might gain some insight into what the

naturalistic fallacy is by comparing the false-making characteristics of these

theories and seeing what it is that they have in common. We see this thinking in

Thomas Baldwin’s work, for example. Since both naturalistic and metaphysical

ethics attempt to define goodness in terms of real, existent (notably not non-

natural) properties, Baldwin decides that Moore meant to write that to commit the

naturalistic fallacy is to deny the non-naturalness of goodness.19

I am opposed to

Baldwin’s sort of approach to sorting out the meaning of the naturalistic fallacy,

in part because it is not clear to me that the commission of the naturalistic fallacy

actually makes any theories false.

We know that Moore thinks the naturalistic fallacy is a mistake made by

almost all ethicists, but is it merely a mistake that other theorists make or is it the

mistake that makes their theories false? This, in both the primary and secondary

literature, is unclear. The proper role of the fallacy will naturally depend on what

it is to commit the fallacy. At times, Moore’s writing seems to suggest that all

other theories are wrong in virtue of mis-identifying goodness, and that this very

mis-identification is the naturalistic fallacy. If this is the case, then, clearly,

18

“Involve” is a loaded term. What the relation is between the naturalistic fallacy and these

defective theories will become clear in the next chapter. 19

Baldwin, pp. 72-ff.

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42

commission of the naturalistic fallacy is what makes these theories false. For

instance, Moore writes, “…the naturalistic fallacy [is] the fallacy which consists

in identifying the simple notion we mean by ‘good’ with some other notion.”20

It

seems clear that to identify one notion with another, non-identical notion is a

mistake, and indeed, it is a mistake sufficient to make false any theory that relied

on the identification for its truth. Further, such identification is what Moore takes

to be the defining feature of naturalistic and metaphysical ethical theories. This

suggests the naturalistic fallacy is the false-making mistake made by advocates of

naturalism and other theories.

On the other hand, Moore sometimes treats the naturalistic fallacy in more

general terms, suggesting that to commit it is merely to attempt to offer any

definition of goodness at all. This is understandable, given his conviction that

goodness is indefinable. Nevertheless, a naturalist could argue that given this

more expansive conception of the naturalistic fallacy, it may not be a fallacy at

all.21

Whether a naturalistic theory was false then, would depend not on whether

it attempts to define that property we mean by ‘good,’ but on whether the theory

gets the definition right.

A third way to interpret the naturalistic fallacy might be to claim that to

commit it is simply to take an unreliable approach to moral reasoning. For

instance, some of Moore’s passages suggest that to commit the naturalistic fallacy

20

Principia Ethica, p. 109. 21

We will see this strand of thought in Frankena’s work, below.

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43

is to see that there is a constant conjunction between some natural property, say

pleasure, and goodness, and to infer from this connection that they are one and the

same property.22

This would be an unreliable method for investigating the nature

of moral properties—it certainly would make for an invalid argument—and, if

this is a mistake commonly made, perhaps it is best thought of as a fallacy of

some sort. But if this is the right interpretation of Moore’s naturalistic fallacy,

commission of the fallacy does not, in itself, make the identification and any

theory based on it false.23

Even a fallacious argument can have a true conclusion,

after all. If this were the correct view of the naturalistic fallacy, then adherents to

such faulty reasoning can accept that they have engaged in a fallacious argument,

but might still insist on a counter-argument that proves their identification wrong.

So, there are a number of ways to interpret the naturalistic fallacy and its role in

Moore’s scheme. And there is some textual support for each.

The commentators whose work I highlight in this chapter note the

difficulty in determining the appropriate role for the naturalistic fallacy in

Moore’s writing. For example, Frankena claims that, at times, Moore wields the

naturalistic fallacy like a weapon. This is to say that those, like Moore, who

assert that a theorist has committed the naturalistic fallacy are really asserting that

her theory is false in virtue of running afoul of the fallacy. These philosophers

22

This seems to be what Moore describes in the passage I quoted at the start of this chapter. 23

In fact, in a passage I have found cited only twice in secondary literature (and not for the

proposition I offer here), Moore, himself, makes this assertion. See, Moore, Principia Ethica, Ch

I, § 14.

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44

who wield their accusations like a weapon are making an error, claims Frankena.

Frankena aims to show that asserting that a theory commits the naturalistic fallacy

is okay, but only if it is the conclusion of an argument against the theory in

question, not a starting premise. Frankena argues that a philosopher who claims a

theory is false by virtue of having committed the naturalistic fallacy is committing

the same sort of error that intuitionists attribute to naturalists—they assume the

truth of a view that needs argumentation.

Others, like Prior, take the naturalistic fallacy to be a mistake, but not the

fundamental flaw with any given naturalistic theory. He takes the naturalistic

fallacy to be a decisive argument only against those naturalists who assert their

definitions of goodness as truisms that prove, as a logical consequence, the falsity

of rival theories. For any other theory, argues Prior, the naturalistic fallacy has no

effect on its truth.

If the naturalistic fallacy is a mistake in reasoning, but not necessarily

decisive, it need not play any particular role in Moore’s critiques of naturalism.

Or it may be Moore’s diagnosis of where a theorist has erred, whether or not it

has been determined that his view is false. That is, it describes an error that is

common to naturalist reasoning about ethics (an error that is easy to make), much

the same way as affirming the consequent describes an error common among

those just learning logic.

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45

Which of these is the correct function of the naturalistic fallacy is as

debated as the meaning of the naturalistic fallacy itself. I trust that a thorough

examination of what it means to commit the naturalistic fallacy will provide a

ready answer to its proper role in Moore’s scheme.

The source of the confusion

Moore’s writing, itself, is a source of some of this confusion. For

instance, he writes that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to believe of oneself

that one is defining goodness when, in reality, one is merely enumerating the

properties that good objects have.24

This is to say that to commit the naturalistic

fallacy is to have mistaken beliefs about one’s own philosophical activities. We

would expect that the problem must not be in the theorist’s view of his own

activity, but in the proposed definition itself. Then again, Moore is famous for

being a careful, thorough thinker.25

Could it be that the problem is one of self-

perception?26

Just a few pages later, Moore writes, “The naturalistic fallacy always

implies that when we think, ‘This is good,’ what we are thinking is that the thing

24

Principia Ethica, p. 62. 25

A close reading of Principia Ethica and his other early works may lead one to realize that this

reputation is likely justified by his later works. This would not be an entirely fair assessment.

Though Moore’s Principia Ethica is a tough read, it is due, in part, to Moore’s desire to bring

clarity to a difficult subject where some of the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy did not

yet exist. In fact, some take Moore’s early work to be the very founding of our trade. Consider,

for example, Scott Soames’ Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1 (Princeton

University Press 2003), Part One, pp. 1-90. 26

No, it cannot be. I take up a proper reading of this suggestion in the next chapter.

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46

in question bears a definite relation to some one other thing.”27

He goes on to

state that this other thing may be either a natural object (naturalistic ethics) or an

object inferred to exist in supersensible reality (metaphysical ethics). Whatever

Moore intended in this quote, it surely leaves room for interpretations of the

naturalistic fallacy different from the previous one.

Happily, Moore gives us some guidance about the meaning of the

naturalistic fallacy, while simultaneously proving my contention that he is, in part,

responsible for the confusion surrounding the naturalistic fallacy. He writes in the

preface to the second (though unpublished)28

edition of Principia Ethica that there

are at least three different characterizations of the naturalistic fallacy that appear

in Principia Ethica. These are:

1) Identifying goodness with some predicate other than goodness,

2) Identifying goodness with some analyzable predicate, and

3) Identifying goodness with some natural or metaphysical predicate. 29

Moore, in trying to explain what he must have meant when he wrote Principia

Ethica, ultimately discounts the first two choices and claims that the third option

27

Principia Ethica, p. 90. 28

Please note that Moore decided not to publish this new preface when he scrapped plans for a

second edition of Principia Ethica. For this reason, any discussion of his views as they appear in

this preface is somewhat suspect. But in this case, they are worth examining as they suggest that

Moore, himself, was acutely aware in 1922 of the problems with his earlier arguments.

Knowledge of the contents of this preface comes to us from Casimir Lewy, who inherited Moore’s

unpublished work and whose paper referenced above highlighted the major themes in the second

preface, and from Thomas Baldwin who included it in the 1993 reissue of the original edition of

Principia Ethica. 29

Moore, “Preface to the Second Edition,” Principia Ethica, p. 17.

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47

or something like it is what he must have meant. His position at the time he wrote

the second preface was different still, in that he believed that the naturalistic

fallacy, rather than being any identification of good with some natural of

metaphysical predicate, should be more narrowly conceived as identifying good

with a limited subset of the natural or metaphysical properties.30

It is worth

noting that none of these three characterizations is much like the one mentioned in

text accompanying footnote 24, that is, believing oneself to be giving a definition

when really merely naming properties coextensive with goodness in good objects.

The picture we are left with is not a very satisfying one considering that

this aspect of Moore’s views is supposed to be the most enduring. One would

expect a measure of shared understanding of a philosophical concept used by so

many for so long. This chapter attempts merely to highlight this confusion about

the proper role and meaning of the naturalistic fallacy. In an to effort to clarify

the meaning and significance of the naturalistic fallacy, I examine the work of

Baldwin, Prior, and Frankena. Each has attempted to identify either the proper

understanding of the naturalistic fallacy—that is, to answer what mistake it really

is, if any—or the proper role of assertions that some theorist has committed the

naturalistic fallacy, or both. I find that none of the commentators offers an

account of the naturalistic fallacy that is in keeping with the text and spirit of

30

Viz., those which do not depend only on the intrinsic natures of those things which possess

them, and are themselves intrinsic properties of those things.

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Principia Ethica. I will rely heavily on the work of Frankena and Prior in setting

the foundation for my positive account of the naturalistic fallacy in Chapter 4.

Literature Review

1. Thomas Baldwin

The first commentator whose work I examine is Thomas Baldwin. He

focuses on both the text of Principia Ethica and what he takes to be the proper

role of the naturalistic fallacy in Moore’s scheme to determine what Moore meant

the fallacy to be. In his book G.E. Moore,31

Baldwin offers three interpretations

of the naturalistic fallacy, claiming that each of these interpretations is equally

well supported by Moore’s language in Principia Ethica. He argues that,

depending on what bit of Principia Ethica’s text you read, you should conclude

that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is:

(a) to deny that goodness is indefinable;

(b) to assert of something other than goodness that it is goodness; [or]

(c) to deny that goodness is non-natural.32

Baldwin claims that while each of these interpretations has roughly equal

textual support in Principia Ethica, only (c) is philosophically interesting. More

importantly, he suggests that since there are (at least) three interpretations of

31

Thomas Baldwin, G.E. Moore (London: Routledge 1990). Baldwin’s views on the naturalistic

fallacy can also be found in Principia Ethica, editor’s introduction. 32

Baldwin, p. 70.

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49

Moore’s words, with no way to choose between them, the naturalistic fallacy has

no real meaning at all, or more precisely, there was no one thing that Moore had

in mind when he wrote it.33

This is not an entirely absurd conclusion. After all,

Moore himself once wrote that it was a he was confused about what he meant in

the text itself.34

Baldwin writes that it was Moore’s recognition that the

naturalistic fallacy was unsalvageable in virtue of its vagueness that inspired

Moore to drop all references to it in his later book, Ethics, and in his paper, “The

Conception of Intrinsic Value.”35

I accept that Moore may have avoided writing about the naturalistic

fallacy in his later works out of a belief that he had been a little incoherent about

it in Principia Ethica, although I think it is more likely that his views on the

metaphysics of properties had changed in ways which could not be reconciled

with his earlier views, in particular the ones underlying his writing on the

naturalistic fallacy in Principia Ethica. But if he did think that there were several

competing interpretations of his writing, I do not believe that they are the

interpretations offered by Baldwin.

This is a little hard to square with the material from the Second Preface,

but I think there is some reason to think the later Moore ought not to be

considered authoritative about his own earlier views. There are several claims he

33

Baldwin, pp. 70-71. 34

Preface to the Second Edition, Principia Ethica, p. 16. 35

Published in G. E. Moore, Philosophical Studies (1922), reprinted in Principia Ethica (revised

edition).

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50

makes in the Second Preface which are incorrect. For instance, he claims that

since to commit a fallacy is to make a bad inference of some kind, and his earlier

views do not require any inference to be made, his earlier views are deficient.36

Proving the thesis that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is actually to make just

such a bad inference is the goal of Chapter 4 of this work. He also thinks that

many of his arguments are fatally flawed by use/mention problems, while, in fact,

they are easily rescued from these problems, as we can see in my reconstructions

in Chapters 4 and 5. Besides exaggerating the faults that Principia Ethica

genuinely exhibits, Moore also mischaracterizes some of the more controversial

material. He writes “That I ever actually mean by ‘committing the naturalistic

fallacy’ merely ‘identifying G with some predicate other than G’ I do not know

how to show. But it seems to me that I suggest this constantly by what I say.”37

This suggests to me that Moore has refined his view about what it means to

commit the naturalistic fallacy, and is looking for and not finding, evidence for

this new view in his text. It is not surprising to me that Moore might have

forgotten, or grown to doubt, some of his main contentions in the eighteen years

between Principia Ethica’s publication and his authorship of the Second Preface.

36

Second Preface, p. 21. 37

Second Preface, p. 18-19. By ‘G’ he means intrinsic goodness.

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I expect that all of us have a tendency to view our past work with a critical eye,

but it appears that Moore is particularly uncharitable to himself.38

At any rate, I think that finding fault with Baldwin’s views, though they

echo Moore’s retrospective self-interpretation, is not to find fault with Moore’s

1903 views. In this section, I take a closer look at each of Baldwin’s suggestions

and see how well supported they are by Moore’s text. I find that there is some

way to derive each of these things from what Moore says in Chapter 1 of

Principia Ethica, but there are good reasons to reject each of them as an

interpretation.

(a) to deny that goodness is indefinable

The first version that Baldwin finds in the text is that to commit the

naturalistic fallacy is to deny that goodness is indefinable. Baldwin relies on two

passages from Principia Ethica as evidence for this interpretation of the

naturalistic fallacy. The first passage is from an example Moore uses to illustrate

the naturalistic fallacy. Baldwin describes the example this way: Moore, in a

hypothetical example, declared that the property of experiences whereby they are

pleasant is indefinable. “Having declared that this property is indefinable,

[Moore] says that the mistake someone would make if he sought to define it

38

Tom Regan claims that Moore is his harshest critic, and that his criticisms in the Second Preface

foreshadow most of the criticisms that would be leveled against Principia Ethica in the following

decades. T. Regan, pp 204-05.

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52

‘would be the same fallacy as I have called naturalistic with reference to

Ethics.’”39

The idea here is that if pleasure40

is indefinable, it is a mistake to try

to define it. From this, Baldwin takes Moore to mean that denying the

indefinability of goodness is to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

The second passage Baldwin relies upon is from Moore’s analogy between

goodness and yellowness. Moore, in introducing us to the naturalistic fallacy for

the first time, notes a similarity between the natural property yellowness and

goodness. If someone were to attempt to define the property yellowness by

describing the effects it has in the world, or by identifying the physical

characteristics it corresponds to—identifying, for example, the other properties

that yellow objects have—she would not be giving a definition at all. For

example, if one claimed that yellowness was simply a certain “light-vibration,”41

she would not be defining yellowness, but rather pointing out an effect of yellow

things, or a feature that attaches to all instances of yellowness. “The most we can

be entitled to say of those vibrations is that they are what corresponds in space to

the yellow which we actually perceive.”42

Goodness, says Moore, is like yellowness with respect to its inability to be

defined. Ethicists routinely identify other properties of good things, but in so

doing they are not defining goodness. Baldwin cites what Moore says next as his

39

Baldwin, p. 70, quoting Moore, Principia Ethica p. 65. 40

Or, perhaps, pleasantness. 41

1903 philosopher-physics quoted from Moore, Principia Ethica, p. 62. 42

Ibid.

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53

further evidence for his first interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy. Moore

writes:

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. This view I propose to call the

‘naturalistic fallacy.’43

As in the first example, Baldwin takes from this that denying the indefinability of

goodness is what Moore calls the ‘naturalistic fallacy.’

My concern with this interpretation is that it does not seem to be a big

enough problem. The naturalistic fallacy is a problem that supposedly afflicts all

naturalistic theories. But it does not seem to be something committed by people

who do not offer mistaken definitions. After all, someone who merely denied that

goodness was indefinable, but offered no alternative to Moore’s view would not

be offering a naturalistic theory at all. Is it a fallacy to claim that Moore is wrong

about the definability of a property he has declared indefinable? If that is the

definitive illustration of the naturalistic fallacy, then the fallacy is not that

interesting and hardly worthy of a century of debate. We can suggest, on

Baldwin’s behalf, that the proper interpretation is to deny that an indefinable

property is indefinable, but this does not help much either. After all, every

43

Ibid.

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54

instance of the naturalistic fallacy that Moore points out involves not merely

denying the indefinability of goodness, but also providing a definition of

goodness. This seems to weigh against Baldwin’s suggestion.

Baldwin’s use of the “pleasure” example as evidence for this first

interpretation of Moore’s naturalistic fallacy is troubling for several reasons. My

first concern with this example is that the person who seeks to define pleasure

does not necessarily deny that pleasure is indefinable. For example, she may

merely suspend judgment on whether pleasure is definable, but still seek a

definition. Certainly, we could claim that such a person was acting rationally in

so doing. I am not sure whether someone who acts rationally when attempting to

define a property can rightly be said to commit a fallacy when doing so. I

suppose that suspending judgment when one should not is irrational in itself, and

perhaps it is implicit in Moore’s argument that we should not suspend judgment

about the indefinability of goodness, or in this case, pleasantness. In any case, no

such argument is made by Baldwin for this interpretation.

Another significant problem with interpreting Moore’s “pleased” example

as Baldwin does is that the example he calls upon as evidence for his

interpretation is not a case of denying that pleasure is indefinable. The example is

of actively seeking to define it. Notably, the example is not of someone who

asserts that pleasantness is definable after pondering its nature, or of someone

even denying that it was indefinable. Given this, why ought we accept that the

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55

analog for ethics is to deny that goodness is indefinable, as opposed to, say,

seeking to actually define it?

Reading Baldwin charitably, can we salvage this interpretation of the

naturalistic fallacy? We might, for instance, recognize that anyone who seeks to

define a property, very likely, at least implicitly, denies that it is indefinable.

(Though perhaps not. She might seek to define it as part of a strategy to

determine whether such a definition were possible. In this case, she might merely

suspend judgment on the definability). And certainly, one who thought she had

successfully defined such a property would, again at least implicitly, deny that it is

indefinable. So, we might argue that Baldwin’s first interpretation actually would

apply to those who actively tried to define goodness.

But this attempt fails. This mistake, if it is a mistake at all, hardly

deserves the name ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ For example, returning to the realm of

ethics, someone who denied that goodness was indefinable yet also denied that it

was a natural or metaphysical property—a definitional non-naturalist—could not

properly be said to have committed the naturalistic fallacy without having

engaged in any further philosophizing. The denial just is not the fallacy, and our

definitional non-naturalist has done nothing else, yet would still be accused of

committing the naturalistic fallacy under Baldwin’s interpretation. The

definitional non-naturalist denied that goodness was indefinable, yet made no

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56

attempt to offer such a definition; she neither sought nor believed herself to have

succeeded in defining goodness.

The biggest problem with this interpretation, though, is that in addition to

focusing on the denial as opposed to the definition, when read in its entirety, it is

clear that a different mistake is being highlighted. Whatever Moore’s example

really shows about the naturalistic fallacy, it can offer no support for the

interpretation that Baldwin offers. This is because Baldwin gets the example

wrong. Moore’s example is not of someone who seeks to define pleasure (let

alone of someone merely denying that it cannot be defined), but of someone who

does an exceptionally bad job of defining it. Baldwin has taken the quoted

material out of context, and in so doing, has changed its meaning.

In the example, Moore presents us with a subject who recognizes that his

emotional state is a pleasant one. He asserts on these grounds that he is pleased.

Moore writes that if by “I am pleased” our subject meant to say that he was the

very same thing as pleased—that is, that he and the property being pleased are

one and the same thing—then he would be committing a fallacy analogous to the

naturalistic fallacy. Baldwin claims that Moore writes that if a man sought to

define pleasure it “would be the same fallacy as I have called the naturalistic

fallacy.” But the example is of a man who has given a particular, very bad

definition of a property.

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57

It is hard to believe that anyone would make such an error. After all,

nobody who carefully considered his own nature, and the nature of the property

being pleased would think that they were one and the same thing. But this is

precisely the point of the example. We all see that that identification would be a

huge mistake—perhaps worthy of being called a fallacy. Whatever it is we are

supposed to learn from this example, it is not that the fallacy lies in denying the

indefinability of goodness. After all, our confused self-identifier did not deny the

indefinability of anything at all.

What about the response that by having asserted a definition, albeit false,

he has implicitly denied the indefinability of some property (or of himself)? As

discussed above, I do not take the denial to be made, even implicitly, by asserting

a definition. But more importantly, there is no indication that either the confused

definer or the property being pleased is incapable of definition. When Moore

discusses yellowness as an analog to goodness, he emphasizes its indefinability,

but in this example, he emphasizes the confusion, or the mistake, of the definer.

Plainly, there are some mistakes being made in this example and in the

example of thinking one has defined yellowness by citing its physical

characteristics. If these examples are to be used to support Baldwin’s first

interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy, as explicated in Principia Ethica, we

must accept that Moore was trying to draw our attention to the implicit denial

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58

(which may not even be present in the “pleased” example), and away from the

other mistakes.

So, I find that there simply is not adequate textual support for Baldwin’s

claim that Moore implies that to deny the indefinability of goodness is to commit

the naturalistic fallacy.

(b) to assert, concerning something other than goodness, that it is

goodness

The second interpretation that Baldwin finds in Principia Ethica is that to

commit the naturalistic fallacy is “to assert, concerning something other than

goodness, that it is goodness.”44

The textual evidence for this interpretation is

somewhat better than that found for the prior interpretation, but there are

problems that suggest even this interpretation fails.

Again, Baldwin offers two passages. Moore writes “if anybody tried to

define pleasure for us as being any other natural object . . . . Well, that would be

the same fallacy which I have called the naturalistic fallacy.”45

In the second

passage, Moore’s wrap-up of Chapter II,46

he writes:

In this chapter I have begun the criticism of certain ethical views,

which seem to owe their influence mainly to the naturalistic

44

Baldwin, p. 70. 45

Principia Ethica, p. 64-65. 46

His assault on naturalism and Spencer’s Evolutionary Ethics.

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59

fallacy—the fallacy which consists in identifying the simple notion

which we mean by ‘good’ with some other notion.47

Both of these passages seem to offer better textual support for this

interpretation than either of the previous passages did for Baldwin’s first

interpretation. Nevertheless, I think I can at least cast some doubt on the support

they offer (though, notably, this interpretation seems to be the majority view on

the naturalistic fallacy, at least among those who bother to distinguish it from

Hume’s law).

I have an idea about what it is to commit the naturalistic fallacy that is

consistent with what Moore writes here, and in particular, in his discussion of

Mill and Spencer. I take it that stating that the naturalistic fallacy is the fallacy

that “consists in” identifying the simple notion we mean by ‘good’ with some

other notion is akin to saying that the experience of a gourmet meal consists in

eating. While technically true (the eating is a necessary part of the experience of

a gourmet meal), it is hardly what we mean by ‘the experience of a gourmet

meal.’ Similarly, Moore’s statement that the naturalistic fallacy consists in the

misidentification of goodness with some other property is a gross

oversimplification, which is perfectly appropriate for a conclusion of a chapter.

In fact, the misidentification is a necessary component of committing the

naturalistic fallacy, just as eating is a necessary component of enjoying a gourmet

47

Principia Ethica, p. 109.

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60

meal.48

It is hardly the whole thing. This discussion is short by necessity. The

mere possibility that an alternative to Baldwin’s interpretation of Moore’s

statement is reasonable is all I need for now. There are reasons to believe that

committing the naturalistic fallacy requires more than merely asserting a mistaken

definition of goodness that will become evident after analysis of Moore’s first

statement, above.

Baldwin elides Moore’s statement about defining pleasure and the

naturalistic fallacy, and, in this case, the omitted material makes a difference to

the reasonableness of his interpretation. The elided material comes from the

passage discussed above, where a man confuses himself with the property being

pleased.49

The omitted material is an example to illustrate what Moore had in

mind by “if anyone tried to define pleasure for us as any other natural object . . . .”

The full statement is as follows:

And if anybody tried to define pleasure for us as being any other

natural object; if anybody were to say, for instance, that pleasure

means the sensation of red, and were to deduce from that that

pleasure is a colour, we should be entitled to laugh at him and to

48

Of course, I am ruling out the mere olfactory enjoyment, or the visual enjoyment you might get

from walking through the kitchen. The mere possibility that these are necessary components of

enjoying a gourmet meal proves my contention that ‘consists in’ represents a narrower sort of

relation than identity. 49

Principia Ethica. p. 63.

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distrust his future statements about pleasure. Well, that would be

the same fallacy which I have called the naturalistic fallacy.50

It is clear that there are several possible referents of the word ‘that’ in

Moore’s last sentence. The fallacy may be saying that pleasure means the

sensation of red, or it may be deducing from such a belief that pleasure is a color.

I am inclined to think that this is a bit of sloppy writing on Moore’s part. So

perhaps this statement, even taken without Baldwin’s ellipsis, does support the

interpretation that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to identify goodness with

some other property. But given that the very next sentences elaborate and specify

that some other error is paramount, namely deciding that two distinct properties

are one and the same by virtue of their being conjoined in a single object, I am

hard-pressed to accept Baldwin’s claim. I think it takes a certain insensitivity to

the text51

to adopt Baldwin’s position.

Finally, and this is a relatively minor point, giving such a definition does

not look much like a fallacy. We expect of fallacies that they are defects of some

sort in an argument. These defects might make them invalid, or otherwise

unsound. For example, an assertion that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to

deduce ethical conclusions from non-ethical premises might be to assert that it is

an issue of argument invalidity. The relationship between the naturalistic fallacy

and this kind of argument invalidity—violation of Hume’s law—is discussed

50

Principia Ethica p. 64-65. 51

A text that, admittedly, is hard to address with much sensitivity.

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below. A definition, even a false one, is not a fallacy in this sense. While people

use the word ‘fallacy’ for all sorts of errors, I would expect more of Moore.

(c) to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to deny that goodness is non-

natural

The third version of the naturalistic fallacy Baldwin finds in Principia

Ethica is that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to deny that goodness is non-

natural. The textual evidence for this comes from Moore’s discussion of Mill’s

argument for the proposition that pleasure is the sole good. Baldwin quotes

Moore as follows: “In this argument the naturalistic fallacy is plainly involved.

That fallacy, I explained, consists in the contention that good means nothing but

some simple or complex notion, that can be defined in terms of natural

qualities.”52

Again, Moore uses the “consists in” locution, but it does appear that

he is claiming that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to contend that good is

identical with some natural property. This passage seems to mean that the

naturalistic fallacy consists in contending that the word ‘good’ refers to some

property, and that property may be defined (is identical with) some natural

property. If this is the case, this passage actually supports Baldwin’s second

interpretation, not this one. I have articulated my suspicions about that

interpretation, above.

52

Principia Ethica, p. 125.

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This interpretation also suffers from the same defect as the first. I can

deny that goodness is non-natural all day long and not have committed any

fallacy. When I actually offer a definition in non-natural terms, I may implicitly

deny that goodness is non-natural, but I might not. I may even be attempting to

offer a non-natural definition but failing by virtue of ontological confusion—if I

think, for example, that goodness is identical with a mental state and I think all

mental states are non-natural.

Finally, as is the case with other quotes relied upon by Baldwin, this one

suffers from being removed from its proper context. Moore provides this

explanation of the naturalistic fallacy in the context of evaluating Mill’s claim that

“to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to

think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing . . . .”53

This statement, Moore

writes, rests on the naturalistic fallacy.54

According to Moore, Mill takes “the

good” to mean that which can be desired. To identify those things that can be

desired is to identify the set of all good things. Since the test of what can be

desired is what is desired,55

every good thing has the property being desired. If

we can find some one thing that is always (and alone) desired, then we shall have

found the only thing good as an end. Mill will ultimately claim that this one thing

53

Moore cites J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, p 58, 13th edition, 1897. The text can be found,

unchanged from the 13th edition, reprinted in John Stuart Mill, Collected Works, Vol. X, J.M.

Robson, ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969) pp. 203-59 at p. 234. 54

Principia Ethica p. 124. 55

This is an instance of a philosopher taking the measure of the possible to be the actual.

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is pleasure, but it is in the argument, not in the subsequent claim, that Moore

claims the naturalistic fallacy is committed. I take this example to show that to

commit the naturalistic fallacy is to make an invalid inference from the constant

conjunction or even necessary coextension of two properties to their identity. I

take this suggestion up in detail in Chapter 4. But whether it shows that or not, it

seems clear that it is not simply a matter of denying the non-naturalness of

goodness.

Baldwin claims that there are three possible conceptions of the naturalistic

fallacy in Principia Ethica with nothing to recommend any one over the others.

He concludes from this that Moore did not have any one thing in mind. I dispute

this claim on the ground that the suggestions offered by Baldwin are not well-

supported by the text. Baldwin, for reasons of consistency with Moore’s ultimate

goal of advocating ethical non-naturalism, chooses the third conception as the best

version. I will offer a version of the naturalistic fallacy that is both consistent

with the text and advances Moore’s goal of supporting ethical non-naturalism.

Regardless of the merits of either Baldwin’s view or my criticisms, he has

provided ample evidence that it is difficult to pin a definite meaning on Moore.

Before considering my alternative view, two other philosophers’ views bear close

scrutiny.

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65

2. Arthur Prior

A.N. Prior, in Logic and the Basis of Ethics,56

describes the naturalistic

fallacy in two different ways:

a) the assumption that because some property (or properties) is (are)

necessarily coextensive with goodness, this property is identical with the

property goodness, and

b) the assumption that because the words ‘good’ and, say, ‘pleasant’ (or

any other word for that matter) necessarily describe the same objects, they

attribute the same property to those objects.57

With regard to (b), he notes that it is to claim that the necessary relation that exists

between two words that are so related is that they denote the same property. For

example, imagine that balls only came in red and no other objects were red.

Someone would commit a fallacy akin to the naturalistic fallacy if they if they

thought that ‘red’ and ‘spherical’ both denoted the same property of the balls.58

If

Prior is right about the naturalistic fallacy, then someone commits the fallacy

when they fail to recognize that the word ‘good’ and whatever naturalistic term is

offered do not denote the same property of the object to which they both apply.

Given this characterization, Prior takes Moore’s explanation of the

naturalistic fallacy to show one very significant point: that if the naturalist wants

56

Oxford University Press, 1949, pp.1-12 57

These seem to be two ways to express the same error. Prior’s reading seems exactly right, but

he seems to conflate these interpretations with Moore’s open question argument. 58

Prior, p. 2.

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66

to give a naturalistic definition of goodness, and desires thereby to show that all

other definitions are false, the naturalist’s definition must be a truism. That is, it

must be trivially true and obvious to anyone who considers it, much as ‘pleasure

is pleasure.’ If it is not a truism, it cannot do the work of proving alternate

definitions false. For example, consider the sentence:

What is good is pleasant

If the words 'good' and 'pleasant' mean the same thing, writes Prior – “if, that is to

say, the quality of pleasantness is identical with the quality of goodness – then to

say that what is good is pleasant, or that what is pleasant is good, is to utter an

empty tautology.”59

It is merely to assert:

What is pleasant is pleasant

or

What is good is good

If, in fact, the naturalist’s assertion were correct, it would, by virtue of being a

truism, imply the falsity of any other view. On the other hand, if it were a truism,

it would fail to have the rhetorical force the naturalist desires.60

The naturalist

cannot both claim to have discovered a truth of great significance and prove other

views are false. Prior writes, “They want to regard ‘What is pleasant is good’ as a

significant assertion; and it can only be so if the pleasantness of what is pleasant

is one thing, and its goodness another. On the other hand they want to make it

59

Prior, p. 3. 60

This is the very crux of the paradox of analysis.

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logically impossible to contradict this assertion—they want to treat the opposing

assertion that what is pleasant may not be good as not merely false but logically

absurd.”61

Interpreted this way, the naturalistic fallacy can only be seen as an

argument against those naturalists who want or expect their view to have the

logical force of a truism while still seeming significant—Prior calls them

‘inconsistent naturalists.’

This move is a mistake on Prior’s part. While it may be that some other

philosophers take the naturalistic fallacy to be an argument against naturalism,

Moore never uses it as such. While he does argue against such theories, he is

careful not to assert that they are false simply because they have committed the

naturalistic fallacy. In fact, as we will see in Chapter 4, he explicitly rejects the

claim that naturalistic fallacy is the false-making characteristic of theories whose

advocates commit the fallacy.

I think it is worth noting that if one wished to give a naturalistic definition,

and then try to argue that it is correct, the arguments in favor of the view would (if

they had any merit) likely show others false, but the mere assertion of the

definition would not. In this respect, Prior is right, of course. This is the mistake

Prior accuses the inconsistent naturalist of committing. This, of course, suggests

a way out of the inconsistency—instead of hoping to achieve a truism with a

proposed definition, the naturalist should ‘settle’ for a significant assertion and

61

Prior p. 8.

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explain away the fact that it does not appear to be a truism. Candidate

explanations could revolve around quirks of language use or our inappropriate

clinging to the idea of a fact/value distinction. For example, a theory might assert

an identity between goodness and some natural property and then rely on the fact

that we are simply unable to see the relation between the evaluative features of a

property and its natural features. This would be a sort of dual-aspect theory for

moral properties.62

Then individual arguments could be made against alternate

definitions, rather than relying on the truth of the candidate theory, as the

inconsistent naturalist do.

A second issue of note is that Prior’s characterization does not seem to be

what Moore had in mind. The ‘inconsistent naturalist’ was not his only target –

he wanted to show that any naturalist who made the sorts of assumptions in (a)

and (b) committed a fallacy. I believe the error Prior makes is in conflating the

naturalistic fallacy with Moore’s open question test, which I take to be a different

argument against naturalistic theories. This is a common thread among Moore

commentators, and can be seen in Frankena’s work as well.

3. William Frankena

The explication of Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and diagnosis of its failings

considered authoritative by most commentators comes to us from William

62

Compare to the dual aspect theories of mind attributed to Baruch Spinoza or Thomas Nagel.

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Frankena’s paper The Naturalistic Fallacy.63

The previously discussed

philosophers owe much to Frankena. Each ultimately agrees that the naturalistic

fallacy, if it is a fallacy at all, is a definist fallacy, i.e., it is the attempt to define an

indefinable property; and they agree that to claim that a philosopher has

committed the naturalistic fallacy is to “beg the question.” Each of these ideas

has its origin in Frankena’s seminal paper. Thus the paper deserves a close read

and analysis. To determine the proper place, if any, of the naturalistic fallacy in

our moral reasoning, Frankena examines uses of the fallacy by intuitionists and

the origins of the idea in Principia Ethica. He concludes that one of the more

common uses of the term—as a label for violations of Hume’s law— is a mistake.

He also offers an explanation of the naturalistic fallacy and argues that in

formulating and using it to debunk rival ethical theories, Moore has committed a

simple logical error. Frankena claims that Moore assumes the truth of the

indefinability of goodness and claims, based on that, that any proposed definition

commits the naturalistic fallacy. Frankena's interpretation of the Moore’s

naturalistic fallacy and his account of the error Moore makes in advocating it is

held to be the authoritative position. Many others have offered accounts of what

is wrong with Moore, but they always come back to Frankena's position. Despite

this, I think that Frankena dismisses the view too quickly. Rather than being a

63

Frankena, W.K., The Naturalistic Fallacy, Mind, vol. 48, Issue 192 (1939) pp. 464-477

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mere logical error, I take Moore's view to be a subtle and powerful analysis of a

mistake made by too many theorists.

Frankena begins his paper by noting the prevalence of early twentieth

century philosophers labeling their opponents’ views as “fallacies.” The most

famous of these fallacies is the naturalistic fallacy. Non-naturalists of all stripes

(objectivists, intuitionists, etc.) would, and still do, accuse naturalists of having

committed the naturalistic fallacy. The term is still being bandied about, and can

be seen recently being applied to evolutionary theorists/ethicists.64

By placing the

uses of the term “naturalistic fallacy” in the context of these other, disfavored

uses, Frankena is foreshadowing his ultimate posture.65

Frankena takes the quarrel between intuitionists and naturalists to be

founded on a logical error and seeks to dispel that error.66

He points out that

Moore made some fairly bold claims about the scope and the importance of the

naturalistic fallacy. Moore wrote, for example, that the naturalistic fallacy is a

real fallacy and that it “must not be committed.”67

He also claimed that all

naturalistic and metaphysical theories of ethics “are based on the naturalistic

64

In advocating his brand of evolutionary ethics, Spencer may have committed the naturalistic

fallacy. (See Spencer, Herbert, The Study of Sociology, (London: Henry S. King, 1873); and The

Data of Ethics, London: Williams and Norgate, (1879)). He asserts that that which is ‘more

evolved’ is ‘higher’ or ‘better.’ The relationship between being more evolved and the ethical

properties denoted by ‘higher’ and ‘better’ is left largely uninvestigated, but Moore notes that if

Spencer were to choose, he would likely commit the naturalistic fallacy. Principia Ethica, ch. II,

§§ 31-34. Contemporary theorists are accused of committing the fallacy as well. 65

On the other hand, it is possible that the persuasiveness of Moore’s use of the term inspired

imitators. 66

Frankena, p. 464. 67

Frankena, p. 465, citing Principia Ethica, p. 116.

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fallacy, in the sense that the commission of this fallacy has been the main cause of

their wide acceptance.”68

Moore’s combination of claims makes the naturalistic fallacy sound like a

strange sort of beast, indeed. Not only must it be avoided, but there is, evidently,

something appealing about it that causes defective theories to gain wide

acceptance. These claims ought not to be taken entirely literally. For example,

the appeal of such theories is that they identify good with something tangible—a

property people can more easily wrap their heads around. The simplicity of the

theories makes them appealing. But the fact that they commit the naturalistic

fallacy does not make them any more attractive. My take on the naturalistic

fallacy is that it is a mistake in reasoning. But it is a mistake that is either easy to

make or has, as its result, something appealing, so there is an extrinsic reason to

commit the fallacy. Taken this way, to commit the naturalistic fallacy is a to

make a mistake in defending or even formulating a theory, but it is not why

people like the theory.

In addition to the questions about the scope and the importance of the

naturalistic fallacy, there is confusion, says Frankena, even amongst those who

invoke it, about what it is that people who are said to commit the fallacy actually

have done.69

To demonstrate the confusion about what the naturalistic fallacy is

and what it means to commit it, Frankena cites conflicting uses of the term.

68

Principia Ethica, p. 90. 69

Here, Frankena is lamenting the same state of affairs I describe at the start of this chapter.

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Sometimes, the naturalistic fallacy is used as a weapon. That is, non-naturalists

hurl it upon naturalists like an epithet. Once a theory has been identified as

having committed the naturalistic fallacy (or more precisely, when a proponent of

the theory commits it), the theory is given no further consideration, and dismissed

out of hand, as though it had violated some axiom of ethics. To use the

naturalistic fallacy in this way is to treat it “as if it were a logical fallacy on all

fours with the fallacy of composition, the revelation of which disposes of

naturalistic and metaphysical ethics and leaves intuitionism [or whatever non-

naturalistic theory we are concerned to advance] standing triumphant.”70

But in

other places, we see that it gets applied to a theory “after the smoke . . . has

cleared.”71

This means that some problem is found with the naturalistic or

metaphysical theory in question, and then it gets labeled as an example of the

commission of the naturalistic fallacy. This suggests that “the fallaciousness of

the naturalistic fallacy is just what is at issue in the controversy between the

intuitionists and their opponents, and cannot be wielded as a weapon in that

controversy.”72

Frankena takes this latter use to be the only legitimate use, if

there is one at all. Ultimately though, Frankena takes the view that there is no

legitimate use because the naturalistic fallacy is no fallacy at all.

70

Frankena, p. 465. Frankena cites to M.E. Clarke’s “Cognition and Affection in the Experience

of Value,” Journal of Philosophy 1938. 71

Frankena, p. 465. 72

Frankena, p. 465.

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73

To make sense of what the naturalistic fallacy might be, Frankena

examines a common use of the term by intuitionists. Sometimes, he notes,

intuitionists will call an instance of attempting to derive normative conclusions

from natural facts a naturalistic fallacy. Moore’s own writing seems to endorse

this use at times. For example, in his discussion of metaphysical ethics Moore

writes: “To hold that from any proposition asserting ‘Reality is of this nature’ we

can infer, or obtain confirmation for any proposition asserting ‘This is good in

itself’ is to commit the naturalistic fallacy.”73,74

The claim under consideration, then, is that to commit the naturalistic

fallacy is to disregard the bifurcation between ‘is’ and ‘ought.’ This bifurcation is

a reasonable position for an intuitionist to take. The bifurcation, if it exists, would

provide a metaphysical explanation of the central epistemic idea behind some

forms of intuitionism. The gap between the ‘ought’ and the ‘is’ (the fact that you

cannot derive normative conclusions from non-normative premises) explains the

need for a special faculty for detecting moral properties. For example, one form

of intuitionism might hold that moral rightness is a special property, not

detectable by any of our normal senses, but the presence of which in an object or

73

Principia Ethica, p. 165. 74

Incidentally, Gillian Russell has a very good paper on Hume’s Law and related “inference

barriers.” Her work suggests that Hume’s law deserves work to resurrect its efficacy in a non-ad

hoc way in light of critiques such as that provided by A.N. Prior in his paper “The Autonomy of

Ethics,” the Australasian Journal of Philosophy 38:199-206 (1960).

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74

state of affairs is only detectable by intuition.75

Further, it might hold that moral

knowledge is not inferable from any beliefs formed by the action of our bodily

senses. Such a view would be false if propositions about moral rightness could be

derived from natural facts to which we have ready epistemic access. If normative

moral facts were discoverable by observation of natural facts and inferences

drawn therefrom, no special faculty of intuition would be necessary. Such an

intuitionist would be keen to accept some version of the bifurcation between the

normative and non-normative.

The importance of this bifurcation between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ was

emphasized by David Hume. Following Frankena’s lead, let us turn our attention

to Hume’s work for a moment to see the origin of the modern view of the

bifurcation. Hume notes that in all the moral theories he has studied, the

proponents begin by making observations about God or about human affairs—that

is, descriptive, non-normative observations—and arrive at propositions about

what ought or ought not be done. That is, the authors of these theories seem to

derive normative conclusions from solely non-normative premises. Hume writes:

For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or

affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and

explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for

75

This would be true of an intuitionist theory that held that intuitions are the product of some

moral sense faculty.

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75

what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be

a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.76

With respect to the attempt to start from purely factual claims (Torture is painful,

Bill’s beard is flecked with gray) and arrive at evaluative conclusions (Torture is

morally wrong, Bill ought to shave), Hume’s proposal seems to be that you

cannot get there (‘ought’) from here (‘is’). The typical reading of this passage is

that no ‘ought’ statement can be validly inferred from any collection containing

exclusively ‘is’ statements. The generalized form of this thesis is that no

normative or evaluative judgments can be inferred from factual premises. Thus,

“Hume’s law,” as it has been dubbed77

is held to be a consequence of the

fact/value distinction.

We would say that no valid argument can proceed from premises that

assert only non-normative facts to a normative conclusion, or alternatively, that

any argument that attempts to deduce a normative conclusion from non-normative

premises has some suppressed normative-linking premise.

Frankena claims that intuitionists are committed to three theses that rely

on the is/ought distinction. These theses are:

1) Ethical propositions are not deducible from non-ethical ones.

2) Ethical characteristics are not definable in terms of non-ethical ones.

76

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III,, part I, § I (1739-1740). 77

It appears to have been so named by R.M. Hare in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LV

(1954-19 55), 303. See also, “Hume on ‘Is’ and ‘Ought,’” A. C. MacIntyre, The Philosophical

Review, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Oct., 1959), pp. 451-468

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3) Ethical characteristics are different in kind from non-ethical ones.78

Since Frankena takes (1) and (2) to be inferable from (3), (3) is all the

intuitionists really need. Note that, strictly speaking, (3) is not what Hume said.

Rather, he said that ‘ought’ expresses a different relation than ‘is,’ not that moral

properties, in general, were different in kind from non-moral properties. But this

is quibbling. Intuitionists accept that the non-moral propositions are different in

kind, and therefore there needs to be some explanation for the deduction of moral

propositions from them. Moreover it is inconceivable to them, and to Hume, that

there could be such a deduction. Of course, the addition of a premise linking the

moral to the non-moral would make for a valid argument, but this is not the sort

of deduction they rule out.

The relation to the naturalistic fallacy is this: Many naturalists, in

advocating their views on the relation of natural to moral properties (often, the

relation is identity) argue from solely non-ethical propositions to their moral

conclusions. This practice might violate Hume’s law. The supposition under

consideration is that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is simply to violate Hume’s

law.79

Frankena contends that intuitionists, seizing upon the importance of

78

Frankena, p 467. 79

Moore uses the Open Question Test to show that since our idea of goodness and happiness are

different, the properties that the words ‘good’ and ‘happiness’ refer to are different properties. If

the open question test does not show what he thinks it shows, then it may very well be that some

of these naturalist arguments are not logically invalid after all. If, for instance, happiness really

was identical with goodness, arguments that proceeded from statements about the natural property

happiness (a psychological property, hence natural) could be used to reach moral conclusions

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Hume’s law, say that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to violate Hume’s

Law.80

Frankena points to two examples of intuitionists making this claim.81

He

also notes that Moore generally does not make this claim. Rather than claiming

that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to make such a deduction, he claims that

making such a deduction “involves, implies, or rests upon” the naturalistic

fallacy.82

Finally, Whittaker, in The Theory of Abstract Ethics, identifies the

deduction as the naturalistic fallacy and claims that it is a mere “logical” fallacy.83

So, is it fair to charge naturalists who deduce moral conclusions form non-

moral premises with committing the naturalistic fallacy? Is it a fallacy to “deduce

ethical conclusions from non-ethical premises?”84

Frankena is asking whether the

standard interpretation of Hume’s law in fact identifies a fallacy. If so, we have

our first legitimate candidate for the naturalistic fallacy. The example Frankena

considers is an argument in support of Epicurean Hedonism.85

The short version

because their premises would be moral premises. in disambiguating the premises (see below) the

argument need not turn on an equivocation. 80

Frankena, p. 467 81

He cites to P.E. Wheelwright, A Critical Introduction to Ethics, pp 40-51, 91 ff. and to L.

Wood, “Cognition and Moral Value,” Journal of Philosophy, 1937 p. 237. 82

Frankena, pp 467-68. See Moore, Principia Ethica pp 114, 57, 43, 49. 83

See Frankena p 468, fn 1, citing to Whittaker, The Theory of Abstract Entities, pp 19ff. 84

Frankena, p 468. 85

The starting point for Mill’s disastrous analogy. I think a far better example of an argument that

purports to violate Hume’s law would have nothing in it that was derived from a definition of

good, as is the suppressed premise Frankena will eventually supply. An argument that proceeded

from the pain of childbirth to the conclusion that we ought to stop reproducing would probably be

truer to the spirit of What Hume was railing against.

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of the argument is “pleasure is good since it is sought by all men.”86

Note first

that this argument’s conclusion, that pleasure is good, is ambiguous in that it may

mean that pleasure is identical with the property goodness, or it may mean that

pleasure is a good thing—that it has the property goodness, but is not identical

with it.

Frankena reconstructs the argument as follows:

(a) Pleasure is sought by all men.

(b) Therefore, pleasure is good.

This argument, of course, is fallacious. But the fallacy at work here is not

something so complicated as a violation of Hume’s law. Rather, it is merely that

the argument is logically invalid. Nobody claims that the Epicurean argument is a

violation of the naturalistic fallacy by virtue of its invalidity. Any philosopher

interested in advancing the arguments would fix the invalidity issue first, and then

assault the argument.87

The interesting question, and the one Frankena takes up next, is whether

there is a fallacy involved when we supply the premise suppressed in the

Epicurean argument. The argument, as Frankena reconstructs it is as follows:

86

Frankena, p. 468. 87

In fact, since I take Moore to be arguing not that the mere definition of good in natural terms is

the naturalistic fallacy, but rather that the fallacy occurs in the defense of that definition, it appears

that this is Moore’s approach as well.

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(a) Pleasure is sought by all men

(b) What is sought by all men is good (by definition)

(c) Therefore, pleasure is good.88

Premise (b) raises warning flags, just as the conclusion of the original invalid

argument did, and for the same reasons. The conclusion, we saw, was ambiguous

between being a definition and attributing a property to pleasure, that of being

good. (b) is ambiguous between offering a definition of good as being that which

is sought by all men, and offering a property attribution to those things sought by

all men. Frankena takes the proponents of the Epicurean argument to be offering

a definition of good or to be intending to assert a proposition that is true by

definition in (b). But note, given this reconstruction, if (b) is a definition, or

asserts an identity, then (c) must also do so to preserve validity. In such a case,

the argument has no moral conclusion at all. Then there would be no question

about whether the argument violated any of the three intuitionists’ theses. So, to

preserve validity and to preserve the Epicureans’ likely intentions, (b) must be

read as a property attribution that follows from a definition or identity statement.89

Frankena writes that the suppressed premise, (b) is the reason that the

argument “involves the naturalistic fallacy.”90

In identifying goodness with the

property being-sought-by-all-men, the Epicurean has committed the fallacy.

88

Frankena, p. 469. 89

It is easy to recast the whole argument in a way that avoids this difficulty, but doing so is not

necessary for our purposes. 90

Frankena p 469.

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Frankena wants to show that in fact, to identify goodness with any other property

would be to commit the fallacy. If this is correct, then committing the naturalistic

fallacy is not the same as deducing ethical propositions from non-ethical ones.

That is, it is not a violation of the first of the three Intuitionists’ theses about the

bifurcation of moral from non-moral. Rather, Frankena takes Moore to be

claiming that the identification, itself, is the fallacy. That is, the fallacy is

committed when a definition of good in terms of any other properties is given.

Frankena’s claim is that this argument is a case where there is no longer a

violation of Hume’s law, but premise (b) is supported by an instance of the

naturalistic fallacy. If the fallacy occurs where there is no Hume’s law violation,

then committing the naturalistic fallacy is not to violate Hume’s law.

Since Frankena takes Moore’s claim to be that the identification of

goodness is the fallacy, he also claims Moore’s position is to beg the question on

the definability of goodness. Frankena writes that Moore takes (b) of the original

argument to be analytic, but not ethical, because he takes goodness to be

indefinable. Someone who thought goodness could be analyzed and thought that

(b) was a statement of the correct analysis of goodness would take (b) to be

analytic but not ethical because rather than predicating a property of that which is

sough by all men, it tells us something else. It tells us the logical relationship

between that which is sought by all men and goodness. This is a fairly

commonsensical view, but Frankena seems dissatisfied. Frankena derives his

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view of Moore from a passage in which Moore notes that two naturalists with

competing ideas of the nature of goodness, in trying to refute each other will rely

on purely psychological statements. For example, someone who held that

goodness was desirableness and who wanted to refute the view that goodness was

pleasure would argue that pleasure is not the object of desire. This is not an

ethical/moral proposition, but a psychological one. To generalize from this

example that Moore takes all statements of the form “x is good” to be non-ethical

is a serious mistake in interpretation. But the proposition that pleasure is morally

good most certainly is a moral proposition, whether true or false. So, if (b) were

taken as property attributing, then it is ethical. If Moore takes (b) to be analytic

and not ethical, it would be because he took it to be a definition of goodness.

Regarding Frankena’s claim that Moore’s view begs the question against

naturalism, it hardly seems to be begging the question to say that a definition is

wrong because the property that is being defined is incapable of definition. It

would be begging the question to say that definition X is wrong on grounds that

definition Y was correct.91

But to say X is wrong because it is conceptually

impossible to give such a definition is not begging the question. If Moore never

offered an argument that goodness was indefinable, I might be inclined to agree

with Frankena. But he does. It is the open question argument, and perhaps, an

induction from multiple iterations of the argument. I examine, in Chapter 5,

91

The position taken by Prior’s inconsistent naturalist.

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Moore’s argument that goodness is indefinable, and find that it is significantly

stronger than critics claim.

To support the claim that Moore takes the commission of the naturalistic

fallacy to be to identify goodness with some property (to offer a definition of

goodness), Frankena offers a number of passages from Principia Ethica,

reproduced here, in full:

[F]ar too many philosophers have thought that when they named

those other properties [belonging to all things which are good] they

were actually defining good; that these properties, in fact, were

simply not ‘other’, but absolutely and entirely the same with

goodness. This view I propose to call the ‘naturalistic

fallacy’. . . .92

and,

“I have thus appropriated the name Naturalism to a particular method of

approaching Ethics….This method consists in substituting for ‘good’ some one

property of a natural object or of a collection of natural objects….”93

and,

“…the naturalistic fallacy [is] the fallacy which consists in identifying the simple

notion we mean by ‘good’ with some other notion.94

92

Principia Ethica, p. 62, (quoted in Frankena, p 470). 93

Principia Ethica p. 91-92, (quoted by Frankena at 470). 94

Principia Ethica p. 109, cf. pp. xiii, 125, (quoted by Frankena at 470).

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Finally, he points to another section95

where Moore notes that the fallacy is also

involved when someone identifies some natural property with some other natural

property. While he would not call this error a ‘naturalistic fallacy,’ he takes it to

be the same mistake. Frankena points out, rightly, that Moore would say the same

about identifying metaphysical objects or propositions as well.96

We can see, then, that the fallacy is not limited to cases of defining

goodness, and that it can occur when defining many properties, moral and non-

moral. Frankena says that it is really a generic definist fallacy (or, at least, that

the fallacy underlying the naturalistic fallacy is a generic definist fallacy). The

quoted Principia Ethica passages suggest to Frankena that the fallacy is “the

process of confusing or identifying two properties, of defining one property by

another, or of substituting one property for another . . . . [T]he fallacy is always

simply that two properties are being treated as one.”97

If this were the proper way

to view the fallacy, we can see that it surely is no violation of Hume’s law. In

fact, ultimately, I accept that it has little bearing on Hume’s law, but I do not

accept Frankena’s conclusions. Formulated this way, the naturalistic fallacy

reflects the literal meaning of Bishop Butler’s inscription on Principia Ethica:

“Everything is what it is, and not another thing.”98

95

Principia Ethica p. 65. 96

If, for example, someone claimed that being a set was identical with being ticklish, or being

incorporeal. 97

Frankena, p 471. 98

Frankena, p 472, quoting the motto from Principia Ethica.

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So Frankena finds that one version of the naturalistic fallacy to be simply

the identification of goodness with any other property. While it is clear that

identifying two distinct properties is an error, is there a reason to think that

anyone who defines goodness does this? Frankena proceeds as though the

existence of the fallacy itself is supposed, by Moore, to prove that such a

definition is impossible.99

That is, that Moore assumes that goodness is

indefinable, and then uses that to claim that any proposed definition is false.100

I

reject the claim that Moore does this. His ground, in each case, for accusing a

philosopher of committing the naturalistic fallacy is not simply that they have

defined goodness.

Frankena admits that this version of the naturalistic fallacy may be a

misinterpretation of Moore and that the passages cited support a weaker version

of the definist fallacy. On this weaker version, it is an error to attempt to define

an indefinable property. This just raises the question, what properties are

indefinable? If this is the fallacy as Moore intends it, he might be held to be

begging the question in favor of his view by assuming goodness is indefinable

and then accusing competing views of committing the naturalistic fallacy.

99

This is, I suspect, because he, like Prior, does not view the open question argument to prove

anything other than that there is a fallacy. 100

Frankena writes: “To be effective at all, it must be understood to mean, ‘Every term means

what it means, and not what is meant by any other term.’ Mr. Moore seems implicitly to

understand his motto in this way in section 13, for he proceeds as if ‘good’ has no meaning, if it

has no unique meaning. If the motto be taken in this way, it will follow that ‘good’ is an

indefinable term, since no synonyms can be found. And then the method is as useless as an

English butcher in a world without sheep.” Frankena, p. 272-73.

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We can see the appeal of such a position. After all, as I have noted,

Moore includes an independent proof of the indefinability of goodness in § 13.

So the supposition is that having proved goodness is indefinable, Moore can

accuse anyone who has attempted such a definition of committing the naturalistic

fallacy, and thereby, dispense with their views. This would not be an accurate

description of Moore’s method (though other intuitionists might be less careful).

Moore does not use the naturalistic fallacy as a weapon. He does not merely

assert that Mill’s view attempts to define an indefinable property and so is false.

Rather, he identifies a particular sort of error as the naturalistic fallacy, thereby

undermining the argument by which the offending definition was derived. This

argument against Mill will be treated more fully in Chapter 4.

Another, more important reason to reject the view that to commit the

naturalistic fallacy is to attempt to define an indefinable property is that Moore

points out examples of the naturalistic fallacy being committed in definitions of

definable properties. For example, Moore says that the naturalistic fallacy is

commonly committed with respect to beauty, just as it is committed with respect

to goodness.101

If you think the naturalistic fallacy is a mere definist fallacy, then

you would expect that Moore would have to claim that beauty is unanalyzable and

indefinable too. But he does not. In fact, three sentences after he makes this

pronouncement, he offers a definition of beauty that does not commit the

101

Principia Ethica, p. 259.

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naturalistic fallacy. To commit the naturalistic fallacy with respect to beauty is to

suppose that since beautiful objects all cause some certain feeling in us, that to be

beautiful is to cause such a feeling, or beauty is identical with a tendency to cause

such feelings. I contend that the fallacy here is not in defining beauty in terms of

our subjective feelings, but in the inference from the conjunction of beauty and

that feeling to the identity of those properties.

The upshot for Frankena is that of the possible uses of the naturalistic

fallacy he has identified, identification with violations of Hume’s law is a mere

logical fallacy, and not broad enough to capture the full range of arguments and

theories to which the term is applied, and of the two versions of the definist

fallacy, one seems overly strong, and the other may be refuted by Moore’s actual

practice. We shall see whether this is the case in the next chapter.

Conclusion

Baldwin, Frankena and Prior each offer analyses of Moore’s use of the

term ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ Of these, Frankena’s analysis has been the most

influential, with those who think there is some problem with the naturalistic

fallacy generally adopting the position that it is a triviality. Typically, those who

do not see a problem, simply take it to be the same as Hume’s law. In the next

chapter, I explain why it is not a mere triviality. By noting the proper role of the

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naturalistic fallacy in Moore’s thought, and placing it within the context of his

overall assault on naturalism, I show that, rather than being question begging, it is

an explanation of how naturalists arrive at their conclusions. Moore’s proof that

those conclusions are mistaken, the open question argument, is a different

argument altogether.

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Chapter 4

The Naturalistic Fallacy: A New Interpretation

In the previous chapter, I showed that there are a number of different

interpretations of what Moore means by his claim that naturalistic theories of

ethics commit the naturalistic fallacy. In this chapter I offer a new interpretation

of the naturalistic fallacy that more closely matches the text of Principia Ethica.

Frankena’s work demonstrates that of the many possibilities considered

for what it means to commit the naturalistic fallacy, two deserve serious

consideration. The first is that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to define an

indefinable property. As I showed in the last chapter, this interpretation is not

consistent with Moore’s text because he points out that the naturalistic fallacy is

frequently committed with respect to beauty, a definable property.

The second interpretation we must consider is that to commit the

naturalistic fallacy is simply to inaccurately define a property. For purposes of

this discussion, let’s call this ‘the general definist fallacy.’ This interpretation has

much to recommend it. After all, every example that Moore offers of committing

the fallacy is a case of someone getting a definition wrong: There is the example

of identifying yellowness with a certain type of light vibration; that of mistakenly

thinking that since I am pleased, I am the definition of being pleased; the case of

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believing since oranges are yellow, being an orange is the same as being yellow,

etc. Every one of these definitions is supposed to illustrate the naturalistic fallacy

and every one is an example of an incorrect definition. This seems like pretty

good evidence that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to incorrectly define a

property, that is, to think of two properties that they are one and the same.1

Despite this, I prefer a different view.

The view I favor is something akin to Prior’s view, as articulated in the

last chapter. Moore’s examples in the sections in which he describes the

naturalistic fallacy, his analyses of individual theories that are said to commit the

naturalistic fallacy, seem to stress something besides the misidentification. There

seems to be an explanation for why the mistake was made. This suggests to me

that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to infer from inadequate evidence that

what we think of as two properties really is one. The details of this view are

worked out below.

Given that the general definist fallacy is well supported by Moore’s

examples, the evidence required to prove this is a bad interpretation would need to

be strong. The best evidence would be a Moorean example where someone got

the definition right, but was still accused of committing the naturalistic fallacy.

This would prove that the general definist interpretation was false, though it

would not necessarily prove any alternative. Unfortunately, there are no such

1 In essence, Baldwin’s second interpretation, generalized to apply to properties besides goodness.

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examples in Principia Ethica. We might also look to examples Moore gives of

successful definitions. If we saw that Moore was very careful not to infer from

the co-instantiation of properties that they were identical, as seems to be the

mistake highlighted in several of the cases we’ve looked at, we might infer from

this that his care was directed at avoiding the naturalistic fallacy. Again, we do

not find this sort of care. In fact, it is not clear what process Moore uses to define

such properties as beauty or virtue.

When he defines beauty, he asks what properties can be removed from an

experience while maintaining its beautiful character.2 He also imagines the value

of the experience if certain features are added. He seems to be determining what

features are necessary to our experience of beauty. But there seems to be no

inference from these observations to the definition Moore offers. He writes that

“the beautiful should be defined as that of which the admiring contemplation is

good in itself.”3 Note that this is a definition of the beautiful, and does not

necessarily define the property being beautiful. Moore then takes the next step

and defines being beautiful as being an essential part of an intrinsically valuable

experience.4

2 Principia Ethica, p. 243.

3 Principia Ethica, p. 249.

4 Presumably, the contemplation.

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One way Moore could have arrived at this definition is by intuition.

Sidgwick’s use of this method is commended as a route to determining the good,5

so perhaps it could be used to determine the beautiful as well. But if so, we still

have to overcome the hurdle of getting from the beautiful to beauty. When it

comes to good, Moore says that people theorize about the good and then decide

whatever they chose as the good is the very meaning of good. And this maneuver

is forbidden, presumably because it involves the naturalistic fallacy. But it looks

like that what he has done here. If so, this would weigh against the suggestion that

the naturalistic fallacy is a kind of inference from inadequate evidence to a

definition.

The discussion so far makes the prospect of defending the view I

suggested in Chapter 3 look pretty dim. But it is not as bad as it seems. First, the

problem raised by the definition of beauty is highly speculative. It is not at all

clear that Moore actually made the inference I claim is forbidden. Second,

despite Moore’s protestations that he does not describe a bad inference, and so has

not actually found anything that should be called a fallacy, 6 it genuinely seems

that he has identified such an inference.7 Moreover, it is hard to believe that

Moore does not understand what a fallacy is. I find it easier to believe that he

stated his examples in ways that sometimes failed to emphasize the bad inference,

5 Though his particular conclusion is not embraced. Principia Ethica, p. 145.

6 Second Preface, Principia Ethica, p. 20-21.

7 See example below, p. 102.

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instead focusing on the falsity of the view.8 The fact that when he actually

accuses particular philosophers of having committed the naturalistic fallacy, he

never claims that their definitions are wrong but merely that they committed the

fallacy also suggests that the error is not the definist fallacy.9 Finally, the

interpretation I favor is consistent with the general definist fallacy for every

example we have, while providing a degree of explanatory power, in that it

explains why the faulty definitions were proposed. This is certainly not a

requirement of a good interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy, but it does not

hurt. What remains, then, is to look at the specific examples Moore gives us in

more detail, and see if any of them seem to weigh more heavily in favor of either

view.

Prior and Frankena, despite offering distinctly different interpretations of

what it means to commit the naturalistic fallacy, each treat it as though it were an

argument against naturalistic theories. In so doing, they share a common error.

The first section of this chapter explains the error and shows that Moore was

explicit in his assertion that theories are not false by virtue of resting on an

instance of the naturalistic fallacy. Evidence for this claim is provided in two

8 When it was a complex definition. A corollary of my view of the open question argument is that

Moore cannot prove that any simple property identity is false by use of the argument. He may

show that a given simple definition is wrong by means of a specific argument, perhaps by showing

that goodness and the property are not even coextensive, so surely not identical, for instance. 9 The closest he comes to claiming that the definition offered by a philosopher is wrong is when he

writes “The direct object of Ethics is knowledge and not practice; and anyone who uses the

naturalistic fallacy has certainly not fulfilled this first object. . . .” Principia Ethica, p. 71. Though

this could mean either a mistake in the definition, or a failure in its justification.

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forms—direct and indirect textual evidence. By ‘indirect evidence’ I mean I

examine one or two of Moore’s arguments against particular forms of naturalism,

and demonstrate that at no point in these arguments does Moore assert that they

are false for resting on the naturalistic fallacy. Examination of such arguments

makes it clear that Moore does not intend us to believe that naturalistic theories

are false for resting on the fallacy. Rather, it appears that, in each case, Moore is

merely pointing out that there is such an error being made that explains where

philosophers who advocate such theories have gone wrong—why it is that they

embrace and endorse false theories. But the theories are alleged to be false by

virtue of some other error.10

The proof that such identities are false ones is not

proved by the naturalistic fallacy, or by accusation that advocates of those

theories commit the fallacy. The actual proof is provided by the open question

argument. This proof is examined in detail in the next chapter.

After demonstrating that Moore does not take the fact that a theory rests

on the naturalistic fallacy to be a fatal flaw for the theory, I present my own

account of the fallacy. I draw on Moore’s description of the fallacy, and on his

arguments against the theories of Bentham, Mill, and Spencer. I argue that a

single interpretation is consistent with each of Moore’s usages. In the course of

this discussion, I consider several criticisms, including those inspired by Moorean

10

The theories, if they are false, are so because they are wrong about what things ought to be done

or because they advocate an incorrect theory of the good. And the evidence for their theories are

inadequate because by having committed the naturalistic fallacy, the advocates have undermined

the possible evidence for their normative claims.

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text that, on an initial read, seems to contradict my interpretation of the

naturalistic fallacy.

§ 1) The proper role of the Naturalistic Fallacy

We saw, in the last chapter, that Moore scholars have noted that there is

debate about the role of the naturalistic fallacy in Moore’s ethical theory.

Interestingly, while this debate is noted, none of the philosophers whose work we

examined attempted to resolve the debate. Moreover, at least two of them,

Frankena—who pointed out that there are some intuitionists who use the

naturalistic fallacy like a weapon—and Prior—who pointed out that the

naturalistic fallacy, as he conceives it, is an effective weapon (at least against

those he called “inconsistent naturalists”)—take sides on the matter. That is, both

assume that the naturalistic fallacy is intended to refute naturalistic theories of

ethics. This is the very basis of Frankena’s claim that it is question begging. It is

also the reason I reject Prior’s `characterization, despite agreeing with him, by and

large, about what it means to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

Since the basis of my criticisms of Frankena and Prior rest, in part, on

their having gotten the role of the naturalistic fallacy wrong, it is incumbent on

me to provide some proof that Moore, at least, did not intend the naturalistic

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fallacy to be a refutation of anything. My claim rests on two different types of

support—text and inference from Moore’s own practice.

Moore, himself, clarifies the proper role of the naturalistic fallacy while

discussing Bentham’s commission of the naturalistic fallacy:

Now, I do not wish the importance I have assigned to this fallacy

to be misunderstood. The discovery of it does not at all refute

Bentham’s contention that greatest happiness is the proper end of

human action, if that be understood as an ethical proposition, as he

undoubtedly intended it. That principle may be true all the same;

we shall consider whether it is so in succeeding chapters. Bentham

might have maintained it, as Prof. Sidgwick does, even if the

fallacy had been pointed out to him. What I am maintaining is that

the reasons which he actually gives for his ethical proposition are

fallacious ones so far as they consist in a definition of right.11

Here, Moore is pointing out that fact that Bentham has committed the naturalistic

fallacy is not the feature that makes his theory false. Whether it is true or false

rests on other grounds. Moore considers these grounds in Chapter III, under the

topic of Hedonism, generally. I examine Moore’s argument, and in particular, the

role of the naturalistic fallacy in that argument below. But regardless of the

theory’s truth, or lack thereof, the reasons that Bentham gives for accepting that

11

Moore, Principia Ethica, Ch. I, § 14, ¶4.p 71 (emphasis in original) (all citations to Principia

Ethica are to the revised edition, Cambridge 1993).

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theory are the proper target of the naturalistic fallacy. This is why Moore writes,

when speaking of Bentham’s reasons that Bentham “did not perceive them to be

fallacious” and that “if he had done so, he would have been led to seek for other

reasons in support of his Utilitarianism . . . .”12

Plainly, the text indicates that

Moore considers the role of the naturalistic fallacy to be to undermine the reasons

for holding and promoting a theory, and not to prove its falsity. This text is the

most direct support for my contention that the naturalistic fallacy is not in any

way Moore’s argument that any particular ethical view is false. Rather it is

merely his diagnosis of where a philosopher has gone wrong in forging or

defending his theory.

Unfortunately, though this passage is helpful in clarifying the proper role

of the naturalistic fallacy, it does not support my claim that to commit the

naturalistic fallacy is anything other than to commit the general definist fallacy. It

does, however, prove that to interpret the naturalistic fallacy in such a way as to

make commission of the fallacy the false-making characteristic of the normative

theory, rather than a mistake that undermines our confidence in it would be a

mistake. It also give us hope that since Moore was so concerned with the reasons

given for ethical views, he might be similarly concerned with reasons for

accepting definitions of moral properties.

12

Principia Ethica, p. 71.

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Though this passage has been generally overlooked, I have seen it cited

two times. The first paper I have found to make appeal to the quote above is

Everett Hall’s “The ‘Proof’ of Utility in Bentham and Mill.”13

Hall treats Moore

as though he had claimed that Bentham had committed the naturalistic fallacy in

its definist configuration. That is, he accepts Frankena’s interpretation of the

fallacy, and accuses Moore of begging the question against Bentham. Arguably,

it is possible that Moore was accusing Bentham of committing a definist fallacy,14

but I consider is a better explanation, below.15

The only other reference I have found to this passage commits a pretty

grievous error. Julius Kovesi cites to this passage as proof that Moore thinks the

error in Bentham’s reasoning lies in the fact that he presented an argument

wherein he defined the good. “The fallacy consists in the reasoning adduced to

show what the good is; whereas it should be laid down what the good is ‘as an

axiom’.”16

This is most definitely not what Moore asserts. In fact, Moore writes

“it might be perfectly consistent for him to define right as conducive to the

general happiness provided only (and note this proviso) he had already proved, or

laid down as an axiom, that general happiness was the good.”17

Moore thinks it is

perfectly acceptable to try to prove what the good is, and doing so, in addition to

13

Ethics vol. 60, No. 1 (Oct 1949) pp. 1-18, at 15. 14

Though I attempt to refute this charge, below. 15

In my detailed explication of Moore’s analysis of Bentham, p. 113 16

Kovesi, J., “Principia Ethica" Re-Examined: The Ethics of a Proto-Logical Atomism,”

Philosophy, Vol. 59, No. 228. (Apr., 1984), pp. 157-170 at 170. 17

Principia Ethica, p. 70. (Emphasis in original)

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98

laying it down as an axiom, is the key to avoiding the naturalistic fallacy for

Bentham.18

As I argue below, the fallacy lies in making the inference from what

things are good to a definition of goodness. Kolvesi confuses the good, which

Moore takes to be those things that instantiate goodness, with goodness itself.

The upshot is that a key passage in Principia Ethica—one that effectively

undermines some of the most potent criticisms asserted against Moore’s ethical

philosophy and perhaps leaves a little hope for a non-definist view of the

naturalistic fallacy—has been rarely cited and, perhaps, badly misinterpreted.

Hall accuses Moore of committing the definist fallacy, and Kolvesi takes Moore

to reject a proposition that he explicitly endorses. While Moore believes Bentham

has committed the naturalistic fallacy, he does not think his normative theory is

false on that ground, and he does not take the fallacy to be in attempting to prove

that a particular property is the good.

Moore gives similarly deferential treatment to the theories of Mill and

Spencer. Though he brutally assaults their arguments as artless commissions of

the naturalistic fallacy, and argues that each theory is without merit, he does not

argue that they are false for being based on the fallacy. Moore’s refutations of

Mill’s hedonism and Spencer’s evolutionary ethics are based on other grounds.

18

This is not to say that he thinks such proof is possible. We see in his discussion of intuitionist

hedonism that he takes direct proof of propositions about the good to be impossible. Such claims

are only open to ‘indirect proof.’ Principia Ethica, p. 128.

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99

As is the case with Bentham’s views, Moore takes Mill to task for

committing the naturalistic fallacy. After several pages of accusing Mill of

naïveté and artlessness, and giving him some good-natured ribbing (“Well, the

fallacy in this step is so obvious, that it is quite wonderful how Mill failed to see

it”19

) for having committed the naturalistic fallacy, Moore turns his attention to

disproving the theory. Again, we see that a theory’s resting upon the naturalistic

fallacy does not demonstrate that the theory is false. It merely undermines our

confidence in the arguments mustered for its support. Moore writes “So far I

have been only occupied with refuting Mill’s naturalistic arguments for

Hedonism; but the doctrine that pleasure alone is desirable may still be true,

although Mill’s fallacies cannot prove it so. This is the question which we have

now to face.”20

The remaining thirty-five pages of Moore’s chapter III are

devoted to trying to show that Mill’s principle is false. If Moore took commission

of the naturalistic fallacy to be a fatal flaw in a theory there would be no need for

such arguments.21

Most importantly, for my purposes, Moore does not claim that

Mill has gotten the definition of goodness wrong.

Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary ethical theory gets similar treatment.

Moore identifies an instance of the naturalistic fallacy in Spencer’s identification

19

Principia Ethica, p. 118. 20

Principia Ethica, p 126. 21

Nor for the apologies he gives for the sorry state of ethical argumentation. He recognizes that

the sort of refutation that we see in logical proofs is not possible in the context of ethics, at least

with respect to arguments about what things are good.

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of increasing ethical sanction with being more evolved. In other words, he has

defined being more evolved as an end in itself. Moore is unsure whether Spencer

has really committed the fallacy because “Mr. Spencer’s language is extremely

loose,”22

but whether he has or has not committed the fallacy, his theory must be

further evaluated for its truth. Again, commission of the fallacy is not sufficient

to demonstrate that a theory is false.

It is clear that Moore, at least, does not use the naturalistic fallacy as a

weapon against naturalists in the way that Frankena and Prior seem to assume. In

no case does he dismiss a theory as false on the ground that its proponent has

committed the fallacy in formulating or defending the theory. Nor does he claim

that the property identities these theorists assert are false on the ground that

goodness is indefinable. Surely, to assert that would be to beg the question.

Rather, Moore rejects the reasoning behind the theories as being fallacious, and

then turns his attention to arguing against the other merits of the theories. Finally,

Moore does not claim that any theorist has committed the fallacy merely on the

grounds that he has offered a definition of goodness, an indefinable property.

This last point is demonstrated in the next section, wherein my positive account of

the naturalistic fallacy is presented.

Again, nothing in the preceding material proves that Moore does not take

the naturalistic fallacy to be a definist fallacy, but neither does it prove that he

22

Principia Ethica, p. 100-101.

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does. In order to be a definist fallacy, in order to avoid begging the question,

Moore would need proof that goodness is indefinable. He would also need proof

that it is not identical with any natural simple property, because definition is a

matter if identifying the constituent parts of a property—if there are no parts,

there can be no definition, but there could still be true identity statements that

identify goodness with a simple property. If Moore does not have a proof that

goodness is not identical with a simple natural property—and I contend he does

not—then in order to defend his view that goodness is non-natural, he would need

a view of the naturalistic fallacy such that commission of the fallacy could

undermine confidence in proffered simple identity statements. A definist fallacy

would not suffice. The rest of this chapter develops a view that would.

§ 2) The naturalistic fallacy: a close reading

It is not entirely surprising that most interpretations of the naturalistic

fallacy are unsatisfying. Moore uses a number of examples to illustrate it, and

they do not always appear, at first glance, to demonstrate the same mistake.

Furthermore, sometimes his descriptions are downright cryptic, as, for example,

when he writes of a particular class of naturalistic theories:

In other words they are all theories of the end or ideal, the adoption

of which has been chiefly caused by the commission of what I

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have called the naturalistic fallacy: they all confuse the first and

second of the three possible questions which Ethics can ask.23

This statement, for all the world, appears to mean that to commit the naturalistic

fallacy is to confuse two questions. Compounding the confusion is that Moore is

not very clear about which two questions he is referring to. The most likely

candidates appear in the opening sections of Chapter I, thirty or more pages

before this passage, but these same questions appear again, just before this

passage, but in a different order.24

Interpreting this is tough—Moore may be

defining the naturalistic fallacy, he may be offering an alternative way to think

about the problem without suggesting it means anything other than what he had

previously established, or he may be doing neither of these, and instead merely

suggesting an alternative error was committed by the naturalist.

Nonetheless, an interpretation consistent with each of Moore’s uses of the

words “naturalistic fallacy” can be found. In this section, I offer such an

interpretation.

a. Goodness and yellow

Moore’s most clear explanation of the naturalistic fallacy appears in the

passage in which the naturalistic fallacy is first introduced. Moore writes:

23

Principia Ethica, pp. 89-90. 24

Compare Principia Ethica, Ch. I, pp 54-58, and Ch. II, p 89.

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103

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 [belonging to

all things which are good] they were actually defining good; that

these properties, in fact, were simply not ‘other’, but absolutely

and entirely the same with goodness. This view I propose to call

the ‘naturalistic fallacy’….25

We saw in Chapter 3 that Baldwin uses this passage as evidence that to

commit the naturalistic fallacy is to deny the indefinability of goodness. And we

also saw that Frankena relies on this passage (among others), claiming that it

means that nothing is identical with goodness26

and that to commit the naturalistic

fallacy is to assert of something other than goodness that it is identical with

goodness.27

Frankena’s emphasis is on the act of attempting the definition. This,

he thinks, is what Moore has labeled the “naturalistic fallacy.” But this is not the

only reasonable interpretation, nor is it the one that most accurately represents

Moore’s text. The view Moore proposes to call the naturalistic fallacy is not the

25

Principia Ethica, § 10, p. 62. 26

He takes this passage to be a mere demonstration of Butler’s maxim that appears as the motto on

the cover page of Principia Ethica, “Everything is what it is, and not another thing.” 27

Frankena, p. 470-71.

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belief that defining goodness is possible, or even that any particular identity

statement is right. Rather, Moore writes that it is the belief that when one names

the other properties, those properties that are coextensive with goodness, one is

defining goodness.

Consider Moore’s example step by step. The naturalist observes that

every instance of goodness is also an instance of pleasure, just as he might notice

that every instance of yellow is accompanied by y-vibrations. From this (limited)

coextension of goodness and pleasure, the naturalist deduces that goodness is

identical with pleasure. I take it that this deduction is Moore’s target. To commit

the naturalistic fallacy is to make the inference from coextension to identity.

Moore calls it a fallacy because he takes the deduction itself to be invalid, not

simply because he believes the conclusion is false.

We know that such deductions are invalid because coextension, even

necessary coextension, is not identity. Consider, for example, the properties

being renate and being cordate. As it turns out, these are coextensive properties.28

Everything that has a kidney has a heart, and vice-versa. But just a moment’s

reflection makes it clear that they are not identical properties. The same is true

for yellowness and y-vibrations; just a second of careful thought dispels the

possibility that they are identical. They are merely properties that are

coextensive, or perhaps they share an even weaker relation. After all, the

28

At least in philosopher biology.

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105

yellowness of an object only causes y-vibrations under certain conditions. That

is, the y-vibrationality is only a disposition that yellow things have.

Now Frankena is quite right that to make the move from this claim about

the naturalist to the further claim that her definition is wrong is impermissible.

Moore also acknowledges this in the passage discussing Bentham, above. When

Frankena claims that Moore begs the question, he seems to have in mind a

different Moorean argument. Moore would have begged the question against the

naturalist if he argued as follows:

1) Goodness is coextensive with pleasantness

2) Goodness is not identical with pleasantness

3) If (1) and (2) then goodness is not identical with pleasantness.

4) Therefore, goodness is not identical with pleasantness.

Since (2) is the very conclusion that Frankena takes Moore to be reaching

when he claims that someone who defines goodness as pleasantness is committing

the naturalistic fallacy, to make such an argument would be to beg the question

against the naturalist. To see this, we need only to look at the reason Moore

might assert (2). Frankena thinks the reason Moore believes that goodness is not

identical with pleasantness is that to believe such a thing is to commit the

naturalistic fallacy. The proof that someone has committed the naturalistic fallacy

requires one to deny the naturalist’s conclusion as one of your premises. This is

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plainly question begging. This is why it is so important to emphasize that this is

not what Moore actually does.

Actually, this example is worse still for the naturalist, because he has not

started from the premise that goodness and pleasantness are coextensive. Instead,

the naturalist has started from the premise that all instances of goodness are

instances of pleasure. From this, it would be, perhaps, worse to infer the identity

of goodness and pleasantness, because all it would take to disprove the identity

would be a single disconfirming instance of pleasure that was not good. At least

if the properties were coextensive, there could be no such disconfirming

instance.29

The mistake our naturalist has made is to believe that goodness and

pleasantness are identical on the ground that he has always found them together.

This suggests that, in this case, to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to infer from

the fact that every good thing also is pleasant that goodness is identical with

pleasure. In general terms, it is the inference from the constant conjunction of one

property with another to their identity. This constant conjunction is a weaker

relationship than coextension, as Moore seems to describe it as a one way relation

here.30

I consider the ramifications of this below, in my discussion of Moore’s

29

Clearly, if the properties were merely contingently coextensive, there could be a possible

disconfirming instance of pleasure. But since the inference is bad even if the properties are

necessarily coextensive, it seems trivial to compound the trouble. 30

Indeed, in the cases where naturalists have claimed that some natural property is the good

(where there is real coextension), Moore proceeds as though they derived that from the identity

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treatment of particular theorists. For the moment, we should progress on the

theory that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to infer from either the

coextension of two properties or the mere supposition that all instances of one

property are also instances of another, that the properties are identical.

Symbolically:

NF1) ∀x (Px ↔ Qx) → (P=Q)

or

NF2) ∀x (Px → Qx) → (P=Q)

b. “I am pleased”

The next place we see Moore invoking the naturalistic fallacy is several

pages later, in § 12. Here, there are two related passages, each of which is

relatively easy to misinterpret alone, but when read together, support my

interpretations over any others.

Suppose a man says ‘I am pleased’ . . . . We may be able to say

how [pleasure] is related to other things: that, for example, it is in

the mind, that it causes desire, that we are conscious of it, etc., etc.

We can, I say, describe its relations to other things, but define it we

between goodness and the property in question, after having first committed the naturalistic fallacy

by inferring the identity from the mere constant conjunction.

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can not. And if anybody tried to define pleasure for us as being any

other natural object; if anybody were to say, for instance, that

pleasure means the sensation of red, and were to proceed to deduce

from that that pleasure is a colour, we should be entitled to laugh at

him and to distrust his future statements about pleasure. Well, that

would be the same fallacy which I have called the naturalistic

fallacy.31

At a first read, it is easy to take Moore to be saying that to commit

the naturalistic fallacy is, in this case, to define pleasure. And since he has

identified pleasure as being indefinable, we might generalize to the

conclusion that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to give a definition of

an indefinable property.32

But, as I noted in my discussion of Baldwin,

something a little more complex and interesting is going on here. It is not

simply that someone is trying to define pleasure. It is that they are

attempting to do so by virtue of its relation to other natural properties or

objects. That is, she is identifying pleasure with other attendant

experiences, like sensations of red, or with its causal relata, like the desire

it causes in us. The fact that this is the error Moore has in mind becomes

clearer as we read farther in the passage.

31

Principia Ethica, § 12, pp 64-65. 32

This seems to be the assumption that Baldwin takes from this passage, and it is definitely the

interpretation that Frankena accepts.

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109

Moore goes on, in this passage, to note that while pleasure is

indefinable, it is not the case that we cannot meaningfully assert that we

are pleased. It is enough to understand that being pleased means to have

the sensation of pleasure.33

It seems to me that he is addressing concerns

that if we cannot give a definition of a property, we cannot meaningfully

assert that we have that property. But Moore’s point is that of course we

can assert that we instantiate a property that is simple and indefinable. But

the attempt to define such a property by its connection to other properties

we might experience at the same time is an error. Moore wraps up this

passage by introducing another mistake, one that at first blush, seems

distinct. But once again, a little careful analysis shows that it is closely

related to the mistake highlighted above.

If I were to imagine that when I said ‘I am pleased,’ I meant that I

was exactly the same thing as ‘pleased,’ I should not indeed call

that a naturalistic fallacy, although it would be the same fallacy as

I have called naturalistic with reference to Ethics. The reason of

this is obvious enough. When a man confuses two natural objects

with one another, defining one by the other, if for instance he

33

Moore phrases this in linguistic terms, quoting off ‘pleased’ and ‘having the sensation of

pleasure.’ But this is a mistake. He is not making a mere linguistic point. His point is about the

property itself. I take it that this is why he admits to making use/mention errors in his discussion

of the naturalistic fallacy. But those use/mention errors need not be fatal to the view. We may,

with a little sensitivity to the text, discern where he is discussing words versus the properties to

which those words refer.

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confuses himself, who is one natural object, with ‘pleased’ or with

‘pleasure’ which are others, then there is no reason to call the

fallacy naturalistic. But if he confuses ‘good,’ which is not in the

same sense a natural object, with any natural object whatever, then

there is a reason for calling that a naturalistic fallacy; its being

made with regard to ‘good’ marks it as something quite specific,

and this specific mistake deserves a name because it is so

common.34

There are two important things happening in this passage. The first is that

Moore provides another example of the fallacy. As I noted in Chapter 3, it is of a

case that we might never expect to see actualized. After all, it is hard to imagine

anyone mistaking the ‘is’ of predication with the ‘is’ of identity when the

identifier, himself, is the subject of the identity he asserts. It is hard to confuse

myself with something else.35

The man in Moore’s example has concluded from

the fact that he is pleased that he is identical with the property being pleased.36

It

appears in this example that the hapless identifier is confusing the ‘is’ of

predication with the ‘is’ of identity. It seems that he has thought about the true

34

Principia Ethica, p 65. 35

Though it is not impossible. I once woke up with my arm under my body, and asleep, so I could

not feel my weight upon it, and thought that it was not my arm. This, in a sense, is to confuse

myself with something else . . . 36

Again, we have a use/mention problem here. But it is clear, from the sentences immediately

following the initial description of the confusion, that by ‘pleased’ offset in single quotes, Moore

intends us to understand, not the word ‘pleased,’ but the property to which that word refers.

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sentence, “I am pleased” which means, to him, that he has the property being

pleased (or alternately, that he is experiencing pleasure) and derived from it the

identity statement “I am pleased” which means that he is identical with the

property being pleased. This passage seems particularly amenable to this sort of

reading.37

But such a reading would be a mistake. Moore noted in his preface to

the second edition of Principia Ethica that this passage is amenable to such a

reading, though it is not what he intended. Rather, he takes confusing the ‘is’ of

predication with the ‘is’ of identity to be the source of the commission of the

fallacy in this particular instance (in my terms, having made that mistake is the

reason for the bad inference).38

While confusing predication and identity might

be at work here, also at work is the inference from co-instantiation to identity. In

this case, our confused identifier instantiates both being pleased and being

himself. And on the basis of that he takes being himself and being pleased to be

identical. Read in the context of the passage immediately preceding this one,

where the error is plainly inferring the identity of properties that occur in the same

object, it is clear that this is interpretation is to be preferred over the

identity/predication problem. This is an even more dramatic error than inferring

the identity of two properties from their uni-directional relation. Here, the

37

Moore’s use/mention trouble on the following page in discussing oranges, yellowness and

sweetness also might lead to one accepting this interpretation. Concluding from the fact that

oranges are yellow that orange and yellow are the same property looks like it might be a problem

caused by confusing the ‘is’ of predication with the ‘is’ of identity. But, again, in context it

appears to be a case of confusing coextension with identity (a closely related problem, it seems). 38

Principia Ethica, preface to the second edition, p. 20.

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112

confused identifier seems to be making the inference from a single instance of the

conjunction of two properties. Symbolically, the fallacy looks like this:

NF3) ∃x (Px & Qx) → (P=Q)

The second thing Moore does in this passage is to demonstrate to us that

the naturalistic fallacy is a general purpose fallacy. That is, it is a mistake that can

be made in many contexts, not merely in the context of ethics. This is important

to keep in mind, because it can help keep up from accepting interpretations of the

fallacy that will be applicable only to goodness. For example, Frankena claims

that an intuitionist’s accusation that a naturalistic theorist has committed the

naturalistic fallacy begs the question against the naturalist because it starts from

the premise that no such definition is possible. That is, Frankena takes

intuitionists to mean that the indefinability of goodness is an integral part of the

naturalistic fallacy. But once we see that the naturalistic fallacy is supposed to be

a completely general sort of inference error, we should no longer feel compelled

to entertain interpretations like the one Frankena asserts of intuitionists. A

philosopher might commit the naturalistic fallacy in offering a definition of a

perfectly definable property. If, based on the fact that I have a receding hairline, I

determined that definition of ‘forehead’ is that patch of hairless skin extending

from ones eyebrows to the middle of the scalp, I will have committed the

naturalistic fallacy, in form NF3. I think the blame for part of the confusion in

this regard belongs squarely on Moore’s doorstep, because in illustrating the

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fallacy, he chooses only those properties he has determined to be indefinable. But

in fact, the generic fallacy he highlights would apply equally to definable

properties. Take renate and cordate, for example. These are definable properties,

but to conclude, based on their coextension, that they were identical properties

would be to commit the fallacy. It would be an invalid inference. It is likely that

Moore only chooses indefinable properties because he wants to keep the analogy

to goodness fairly close, and ultimately, he will argue that goodness is

indefinable, but that is a different argument, not to be confused with the

naturalistic fallacy.

3. Bentham

The next place we encounter the naturalistic fallacy is in Moore’s

treatment of Bentham’s hedonism. Moore writes that Bentham’s theories about

rightness, at least as they are interpreted by Sidgwick, commit the naturalistic

fallacy.39

This material is fairly dense—perhaps the most difficult passage in

Principia Ethica—and it is hard to derive an interpretation of the naturalistic

fallacy from Moore’s statements about Bentham. But I think it is possible to

show that my claim—that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to infer the identity

39

Principia Ethica, § 14, p. 69. Note that Sidgwick, himself, does not commit the naturalistic

fallacy, and is unique in Moore’s mind for avoiding that error.

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of two properties from their coextension or some weaker relation—is at least

consistent with Moore’s criticisms here.

According to Moore, Sidgwick has claimed40

that Bentham takes the word

‘right’ to mean ‘conducive to general happiness.’ This definition of the word

‘right’ is permissible, says Moore, if it is asserting that ‘right’ refers to those

actions that are good as a means to achieving some particular end (i.e., they are

instrumentally good). Then, asserts Moore, Bentham could choose general

happiness as the good, either by proof or axiomatic assertion. This would be a

fine theory, and Bentham’s reasons for accepting it would be as good as his

reasons for asserting that general happiness was the good. By ‘the good’ we

mean the collection of those things that are morally good—that instantiate

goodness. If general happiness were the good, this would mean that general

happiness was the only thing that instantiated the property goodness. But, claims

Moore, Bentham has not proved or asserted axiomatically what the good is. What

he has done instead is to assert the definition of ‘right’ as conducive to general

happiness, and then to leverage that definition into a definition of the property

moral rightness. He takes the greatest happiness to be the right and proper end of

human action. Moore writes:

[Bentham’s] fundamental principle is . . . that the greatest

happiness of all concerned is the right and proper end of human

40

In The Methods of Ethics (1874), Bk. 1, Chap. iii, § 1.

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action. He applies the word ‘right,’ therefore, to the end, as such,

not only to the means which are conducive to it; and that being so,

right can no longer be defined as ‘conducive to the general

happiness,’ without involving the fallacy in question.41

There is simply not enough information here to determine where the mistake is.

But if we tease the argument apart, it appears that Bentham may have committed

the naturalistic fallacy as represented by NF2, above.

Bentham wishes to defend the principle that ‘right’ means ‘conducive to

general happiness. Moore says that this is a perfectly acceptable theory, provided

Bentham meant by it that rightness is good as a means to the appropriate end, and

provided that he arrived at that conclusion in a particular way. If Bentham had

started from the principle that general happiness was the good, by which Moore

means that general happiness alone is good (thus it is the end—that for which we

ought to strive), and then inferred from this principle and the principle that right

means good as a means to that end that rightness is conducive to the general good,

Bentham would have committed no fallacy. In other terms, this is an acceptable

argument:

Permissible Benthamic argument

1) General happiness is the good (axiomatic or proved by other argument)

2) ‘Right’ denotes what is conducive to the end (to the good, that is)

41

Principia Ethica, p. 70.

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116

3) Therefore right means conducive to the general happiness.

But, writes Moore, this is not the argument Bentham makes. Bentham

wants to show that the greatest happiness is the right and proper end of human

action. That is, he wants to prove (1) from the Benthamic Argument. How he

goes about it involves the naturalistic fallacy. Moore says the mistake he makes

is that “the definition of right as conducive to general happiness proves general

happiness to be the right end—a perfectly invalid procedure.”42

Moore accuses

Bentham of deriving the end of ethics from the definition of rightness. This does

not sound anything like the naturalistic fallacy as interpreted by me or any other

critic we have considered. I have cast the naturalistic fallacy as the inference of a

definition of a moral property based on its co-instantiation with some other

property. What Bentham appears to be doing is deriving the co-instantiation of

properties based upon their identity. “If right, by definition, means conducive to

general happiness, then it is obvious that general happiness is the right end.”43

The inference from the identity of rightness and conduciveness to general

happiness to general happiness being the right end is logically perfectly

acceptable. The question is how did Bentham arrive at that identity? This is

where the naturalistic fallacy occurs, if at all.

42

Principia Ethica, 70-71. 43

Principia Ethica, p. 70.

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Moore takes Bentham’s claim that ‘right’ means ‘conducive to general

happiness’ in two ways—right as a means to an end, and right as an end. Since

Bentham takes ‘right’ to mean ‘conducive to general happiness,’ then every

instance of rightness will be an instance of conduciveness to general happiness,

thus:

Letting R symbolize rightness and H symbolize conduciveness to general

happiness,

∀x(Rx → Hx).

Moore is not certain that Bentham makes this claim. I take this as the

reason he is uncertain whether Bentham actually committed the naturalistic

fallacy.44

Bentham might not make this claim, and still be on the road to the

naturalistic fallacy, however. He might proceed from particular instances of

rightness he has identified as being conducive to the general happiness. He could

generalize to all instances of rightness, thereby satisfying the antecedent of NF2,

or he could fail to do so, and attempt the derive the identity of rightness and

conduciveness to general happiness from the more modest claim ∃x(Rx & Hx),

thereby satisfying the antecedent of NF3.45

44

“ . . . I am inclined to think that Bentham may really have been one of those who committed it.”

Principia Ethica, p. 69. 45

I take Moore to be saddling Bentham with the stronger claim, but the evidence is not clear.

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From either starting point, the inference to the identity of rightness and

conduciveness to general happiness would be an instance of committing the

naturalistic fallacy in one of its configurations:

NF2: ∀x(Rx → Hx) → ∀x(Rx = Hx)46

NF3: ∃x(Rx & Hx) → ∀x(Rx = Hx).

Now, I am not convinced that the principle that the general happiness is

the right end is deducible from the identity between rightness and conduciveness

to general happiness. But that is not central to my argument. That Moore claims

this is what Bentham does is enough for my purposes.

To recap, Bentham attempts to derive the principle that general happiness

is the proper end of ethics. He derives this from the definition of rightness as

conduciveness to general happiness. This definition must come from somewhere.

Bentham (might) derive it from particular instances of co-instantiation between

rightness and conduciveness to general happiness, which he would believe existed

given that he took ‘right’ to mean ‘good as a means to general happiness.’ If

Bentham has so derived the definition, then he has committed the naturalistic

fallacy.

This schematic might prove useful:

46

Given the definition of ‘right’ in the sense of ‘good as a means,’ the left side might actually be a

bi-conditional. That is, the fallacious Benthamic argument might start from the coextension of

rightness and conduciveness to general happiness, and infer their identity.

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Particular instances of rightness that are conducive to general happiness

(Bentham would likely think they all were)

Rightness = Conduciveness to general happiness

General happiness is the proper end of ethics (the good)

While this analysis of Bentham’s argument and his possible commission

of the naturalistic fallacy is somewhat speculative, no other account of the

naturalistic fallacy that I have seen is capable of accounting for any commission

of the fallacy at all.

4. Confusing two questions

In the chapter entitled “Naturalistic Ethics” Moore examines several

theories all of which are said to either commit the naturalistic fallacy or are

accepted readily because of the commission of the naturalistic fallacy. He writes:

“This discussion will be designed both (1) further to illustrate the fact that

the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy, or, in other words, that we are all aware

of a certain simple quality, which (and not anything else) is what we

Naturalistic

Fallacy

occurs here

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mainly mean by the term ‘good’; and (2) to shew that not one but many

different things possess this property.”47

Moore takes it as proof that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy that we have a

shared conception of goodness. I suppose if we did have such a shared

conception and it is what we meant by uses of the word ‘good,’ then it would be a

mistake of some sort to claim that what we meant was some other property. The

fact that we have a shared conception of this simple property is evidence that the

bad inference Moore has pointed out really is a fallacy. Insofar as an argument

with a necessarily false conclusion can be said to be fallacious, I suppose Moore

is correct. Moore hopes to convince us that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy

based, not on our recognition of the invalidity of the inference, but also based on

the fact that we take the conclusion to be false. Once again, we see that he does

not make the claim that naturalists commit the naturalistic fallacy because they

define goodness. Instead, he aims to show us that the fallacy really involves a

mistake by independently demonstrating that the naturalists’ definitions are false.

The order of operations is key here—failure to notice this is likely the reason that

the naturalistic fallacy has been taken to be a definist fallacy.

The second point of his discussion—that many different things possess

this property—is an attempt to show that the good (not goodness) is multifaceted,

in that goodness can be instantiated in many things, not only in instances of

47

Principia Ethica, p. 90

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pleasure or any other single thing. The naturalists Moore takes as his primary

target in this and succeeding discussions are those that claim that goodness is

instantiated in one and only one type of thing. We can call these theories naïve

naturalistic theories.

More important than either of these claims, however, is Moore’s attempt

to give yet another explanation of the naturalistic fallacy. Discussing the naïve

naturalistic theories, Moore writes:

They all hold that there is only one kind of fact, of which the

existence has any value at all . . . . [T]he main reason why the

single kind of fact they name has been held to define the sole good,

is that it has been held to define what is meant by good itself. In

other words they are all theories of the end or ideal, the adoption of

which has been chiefly caused by the commission of what I have

called the naturalistic fallacy: they all confuse the first and second

of the three possible questions which Ethics can ask. It is, indeed,

this fact which explains their contention that only a single kind of

thing is good.48

Reading this quote makes it quite clear what error Moore focused on in

Bentham. Bentham posited a theory of the ideal, or end, wherein it consisted of

only one thing, general happiness. Moreover, he arrived at his conclusion about

48

Principia Ethica, 89-90.

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the end based on defining a fundamental moral property, rightness, as identical

with some other property, one which instantiates rightness. That definition was,

itself, fallaciously deduced. To be “chiefly caused” by commission of the

naturalistic fallacy is to be deduced from an identity statement that was itself the

result of commission of the naturalistic fallacy.

Symbolically, using P for being pleasant and G for being good,

1) ∃x(Px & Gx) Something is pleasant and good

2) ∀x(Px → Gx) All pleasant things are good

3) ∀x(Px ↔ Gx) Pleasantness is the good (pleasure is the sole good)

4) P=G Being pleasant is being good (or pleasure is

goodness)

The naturalistic fallacy is the inference from (1) or (2) or (3) to (4). Naïve

naturalists compound the error, deriving (4) from (1) or (2) and then deriving (3)

from (4).

This becomes still more clear when we consider Moore’s claim that the

naïve naturalists, in committing the naturalistic fallacy, all confuse the first and

second of three questions ethics asks. The three questions are (1) What is

goodness (the property)? (2) What things are good in themselves (what is the

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good)? (3) What ought we to do?49

By virtue of committing the naturalistic

fallacy, naturalists believe themselves to have defined goodness when, perhaps,

they merely noticed that something was both good and in possession of their

favorite natural property. And by virtue of their definitions, they believe

themselves to have identified the good. “That a thing should be good, it has been

thought, means that it possesses this single property: and hence (it is thought) only

what possesses this property is good.”50

Again, nothing in this passage proves that NF1, NF2, or NF3 is the correct

interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy, but they are consistent with this

passage.51

This passage also suggests that my interpretation of Moore’s critique

of Bentham is right.

5. Spencer’s Evolutionary Ethics

Moore accuses Spencer of committing the naturalistic fallacy in

developing his theory of evolutionary ethics. Moore accuses Spencer of making a

number of different errors, and he is not clear about which, if any, is the

naturalistic fallacy. I have found two distinct errors which can be taken to be

instances of NF2 or NF3. In this section, Moore also gives another explanation of

49

Principia Ethica, p. 90. 50

Principia Ethica, p. 90. 51

In fact, it is the first passage that fits well with NF1. I had been on the verge of abandoning it

until re-reading this passage.

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the naturalistic fallacy—one that appears to make it a definist fallacy after all.

Given the surrounding context and previous explanations, I argue that Moore’s

words should not be taken strictly literally in this instance, and that my

interpretations still hold.

The first error Moore accuses Spencer of committing is possibly

identifying being more evolved with being better or higher. Moore is unsure

whether Spencer actually this identification because he uses the words ‘better’

and ‘more evolved’ inconsistently. But Moore claims that Spencer is likely

influenced by commission of the naturalistic fallacy. Though we do not find an

explicit definition of being better, we can infer that Spencer relies on one.

Moore writes:

It may . . . be true that what is more evolved is also higher and

better. But Mr. Spencer does not seem aware that to assert the one

is in any case not the same thing as to assert the other. He argues

at length that certain kinds of conduct are ‘more evolved,’ and then

informs us that he has proved them to gain ethical sanction in

proportion, without any warning that he as omitted the most

essential step in the proof.52

If this is an accurate description of Spencer’s approach, he has inferred from the

co-instantiation of being more evolved and being (morally) better that these are

52

Principia Ethica, p. 101.

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the very same properties. Once this identity is presumed, he can claim that he has

proved that conduct gains ethical sanction in proportion to its being more evolved.

This would be analogous to claiming that pleasantness is the good based on the

identity of the properties pleasantness and goodness. The inference to the claim

about the good is valid, but relies on a bad inference to the identity claim. Here,

the claim that conduct is better in proportion to its being more evolved is a claim

about the proper end of ethics. It is derived from a claim that being better is

identical with being more evolved. And this identity is the result of the

naturalistic fallacy.

The fallacy, in this case, is in the inference from instances of conduct that

are more evolved53

and better (presumably, better than instances that are less

evolved) to the conclusion that being better simply is being more evolved.

Spencer may have made the intermediate step of presuming that all instances of

being better were instances of being more evolved. If so, he may be characterized

as committing the fallacy I have labeled NF2. Otherwise, it would be NF3.

It is only when we view Spencer’s argument in light of a particular model

of ethical reasoning that Moore’s claims that the theory rests on the naturalistic

fallacy become intelligible. This model begins with observations of the moral

status of particular acts and the other properties those acts instantiate:

1) These instances of natural property N are good.

53

Which may or may not mean that they are more conducive to life. This is unclear to me.

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From these observations, general principles about the relation between the moral

and natural (or metaphysical) properties may be derived:

2) All instances of N are good.

If the naturalist then intuits that N is the good (or the end), as Sidgwick does,

there is no naturalistic fallacy. But, if instead of that permissible intuition, the

naturalist first defines the moral property and then works back up to the claim

about the good, then the fallacy is committed:

3) N is identical with goodness.

Once the naturalist has taken this step in furtherance of his claim about the good,

he has committed the fallacy. Nonetheless, most naturalists make the further

claim about the good

4) Since N is identical with goodness, N is the good.

The inference from N=G to ∀x(N↔G) is valid. But the derivation of the identity

is not, so the reasons for adopting the theorist’s views on the good are bad ones.

The second error Moore accuses Spencer of committing is to argue in

favor of his evolutionary ethical theory by appeal to hedonism. In order to prove

his thesis that ‘Conduct is better in proportion as it is more evolved’ he relies

upon the thesis that ‘Life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring

about a surplus of agreeable feeling.’54

Here, Moore claims that Spencer is not

embracing the naturalistic identification of being better with being more evolved,

54

Principia Ethica, p. 102 quoting Spencer, Data of Ethics, Ch. II, § 10.

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but, possibly, identifying goodness with pleasantness. That he does embrace such

a view becomes evident when Spencer claims that “No school can avoid taking

for the ultimate moral aim a desirable state of feeling called by whatever name—

gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure . . . is an inexpugnable element of

the conception.”55

Here, we see Spencer explicitly taking a natural property to be

the proper end of ethics. We know, based on the analysis in sub-section (4),

above, that Moore takes most theories that identify the good with some natural

property commit the naturalistic fallacy. Recall, only Sidgwick seems not to

have, and he avoids the naturalistic fallacy by arriving at his conclusion about the

good by avoiding defining goodness as identical with a natural property. Whether

Spencer can be accused, then, of committing the naturalistic fallacy in his

embrace of hedonism will depend on how it is that he comes to accept his thesis

about the good. Moore does not specifically accuse him of committing the fallacy

here because Spencer’s loose use of language prevents us from knowing how he

arrived at his hedonic thesis.56

If, however, he did so from inferring from

particular instances of pleasantness being good to the identification of

pleasantness and goodness, then he would have committed the naturalistic fallacy.

55

Principia Ethica, p 103, quoting Spencer, DE, § 16. 56

Principia Ethica, p. 100-101, p.105.

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Once the identity is presumed, it is a short step to the conclusion that pleasure is

the sole good.57,58

There is a passage in Moore’s discussion of Spencer, however, that casts

some doubt upon my interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy. In giving a capsule

summary of his criticisms of naturalistic ethics, Moore writes that certain ethical

views—naïve naturalisms—owe their influence to the naturalistic fallacy. This

fallacy, he writes, “consists in identifying the simple notion we mean by ‘good’

with some other notion.”59

I addressed this particular quotation in Chapter 2, in

my discussion of Baldwin’s interpretations of the naturalistic fallacy. I argued

that “consists in” does not mean “is identical to.” In short, defining goodness is

necessary for committing the naturalistic fallacy, but it is not sufficient for doing

so. For example, if someone failed to recognize that goodness was indefinable,

and simply intuited a definition, there would be no fallacy. Of course, we would

have little reason to believe their views about the good. Their views about the

57

One of the reasons Moore does not accuse Spencer of definitely having committed the

naturalistic fallacy in embracing hedonism is that, sometimes, he asserts that being productive of

more life is also an end. If this is the case, he does not take pleasure to be the sole end, and so, he

might not claim pleasure is the good. If he does not make this claim, it would be unfair for Moore

to accuse him of deriving that conclusion from a definition of goodness arrived at via the

naturalistic fallacy. 58

Moore claims Spencer has made another error in supposing that being a law of nature makes a

thesis respectable. Here, again, we see that Spencer’s claim might rest on the naturalistic fallacy.

The reasoning is exactly analogous to the cases of hedonism and being more evolved. A particular

thing (so called ‘directional evolution’) is respected. It is also presumed to be a law of nature.

From this is deduced that being a law of nature is to be respected (clearly false, and an instance of

the naturalistic fallacy). Then from this, the conclusion that laws of nature are all respectable

follows. This example, though a mere side-note to Moore’s discussion of Spencer, might be a best

proof that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to make an inference error of the sort I have

characterized in NF1-NF3. 59

Principia Ethica, p. 109.

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good are based on a definition of good that (1) we have reason to believe is false

(based on the open question argument) and (2) that, itself, is the result of an

invalid inference. I take my interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy to be

consistent with Moore’s claim that the fallacy consists is identifying goodness

with some other property because my view is that the naturalistic fallacy is to

make that identification as the result of a particular pattern of inference.60

I do not claim that my interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy is the only

one consistent with the errors Moore accuses Spencer of making. But it is

consistent with it, and it is also consistent with each additional instance of the

naturalistic fallacy’s uses and explanations in Principia Ethica. No other

interpretation I have found can claim this virtue.61

60

Moore takes all naturalistic theories that make such an identification to do so on grounds of this

particular argument form. He does not recognize any other way to support a property

identification for goodness. I suggested that someone might intuit one, but then Moore could

claim that she would have provided no reasons to believe the identification. In short, you can

intuit the good, but not goodness. This may provide a legitimate source of the criticism that

Moore begs the question against the naturalist. 61

With the exception of Moore’s comments about Mill, the only other discussions of the

naturalistic fallacy appear in his discussion of metaphysical theories of ethics (pp. 165 and 169)

and in his discussion of Beauty (p. 249), in his chapter on the Ideal. Each of these instances is

compatible with my view. With respect to Beauty, the fallacy appears to occur in the inference

that since particular instances of beauty have particular subjective effects upon people, beauty is

identical with such effects. Then, having committed the fallacy, the subjective aestheticist

compounds his error by deriving that the beautiful is all and only that which produces such effects.

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6. Hedonism and Mill

The last Moorean claims about philosophers who have committed the

naturalistic fallacy that I wish to examine come from his comments about

hedonism and John Stuart Mill’s arguments in favor of hedonism. The first

passage is:

Moreover, the very commission of the naturalistic fallacy involves

that those who commit it should not recognize clearly the meaning

of the proposition ‘This is good’—that they should not be able to

distinguish this from other propositions which seem to resemble it

. . . .62

Just as Moore criticized Spencer for having engaged in loose writing, we may

criticize Moore on the same ground here. On any interpretation of the naturalistic

fallacy that could be derived from Principia Ethica, whether my own view or

views I dismissed previously, the commission of the fallacy need not involve not

recognizing the meaning of the proposition ‘This is good.’ It could very well be

that you commit the fallacy while clearly recognizing the meaning. It seems

likely that the confusion is because of failing to express properly the difference

between a proposition and the sentence that expresses it. But by looking at the

further claim that naturalists fail to distinguish that proposition—I can only

62

Principia Ethica, p 113

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assume he means the proposition that something is good, by which he means

something has the property goodness—from others which seem to resemble it, we

may find a place for the naturalistic fallacy. His claim is that someone who

commits the naturalistic fallacy, say by claiming pleasure is identical with

goodness, does so because he cannot distinguish between the propositions that

pleasure is good (meaning pleasure has the property goodness) and pleasure is

good (meaning pleasure is identical with goodness). Earlier, I showed how this,

though looking like confusing the ‘is’ of predication with the ‘is’ of identity, can

be captured by NF2.

Finally, we come to the last significant discussion of the naturalistic

fallacy in Principia Ethica. Moore accuses Mill of having committed the

naturalistic fallacy in his proof that the desired is the good. The argument pattern

is the same here that we have seen in Bentham and in Spencer, but it is more

difficult to spot. 1) Mill claims that good means desirable, then (2) asserts that

what is desirable is what is desired. From this, we get, via the naturalistic fallacy,

(3) the definition that being good is identical with being desired. Therefore, (4)

the desired is the good. It is hard to spot this pattern, in part because Moore

assaults Mill for making the famously bad analogy between desirable and

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visible.63

Most of Moore’s demonstration that Mill commits the naturalistic

fallacy is mixed up with his proof that it is a mistake to take step (2).

Step (1) looks like it would be problematic, but is permissible for Mill to

define good as desirable, if the definition is of good as a means to the end of

ethics rather than good as an end. This is analogous to what Moore would have

allowed for Bentham with respect to right.64

He may also have begun from mere

observation of things that are both good and desirable. Had he supposed that all

good things were desirable, he would have an adequate first step toward the

fallacious proof that goodness is identical with being desired.

At step (2), Mill makes the claim that what is desirable simply is what is

desired. “[T]he sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable,

is that people do actually desire it.”65

Moore seems to assert that Mill commits

the naturalistic fallacy in this step. “Well, the fallacy in this step is so obvious,

that it is quit wonderful how Mill failed to see it.”66

If he has, I take this to be an

instance of the fallacy occurring within another instance of the fallacy. Moore

accuses Mill of having argued from the fact what is desirable is actually desired to

the claim that desirable means desired. This is to infer from particular instances

of things being desirable and being desired that the properties are identical—a

63

I do not reproduce this here, in part because I am not convinced that Mill really makes this error. 64

See text accompanying fn 41 and 42, supra. 65

Mill, Utilitarianism (1861), quoted by Moore, Principia Ethica, p. 118 and reprinted in John

Stuart Mill, Collected Works, Vol. X, J.M. Robson, ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969)

pp. 203-59, at p. 234. 66

Principia Ethica, p. 118.

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straightforward instance of NF3. Alternately, since Mill takes the only proof that

a thing is desirable to be that it is desired, we might make the stronger claim that

all things that are desirable are desired.67

To infer from this that they are identical

would be to commit the naturalistic fallacy in its NF2 configuration. Either way,

it is clear that to be desirable in the sense of being worthy of desire is a very

different thing than being desired. Moore could have left his criticism there, but

finding an instance of the naturalistic fallacy as support for a premise in another

argument that also relies upon the naturalistic fallacy is rather clever.68

If Mill’s identity claim between desirable and desired holds, then we can

substitute the property being desired for being desirable in the original

proposition, yielding that good means being desired. (∀x (Gx → Dx)). By

committing a second naturalistic fallacy, in NF2 form, Mill can (3) infer the

identity between goodness and being desired. Moore writes “The important step

for Ethics is . . . the step which pretends to prove that ‘good’ means ‘desired.’

Moore is adamant that this step be avoided.

67

In truth, I am not sure what direction the arrow would go here—the implication might go either

direction. 68

I suppose this nested naturalistic fallacy claim only holds if my claim about the naturalistic

fallacy is true.

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§ 3) Conclusion

In this chapter, I argued that Moore’s critics make an error when they

accuse Moore of using the naturalistic fallacy as proof that naturalistic theories

are false. I demonstrated, by text and with examples, that Moore does not take

accusations that a philosopher has committed the naturalistic fallacy to do

anything more than undermine our confidence in her reasons for her conclusions

about the proper end of ethics. My claim relies on a model of moral

argumentation that Moore takes naturalists to make—one that involves proving

(fallaciously) that goodness is identical with some natural property, and then

inferring from that identification that their chosen property is the sole good.

I have also offered an interpretation of Moore’s naturalistic fallacy that

more closely fits the text of Principia Ethica than those interpretations I

considered in Chapter 2. On this view to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to

make an invalid inference from the co-instantiation of two properties, to their

identity. It is a general purpose fallacy, affecting any property identification, not

just definitions of goodness. Most significantly, the interpretation presented is

consistent with each of Moore’s various descriptions of the fallacy, and with each

of his demonstrations that other theorists have committed it. When conjoined

with the model of reasoning I highlighted, the view accounts for his claims that

even if we reject the definitions of good naturalists offer, we still need

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independent argumentation to prove that they are wrong about the proper end of

ethics. The naturalistic fallacy, as I have described it, is well suited to play the

role Moore assigned to it. It neither proves too much—that a theory is false for

having committed it—nor too little.

It is not, however, immune to criticism. While the view I have described

is the most comprehensive view of the naturalistic fallacy, it may still be subject

to claims of question begging. In particular, when naturalists do not explicitly

assert that they are starting from any particular observations about good things,

Moore presumes that they are. This is the starting point of each instance of the

naturalistic fallacy. But whether this is a fair presumption is unclear. Can a

coherent story can be told that avoids assuming that goodness is indefinable when

we accuse naturalists of committing the naturalistic fallacy? This will be one

subject of the next chapter.

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Chapter 5

Moore’s Proof that ‘Good’ Refers to a Simple, Non-natural Property1

I. Introduction

I have devoted a significant portion of this dissertation to trying to show

that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is not simply to define an indefinable

property. Moreover, I have claimed Moore does not wield the naturalistic fallacy

as a weapon, cutting down theories that do define goodness on grounds of having

committed the fallacy. Even if he does, however, we might find that he was

justified in doing so—that is, that he does not beg the question against the

naturalists—if he had a reason to believe all naturalistic definitions were false. I

believe that Moore had such a reason. Disambiguating the open question

argument from the naturalistic fallacy shows us that Moore has an argument that

is sufficiently robust to ground even the claims that Frankena attributes to him.

Most commentators take the open question argument to be Moore’s proof

that every naturalistic definition fails. Moore’s actual claim about goodness is

that it is a simple and indefinable property. In Chapter 2, I provided an

examination into what property it is that Moore claims is simple and indefinable.

1 Throughout this chapter, I use the words ‘denotation,’ ‘denoting,’ or ‘denote’ in the non-Millian

sense of the words. By ‘x denotes y’ I mean the word ‘x’ refers to the property or object ‘y.’ In

this regard, I use the words ‘denote’ and ‘connote’ in the reverse of the Millian fashion. This is to

avoid having readers thinking of ‘connotation’ or ‘meaning in the head’ when I mean to draw

attention to the referent, or meaning in the world.

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This was followed by an examination into what it means to be simple and

indefinable. This chapter builds on that material, demonstrating that there are

several different arguments supporting Moore’s claim, some of which are not

easily refuted. I begin in section II with a close examination of Moore’s text, and

several defective interpretations of it. In section III, I offer a reconstruction of

Moore’s arguments that maintains high fidelity to the text. It should be noted at

the outset that I do not find anything that fills the role the open question argument

is usually held to perform. While I do offer an argument that might show that any

definition of ‘good’ in natural terms fails, even those that purport to identify

goodness with a simple natural property,2 I find that it was not Moore’s intention

to show this using the open question argument. Interestingly, the words “open

question” never even appear in the section wherein Moore presents his proof that

goodness is simple and unanalyzable. The first use of this phrase is in the final

sentence of § 14, and it is not taken to be a proof of the indefinability of goodness,

but as an example of defective reasoning about Ethics.

2 So not true definitions, according to Moore. Recall that definitions enumerate the parts of

complex properties, so a simple statement of property identity is not a definition.

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II. Literature review

A. Principia Ethica § 13

Moore’s entire proof that goodness is simple and indefinable is contained

in § 13 of Principia Ethica. Since in the rest of this chapter I will rely heavily on

the text, I include it, nearly in its entirety, interspersed with some commentary

about what I perceive as the appropriate divisions and individual arguments.

Moore begins by delineating the possibilities for what sort of property

goodness might be:

[I]f it is not the case that ‘good’ denotes something simple and

indefinable, only two alternatives are possible: either it is a

complex, a given whole, about the correct analysis of which there

could be disagreement; or else it means nothing at all, and there is

no such subject as Ethics.3

Goodness is simple (and hence, indefinable), or it is complex, or it has no

meaning. By this third option, he means that there is no one thing that ‘good’

denotes. It might be that there are many things.4 It might be best to say that there

3 Principia Ethica, p 66. He makes the same point again as follows: “There are, in fact, only two

serious alternatives to be considered, in order to establish the conclusion that good does denote a

simple and indefinable notion. It might possibly denote a complex, as horse does; or it might have

no meaning at all.” p. 67. The rest of the cited passages in this chapter are from § 13 of Principia

Ethica, appearing on pp. 66-68, unless otherwise indicated. 4 Or (perhaps) none, though I do not know whether Moore would offer this as an option. In his

early works, words that have no referent in the realm of Existence always have one in the realm of

Being (more or less a Meinongian system). While this does not rule out Moore’s acceptance of

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is no “concrete” meaning. This would explain his claim that if goodness had no

meaning there is no such subject as Ethics. After all, if there were no single thing

that is the sole simple object of thought relevant to Ethics, then the discipline

would rest on an error.5

The rest of § 13 of Principia Ethica is devoted to showing that goodness

is not complex and that goodness is not meaningless. The open question

argument has been variously identified as performing both of these tasks, though

as we shall see, it does not. First, let’s consider Moore’s proof that goodness is

not complex.

The hypothesis that disagreement about the meaning of good is

disagreement with regard to the correct analysis of a given whole,

may be most plainly seen to be incorrect by consideration of the

fact that, whatever definition may be offered, it may always, be

asked, with significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is

itself good.

This looks like what we would expect from something called an ‘open question’

argument. To prevent confusion of my analysis of this argument with others’

treatments, I will call this the Significant Question Argument. It appears that

words with no referent, without seeing any textual support for the position, I hesitate to attribute it

to him. 5 This is a bit like saying that if ‘rock’ meant both rocks and ore, there would be no such thing as

Geology (let alone Metallurgy). It is not strictly true, but the idea is clear enough. Such a

situation would undermine claims that the discipline was a science.

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Moore proposes that if we can ask meaningfully, “with significance” whether the

definiens of a complex definition of goodness is good (whether it has the property

goodness—this seems to be a question about predication, not identity), then the

definition is wrong. I take it that only an open question can be asked with

significance. We will consider what it means to be a significant question, below.

Moore presents something strangely different from what is suggested by

this text when he gives us an example of such a complex definition and the

operation of his argument to it. The example he considers is the definition of

goodness as that which we desire to desire.

[I]t may easily be thought, at first sight, that to be good may mean

to be that which we desire to desire. Thus if we apply this

definition to a particular instance and say ‘When we think that A is

good, we are thinking that A is one of the things which we desire

to desire,’ our proposition may seem quite plausible. But, if we

carry the investigation further, and ask ourselves ‘Is it good to

desire to desire A?’ it is apparent, on a little reflection, that this

question is itself as intelligible, as the original question, ‘Is A

good?’—that we are, in fact, now asking for exactly the same

information about the desire to desire A, for which we formerly

asked with regard to A itself. But it is also apparent that the

meaning of this second question cannot be correctly analysed into

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‘Is the desire to desire A one of the things which we desire to

desire?’: we have not before our minds anything so complicated as

the question ‘Do we desire to desire to desire to desire A?’

This passage has been recognized as the one that Virginia Woolf cited as

making her head spin.6 This passage, which is proposed as an example of the

significant question argument described in the previous passage, seems to do two

other things. First there appears to be an argument that looks very much like the

significant question argument. The question “Is it good to desire to desire A’

appears to be an open question. One might think that Moore is suggesting that if

it is an open question, then the definition of goodness as that which we desire to

desire is wrong.7 Taken this way, the passage seems to be a straightforward

example of the significant question argument. But notably absent is a conclusion

that indicates that the openness or significance of the question proves that the

properties are distinct. Instead, Moore launches into what appears to be another

argument. This argument turns on the apparent complexity of the questions we

6 Story recounted in T. Regan, Bloomsbury’s Prophet, pp 197-98.

7 We shall see that this is the interpretation given by Brian Hutchinson in G.E. Moore’s Ethical

Theory, (Cambridge 2001), at p. 30. It is also close to that presented by Stephen Darwall, Allan

Gibbard, and Peter Railton in “Toward Fin de Siecle Ethics: Some Trends,” The Philosophical

Review, Vol. 101, No. 1 (January 1992). Hutchinson takes this to be the standard interpretation.

This standard interpretation ignores Moore’s verbal cues that suggest the multitude of arguments I

have identified, and instead treats the entirety of section 13 as presenting one argument that

attempts to prove that goodness is not identical with any named or defined property. It takes the

partial argument this footnote refers to and combines it with another partial argument that Moore

takes as his evidence of a different proposition altogether. An enduring criticism of Moore’s

argument is that it is “muddled” (Hutchinson, p. 29) and “accident-prone” (Darwall, Gibbard, &

Railton, p. 115). As muddled as Moore’s presentation of his argument appears, taking parts

designed for distinct purposes and combining them into some new argument never explicitly made

by Moore does not seem a sound strategy for clarifying the text.

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are considering. It appears that Moore is claiming that when we substitute for

‘good’ in “Is it good to desire to desire A?” the words that refer to the property

suggested as a definition (the complex), the resulting question is more

complicated than the one we started with. This is evidence that the questions are

distinct. If so given the nature of language, the words substituted for ‘good’ do

not mean the same as ‘good’. That is, they refer to a different property. Call this

the More Complicated Question Argument.

There is yet a third argument in § 13, also in support of the claim that

goodness is not identical with any complex property.

Moreover any one can easily convince himself by inspection that

the predicate of this proposition—‘good’—is positively different

from the notion of ‘desiring to desire’ which enters into its subject:

‘That we should desire to desire A is good’ is not merely

equivalent to ‘That A should be good is good.’ It may indeed be

true that what we desire to desire is always good; perhaps, even the

converse may be true: but it is very doubtful whether this is the

case, and the mere fact that we understand very well what is meant

by doubting it, shews clearly that we have two different notions

before our mind.

Here, Moore appears to claim that our ability to doubt whether it is true

that some complex property is always good and that every instance of goodness is

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also an instantiation of that complex property demonstrates that that property is

not identical with goodness. In other words, if we can doubt a statement that

purports to tell us that the good is a complex property, then we have, when

considering that statement, two different notions in mind. Call this the Argument

From Doubt. In the lead up to this argument, found in the first sentence of this

passage, Moore suggests that mere inspection can convince us that goodness and

the complex property suggested as a definition are distinct. This may, indeed, be

a separate argument to the same conclusion. Call this the Argument From

Inspection.

Having presented at least three, and possibly four, arguments that

goodness is not a complex property, Moore turns his attention to the possibility

that it is no property, or rather, that ‘good’ has no meaning. He begins by

describing a mistake some naturalists make. It is the mistake of inferring from

what appears to be a “universal ethical principle”—like “whatever is called good

seems to be pleasant”—an identity—that ‘good’ and ‘pleasant’ refer to a single

notion (that is, that goodness is identical to pleasantness). This is the mistake I

have identified as the naturalistic fallacy. But instead of arguing that the

identification is always false, as we would expect, and as he has been consistently

interpreted to do,8 he says:

8 Consider, for example, Fred Feldman’s paper “The Open Question Argument: What it isn’t; and

What it is,” Philosophical Issues, 15, Normativity, 2005, pp. 22-43. Feldman argues that the entire

passage which Moore claims to be his argument that ‘good’ is not meaningless is really simply an

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But whoever will attentively consider with himself what is actually

before his mind when he asks the question ‘Is pleasure (or

whatever it may be) after all good?’ can easily satisfy himself that

he is not merely wondering whether pleasure is pleasant. And if he

will try this experiment with each suggested definition in

succession, he may become expert enough to recognise that in

every case he has before his mind a unique object, with regard to

the connection of which with any other object, a distinct question

may be asked. Every one does in fact understand the question ‘Is

this good?’ When he thinks of it, his state of mind is different from

what it would be, were he asked ‘Is this pleasant, or desired, or

approved?’ It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he may

not recognise in what respect it is distinct. Whenever he thinks of

‘intrinsic value,’ or ‘intrinsic worth,’ or says that a thing ‘ought to

exist,’ he has before his mind the unique object—the unique

property of things—that I mean by ‘good.’

This is most definitely not an argument that the identification of goodness

and simple natural properties—like pleasantness—is a mistake. It is, instead, an

argument that when we consider any proposed definition (and I supposed Moore

argument that no theory identifying goodness with a simple natural property, like pleasantness, is

true. Instead, what Moore does here is to remind us that when we consider whether any proposed

definition ‘gets it right,’ we are considering the same property as definiendum. This is proof that

we have a single thing in mind when we say ‘good.’

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chooses simple properties as definiens to prevent the risk of confusion) and

consider the property alleged to be identical with goodness, the property we are

comparing it against is always the same property. That is, we have some

particular property in mind when we use the word ‘good’ (in its moral sense).

Call this the Uniqueness Argument.

If we have a unique property in mind when we use the word ‘good,’ from

which we may infer that there is such a property,9 and goodness (that property) is

not a complex property, then it is a simple property. Simple properties are

indefinable, hence goodness is indefinable. I take it that this is the entire

argument from § 13, with all its subsidiary arguments. It is not clear whether

Moore took himself to be making more than one subsidiary argument in his

discussion of the claim that goodness is not complex. I do not hope to resolve this

question, but rather to see what is there, regardless of what was intended. It is

altogether possible that Moore took all of the subsidiary arguments for that claim

to be different ways of expressing the same point, or that they amount to the same

argument by virtue of turning on the same features of language and metaphysics.

In section III, I explicate the overall argument that goodness is simple and

indefinable and consider the five subsidiary arguments I have identified in support

of the overarching argument. Before turning to that task, though, I consider a

9 Whether this inference is any good will be considered below.

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number of alternative interpretations of Moore’s proof and compare them to the

text as I have just suggested it be read.

B. Some Problematic Interpretations of the Open Question Argument

The first endemic problem in commentary on the open question argument

is that philosophers are often not careful to distinguish it from the naturalistic

fallacy, or take one to be a consequence of the other.10

That the naturalistic fallacy is commonly confused with the open question

argument is proved by Baldwin, who writes in his discussion of the open question

that “[i]t is notable that the section in which [Moore] advances it is the only part

of the opening discussion in Principia Ethica of the naturalistic fallacy which

does not come straight from The Elements of Ethics.”11

Baldwin characterizes the

section of Principia Ethica wherein Moore tries to prove that goodness is simple

and indefinable as part of his discussion of the naturalistic fallacy. I have shown

that the open question argument is distinct from the naturalistic fallacy, both in

10

Another is that many are not actually discussions of Moore’s open question argument, but rather

applications of something akin to the Moore’s open question argument applied against theories

Moore did not explicitly consider. Gilbert Harman, for example, describes the OQA and claims

that it is an invalid argument. Harman, Gilbert, The Nature of Morality, (Oxford, 1977) p. 19. He

notes that someone ignorant about the identity of water and H2O would agree that it is not an open

question whether water is water, but that it is an open question whether water is H2O. So here we

have a perfectly good identity that appears to be disproved by the OQA. But is this the OQA?

The analog for ethics would be that it is not an open question whether goodness is identical with

goodness but it is an open question whether goodness is identical with X, where X names a natural

property. But it seems pretty clear that Moore does not ask whether it is a significant question

whether the identity statement holds, but rather whether an object that instantiates X also

instantiates goodness. In fairness, Harman does not claim to be explicating Moore, but merely

pointing to a kind of anti-naturalist argument. 11

Baldwin, p. 87.

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argument structure and intended conclusion. But Baldwin here asserts that

Moore’s presentation of the open question argument (by which he means his

proof that goodness is simple and indefinable) is part of his discussion of the

naturalistic fallacy. This might explain why some take it to be a simple definist

fallacy. If we view section 13 as proving that all natural definitions of goodness

are false, including those purported definitions that suggest that goodness is

identical with a simple natural property, then surely offering such a definition

would be a mistake. This approach simply gives the attempt to define goodness

the name ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ But this approach makes Moore’s claims about

the naturalistic fallacy trivial, and makes it a complete mystery why Moore would

have written so much by way of explaining the naturalistic fallacy—more, in fact,

than he wrote in § 13.

In addition to conflating Moore’s two major arguments, critics make other

mistakes in describing the open question argument. The next few subsections

provide a cross-section of some of the mistakes typically made.

1. Prior

Before turning to Moore’s proof that goodness is indefinable, we have to

return, briefly, to Prior’s discussion of the naturalistic fallacy. His discussion

demonstrates an error common to those who take the naturalistic fallacy to be

strictly a definist fallacy. Interestingly, he makes this error even though at least

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one of his characterizations of the naturalistic fallacy is virtually identical to one

of mine, NF1. Recall, Prior offers two interpretations of the naturalistic fallacy,

one highlighting the linguistic ramifications of the fallacy—that the naturalistic

fallacy is the assumption that because the words ‘good’ and ‘pleasant’ necessarily

describe the same objects, they attribute the same property to them—and one

focusing on the properties themselves—that the naturalistic fallacy is the

assumption that because some property is necessarily coextensive with goodness,

it is identical with goodness.12

Despite adopting a position that looks very much

like mine, he adopts a different role for the naturalistic fallacy, and in so doing,

adopts a mistaken view of the relation of the naturalistic fallacy to Moore’s proof

that goodness is indefinable.

Prior takes Moore’s proof that goodness is indefinable to be support for

his claims about the naturalistic fallacy. That is, Prior makes the same error as

Baldwin, above. Prior claims that when the naturalistic fallacy is committed, the

philosopher who has committed it fails to realize that ‘good’ and some other

adjective, say, ‘pleasant’ may be applicable to the same things and yet not denote

the same property. He takes the argument to show that two adjectives may

accurately describe the same object without denoting the same property in that

object.13

Stated this way, nothing could be more obvious. Why the open question

12

See this dissertation, Chapter 2, and Prior, Logic and the Basis of Ethics, p 1. 13

Most people take Moore’s proof that goodness is indefinable to be the open question argument.

Prior does not frame his interpretation of Moore’s argument in terms of open questions.

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argument (or a variant of it) is needed as support for this proposition is unclear.

The mere fact that ‘black’ and ‘clicky’ accurately describe the keyboard upon

which I typed this sentence without referring to the same property of that

keyboard proves this proposition. The naturalistic fallacy, when taken in Prior’s

property-referring form, is similarly without need for support. Moore’s proof that

goodness is indefinable goes no way toward supporting the claim that inferring

the identity of properties based only on their coextension is an invalid maneuver.

Recall, the naturalistic fallacy is supposed to be a perfectly general fallacy, and is

not simply limited to identifications of goodness. We need only to think about the

coextension and identity relations to see that this is true, or reflect on a couple of

less controversial examples. If the point of the open question argument is merely

to demonstrate that coextension and identity are different relations, it makes no

sense at all for Moore to attempt to show this by reference to the property

goodness—a property about which there is so much contention. That goodness is

indefinable shows only that an argument that concludes that goodness is identical

with another property has a false conclusion, but tells us nothing about the

reasoning. Given that Prior takes the naturalistic fallacy to be about the inference,

not the definition of goodness, it is unclear why he views the open question

argument as support for the naturalistic fallacy.

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Nevertheless, looking at Prior’s version of Moore’s proof may be

instructive. Prior describes the basis of Moore’s proof that goodness is

indefinable as follows:

If the word ‘good’ and the word ‘pleasant’ apply to the same

things, but do not attribute the same quality to them, then to say

that what is pleasant is good, or what is good is pleasant, is to

make a significant statement, however obvious its truth may appear

to many people. But if the word ‘good’ and the word ‘pleasant’

not merely have the same application but the same connotation or

‘meaning’—if, that is to say, the quality of pleasantness is identical

with the quality of goodness—then to say that what is pleasant is

good, or that what is good is pleasant, is to utter an empty

tautology . . . for both statements are on this supposition merely

ways of saying that what is pleasant is pleasant.”14

This is more of an observation than an argument, but one can be made

based on what is said here. The idea is that if we take any proposed definition, a

statement to the effect that what possesses the proffered properties is good is a

significant statement. And if this is true, then the proffered definition is wrong.

Prior is careful to point out that Moore thinks this approach shows that complex

definitions fail. But then Prior goes wrong by claiming that Moore also applies

14

Prior, p. 2.

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this argument to simple definitions (definitions in terms of a simple property

only).15

His claim, then, is that the open question argument attempts to show that

goodness is not identical with any simple or complex natural property. Rather,

the open question argument (or the significant question argument) is a mere part

of Moore’s overall proof that goodness is simple and indefinable. As I have

shown, above, it is one argument used in support of the claim that goodness is not

identical with a complex property. But it does not appear to be Moore’s entire

proof.

Moreover, Prior’s argument is not exactly Moore’s open question

argument. In fact, as I have noted, it is not clear just what really is the open

question argument.16

Note that there is no question asked and nothing that is left

“open.” It may, however, turn on the same intuitions about language at evidence

in what I have called the significant question argument. In this case, the

significant statement made can be viewed in the same light as an open question.

The openness of the question “is it good?” is a result of the meaningfulness of the

assertion. If the claim that what was desirable to desire is good was a mere

tautology, the question “is it good?” would not be an open question.

15

Prior, p. 3. 16

Consider, for example, Fred Feldman’s paper, “The Open Question Argument: What it Isn’t;

and What it is,” in Philosophical Issues, 15, Normativity, 2005, pp. 22-43, wherein Feldman finds

no fewer than four unique arguments that might claim this title. Notably, none of these actually

turns on the identification of any open questions. He also offers one more that is in the spirit of

Principia Ethica, but certainly not to be found within it that does turn on an open question.

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2. Hutchinson

Like Prior, Hutchinson treats § 13 of Principia Ethica as though it

presented one unified argument that no natural definition (or identity statement, in

the case of simple definitions) is true, but unlike Prior, he notes that reading the

passage this way is to disregard Moore’s verbal cues.17

Nonetheless, he claims

that Moore’s proof that ‘good’ is not meaningless is better read as a proof that

‘good’ is not the name of any simple natural property, and all the arguments of §

13 preceding that passage, with the exception of the significant question

argument, are non sequitors.18

To note that there is a variety of arguments being

offered but to dismiss all but the first and last as trivial seems almost worse than

getting them wrong!

3. Sturgeon

Nicholas Sturgeon advocates something akin to the standard interpretation

of the open question argument in “Moore on Ethical Naturalism.”19

He

summarizes the open question test thusly:

[Moore] assumes that [any proposed identification of goodness

with a natural property] can be correct only if the two terms used

in stating it are synonyms . . . . Substituting synonyms for

17

Brian Hutchinson, G.E. Moore’s Ethical Theory (Cambridge 2001) pp 28-38. 18

Hutchinson, p. 29. 19

Nicholas Sturgeon, “Moore on Ethical Naturalism,” Ethics 113 (April 2003): 528–556, at 533.

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synonyms should not change the thought that a sentence expresses.

But, as he cleverly notes, when we substitute into the very

statement of these proposed definitions, it seems obvious that in

thinking that what we desire to desire is good we are not merely

thinking that what we desire to desire is what we desire to desire,

and that in thinking that pleasure is good we are not merely

thinking that pleasure is pleasant. 20

Sturgeon makes a couple of errors in his analysis of Moore’s argument.

The first is in thinking that the open question test is one single argument. As I

have stated above, the open question argument is Moore’s argument that goodness

is simple and indefinable, not his argument that no natural definition is correct. I

contend that more is needed to reach that conclusion. My arguments to this effect

are found in the final chapter of this work. He also combines two distinct

arguments, treating the argument that goodness is indeed a property (that “good”

is not meaningless) with the argument that goodness is not complex.

The more significant error is that his explanation of the open question

argument suffers from the defect of misinterpreting the substitution Moore

engages in when he considers whether the sentences, differing only in the

substitution of purported synonyms, actually express the same thought. Here is a

proposed definition of good:

20

Ibid.

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[1] Pleasure is good.

Sturgeon believes that when we substitute the proposed definiens for

‘good’ we get:

[2] Pleasure is pleasant.

Sturgeon is right that these two expressions do not express the same

thought. He claims that [1] is the statement of the definition. This is, of course,

an identity statement. But [2] is not an identity statement. It is a predication of

pleasantness to pleasure. The sentence that should result from a substitution of

the definiens for the definiendum is:

[2'] Pleasure is pleasure.

It is little wonder that a predication and an identity statement do not

express the same thought. After all, even with no substitution, [1] read as an

identity statement does not mean the same as [1] read as a predication.

Regardless of whether the argument turns on the substitution of synonyms in a

sentence like [1], we ought to be careful to treat the original and the modified

statements both as identity statements or both as predications.

4. Brandt

Richard Brandt describes a version of the open question argument.21

For

any two terms, P and Q, that are purported to have the same meaning, we may

21

Brandt, Richard B. Ethical Theory: the Problems of Normative and Critical Ethics (Prentice

Hall 1959), p. 164.

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compose a question of the form: “Is everything P also Q?”22

This question asks

whether everything that instantiates P also instantiates Q. If this question is

intelligible or significant, then P does not mean the same thing as Q. Note that

this does not ask of a single P-ish object whether it is Q-ish, it asks whether every

P-ish thing is Q-ish. So on Brandt's version of the open question argument, the

test is one of coextensiveness. Since the test is phrased perfectly generally, P and

Q could be reversed—‘is everything P also Q’ and ‘is everything Q also P.’ If it

is intelligible to ask whether P and Q are coextensive, then P and Q are not

identical. This does not look much like the test Moore proposes in § 13.

Brandt suggests a criticism that applies to his version and might attach to

more ordinary versions of Moore's test too.23

While most critics emphasize that

the open question test fails because there are plenty of analyses, even good ones,

that fail the test,24

Brandt focuses on a different problem. There are presumed

failed analyses that will pass the test, at least for certain cognizers. For example,

many people will incorrectly find that there is no significant question when

'bachelor' and 'unmarried male' are substituted for P and Q, forgetting that

divorcees and widowers are unmarried males, but are not bachelors. While I find

that this version of the argument has little in common with the arguments to be

found in Moore’s text, it is worth noting that a successful version of the argument

22

So on this version, the test applies to all definitions, not just definitions of goodness. Brandt

generalizes the test in a way that it is not clear Moore would endorse. 23

Brandt, p. 165. 24

Ordinary language users might find that whether Water is H2O is a significant question . . .

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will have to ensure both that successful analyses pass the test, and unsuccessful

ones fail.

III. Moore’s arguments explicated

We have seen that the “standard interpretation” of the open question

argument seems not to capture the full flavor of the argument Moore presented. It

combines elements of what appear to be distinct arguments, perhaps in an attempt

to create a single argument that accomplishes all that Moore’s naturalistic fallacy

has been interpreted to do. I hold that Moore’s proof is open to more nuanced

interpretations than those. By hewing closer to the text, I believe a better

interpretation of the proof that goodness is indefinable can be discerned. With

some luck, this new argument will be less susceptible to the traditionally asserted

critiques.

The first point to notice about the presentation of § 13, above, is that

Moore clearly intends his proof that goodness is simple and indefinable to be a

multi-step proof. It does not proceed by showing that every suggested definition

is wrong and to conclude from this fact that no such definition is possible, as has

been contended. Instead, Moore sets out the options—‘good’ denotes a simple

property, a complex property, or no property, i.e., it is a meaningless word—and

argues that the latter two are false. As I have pointed out, what is usually called

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the ‘open question argument’ is Moore’s proof that ‘good’ does not denote a

complex property, or, as is more likely the case, one of the arguments to that

conclusion.

The overall argument may be reconstructed as follows:

Proof that ‘good’ denotes a simple, indefinable property

1. ‘Good’ denotes something simple and indefinable, or it denotes something

complex, or it denotes nothing at all.

2. ‘Good’ does not denote something complex.

3. ‘Good’ does not denote nothing at all.

4. Therefore, ‘good’ denotes something simple and indefinable.

This is a valid argument. The first premise presents the three possibilities

Moore recognizes for the meaning of ‘good.’ The proof is framed as about the

meaning of the word ‘good’ rather than about the identity of the property

goodness for the sake of clarity and consistency with Moorean convention. It is

particularly tricky to talk about the property, itself, if one of the possibilities under

consideration is that there is no such property. A property can be complex,

having constituent parts and thereby be subject to analysis or definition; or it can

be simple, and not admit of definition. Moore cannot engage in talk of properties

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without or existence or being.25

He takes properties to be real things, the objects

of thought, and the bearers of meaning.26

So it is very difficult to talk of a

property having no meaning. But a word might refer to no particular property, or

no property unique to ethics. That would satisfy the third disjunct of (1).

The second premise is supported by the arguments I called the Significant

Question Argument, the More Complicated Question Argument, the Argument

from Doubt, and the Argument from Inspection. It is not clear whether Moore

intended these to amount to one argument, or as several arguments to the same

conclusion. I will treat them separately, noting their interactions when necessary.

Premise three is supported by a different argument, one that is clearly distinct

from what has commonly been called the open question argument. I have called

it the Uniqueness argument. I turn now to the individual sub-arguments.

25

This is a limitation we do not share with Moore, in part because we have adopted conventions

for talking about properties. He tries throughout the text to distinguish between existent objects

and non-existent universals, and one way he does this is by referring to universals as the meanings

of words off-set in single quotes. We could, easily enough, recast this argument in terms of

properties:

1. Either goodness is simple (and hence indefinable), or it is complex, or there is no such

property.

2. Goodness is not complex

3. It is not the case that there is no such property.

4. Therefore, goodness is simple (and hence, indefinable). 26

Technically, propositions are the bearers of meaning, but, at least in the years immediately

preceding his writing Principia Ethica, including the years when most of it was worked out as The

Elements of Ethics, he took objects to be propositions as well. When it comes to properties, he

would accept a proposition containing only a property as an element. See “Nature of Judgment,”

Mind (1899).

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A. Arguments in Support of Premise (2)27

1. The Significant Question Argument

I have identified a number of possible arguments in § 13 for the

conclusion that ‘good’ does not denote a complex property. The first of these, the

significant question argument, claims that for any definition that identifies

goodness with a complex property, since it is always a significant question

whether “the complex so defined” is itself good, goodness is not a complex

property. This is a troubling way to describe the argument, as it is not clear just

what Moore means by “the complex so defined.”28

The usual interpretation is that

Moore means “the complex suggested as a definition.” This is supported in an

example he provides in § 26. In that section, he says of the view that goodness is

a feeling that “It will always remain pertinent to ask, whether the feeling itself is

good; and if so, then good cannot itself be identical with any feeling.”29

I

reconstruct a version of this argument below. Moore aims this argument at the

27

Don Regan claims that modern Mooreans should accept only that the open question argument

shows that goodness is normative, so different in kind than natural properties. He asks, “Why then

does a Moorean believe “good” is not complex? Just because no definition yet suggested in terms

of another normative concept produces as plausible a picture of the moral universe as the picture

which takes “good” as foundational.” Don Regan, “How to be a Moorean,” Ethics 113 (April

2003) pp. 651–677 at 658. This is to explicitly reject the view that the open question argument

proves that goodness is simple, but to tentatively accept the simplicity of goodness, pending

development of a better view. I think Moore’s arguments for the simplicity of goodness (or my

reconstructions, anyway) are worth accepting. 28

At least I am troubled by it. 29

Principia Ethica, p. 93 (§ 26 ¶ 3)

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theory that goodness is identical with a complex property, so I frame the argument

in terms of the property being something we desire to desire.

• Significant Question Argument

1. If goodness is identical with being something we desire to desire, then the

question whether being something we desire to desire is good is not

significant.30

2. The question whether being something we desire to desire is good is

significant.

3. Therefore, it is not the case that goodness is identical with being

something we desire to desire.

Premise (1) seems a fair embodiment of Moore’s view. As we will see in

a moment, though, there are hints that Moore means something else. As stated, it

is appears to turn on the idea that if the property being something we desire to

desire is identical with goodness, then it would instantiate goodness. In other

words, it would instantiate itself. We must further suppose that when a property

self-instantiates, it is not a significant question whether it does so. But this is a

doubtful proposition. If the question of whether a property self-instantiates is not

significant, and the question of whether some complex property instantiates

30

Alternatively, the premise might read “ . . . is not pertinent” to conform with Moore’s second

example.

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goodness is a significant question, then goodness is not identical with that

complex property.

Premise (2) asserts that it is a significant question whether the complex

property in question—being something we desire to desire—is good. This seems

right. From this, the significant question argument concludes that goodness is not

identical with being something we desire to desire.

The fault with this argument lies in premise (1). I think that even if

goodness were identical with being something we desire to desire, the question

whether being something we desire to desire is good would be significant. Moore

does not specify what it means to be a significant or a pertinent question, but there

are some hints. Roger Hancock argues that we might draw from the statements I

have suggested as belonging to alternative arguments. In the passage I called the

“argument from doubt,” Moore writes that the fact that we understand what it

means to doubt whether what we desire to desire is good suggests that goodness

and being that which we desire to desire are different properties. According to

Hancock, Moore means by this that knowing what it means to doubt whether

property F is identical with property G implies that the question whether F is G is

significant (and vice versa31

).32

This might be what Moore had in mind, but I

rather doubt it. The question whether F is G is a question of predication, not

31

After all, the argument we are trying to support is that the significance of the predication

question demonstrates that the identity under consideration is false. 32

Hancock, Twentieth Century Ethics (Columbia University Press 1974) p. 30.

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identity. I do not know what reliable inferences we can make about the

predication of two properties that are not identical. If F were identical to G, it

might not even make sense to ask whether F instantiated G. In fact, without

having done a survey of properties, I expect that our doubts about the identity of

two properties tell us nothing about whether one can instantiate the other. In

other words, whether one property can instantiate another is always a significant

question, or at the very least, turns on something other than our knowing what it

means to doubt their identity. I do not doubt that Hesperus identical with

Phosphorus, and whether being Hesperus instantiates being Phosphorus is not a

significant question. However, my lack of doubt about identity does not ensure

that the instantiation question is not significant. I do not doubt that being a circle

is identical with being a closed plane curve every point of which is equidistant

from a fixed point within the curve, while whether the property being a circle

instantiates being a closed plane curve every point of which is equidistant from a

fixed point within the curve is a significant question.33

Goodness, however, might

be an exception.

To illustrate, let us consider the properties goodness and pleasantness. I

know what it means to doubt whether goodness is identical with pleasantness.

33

I am told that this example was first suggested as an objection to Moore’s requirements for

successful analyses by Ralph Barton Perry in General Theory of Value, (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926), p. 131. Once we recognize that transparency is hard to

come by in a definition, definitions of geometric properties come to mind as paradigm cases, so it

is not surprising that I have stumbled across the same counterexample.

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The suggestion under consideration would then make the question whether

pleasantness instantiates goodness a significant question. That seems fine. But if

we consider the property goodness, alone, we can see that this suggestion for the

meaning of ‘significance’ fails. I do not know what it means to doubt whether

goodness is identical with goodness.34

We might expect from this that it is not an

open question whether goodness is good. But, in fact, this does seem like a

significant question to me.

Moore does not seem to think it is.35

I contend that it is not clear from

these passages what Moore thinks about this question. While he clearly takes it

not to be significant, the standard interpretation is that he thinks it is insignificant

because it is obviously true, and tautologous.36

This is, I think, a mistake caused

by commentators failing to recognize that he was asking questions of predication,

not identity. Of course goodness is identical with goodness. To deny this would

be a contradiction. But Moore is asking about predication here, not identity. And

he cannot believe that goodness is self-instantiating. Moore takes goodness to be

a property that things have in virtue of their intrinsic properties. But it is not,

itself, an intrinsic property. It is also simple and without parts, so it cannot have

34

Actually, Moore’s language here is unfortunate. I think I know what it means to doubt it, I just

do not actually doubt it. 35

Roger Hancock suggests that Moore thinks sentences of the form “Whatever is P is P” are

always tautologous and cannot be doubted. Hancock, p. 30. Further, Hancock suggests that this is

because the denial of such a sentence is self contradictory. While this is true when the sentence

expresses an identity, it is not necessarily true when it expresses a mere predication. After all,

happiness is not happy. 36

Hancock, p. 30.

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164

any intrinsic properties by which to instantiate itself. Therefore, the question “is

goodness good?” is not significant by virtue of having an obvious answer.

Goodness is not good, itself, because goodness cannot instantiate itself. So, on

this theory of what it means to be significant, the significance of a question about

whether a given complex property is good does seem to support the conclusion

that the complex property and goodness are not identical. Unfortunately, it

suffers the defect of being question begging. We ought not rely on a notion of

significance that requires the insignificance of a question about the predication of

goodness to turn on a feature of goodness we are trying to prove, namely, its

simplicity.

Moore needs an account of significance such that whether goodness is

good is not significant and whether any complex property is good is significant.

It is unlikely that Moore can offer such an account because the first condition

cannot be met. I contend that no account of significance will do. I expect that on

any account of significance that makes the first question insignificant, the second

question will be insignificant too. And that on any account that makes the second

question significant, whether goodness is good will be significant as well. Based

on these considerations, the significant question argument fails.

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2. The More Complicated Question Argument

The preceding argument was based on the very first sentence of Moore’s

argument that goodness is not identical with any complex property. This

interpretation seems reasonable, though it does not comport with the example he

gives in sentences immediately following, in which it is asked, not whether a

particular complex is good, but whether an object or state of affairs, A, that

instantiates that complex is good.37

If those sentences are intended as an example

of the significant question test, then I have the argument wrong, though I would

be in good company. I think, though, that the argument in this passage is

different.

As in the previous argument, the complex property under consideration is

being something we desire to desire. Using ‘A’ as a placeholder for a description

of a state of affairs or an object, Moore asks us to consider a series of questions:

(a) Is A good?

37

Moore seems to apply the argument as being based on the fact that it is an open question

whether the definiens is good and also whether an object or state of affairs that instantiates the

definiens is good. This has been noted by Connie Rosati as well. See, “Agency and the Open

Question Argument,” Ethics vol. 113 (April 2003) p. 497. Moore seems also to ask whether the

state of affairs of the object instantiating the definiens is good. So, is property P good?; Is A

(which instantiates P) good?’ and Is A instantiating P good. This last one is particularly

interesting, because the analogous question about goodness is not tautologous, but arguably

meaningless. It is not clear to me what it means to ask whether it is good that a state of affairs is

good. It is not clear to me that particular moral judgments have any moral value themselves at all.

It strikes me that Moore might be on to something here. While the more complicated question

argument is interesting in and of itself, the fact that the very complicated questions are intelligible

when the same would not be true if ‘good’ were inserted in place of the words denoting the

complex property suggests that Moore can, by asking the right question, get the result that

questions involving only ‘good’ are not significant. (in the sense of ‘making sense to ask).

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(b) Is it good to desire to desire A?

(c) Is the desire to desire A one of the things which we desire to desire?

(d) Do we desire to desire to desire to desire A?

Moore points out first that (b) is an intelligible question. It asks the same

thing of the desire to desire A as (a) asks about A itself. The theory under

consideration is that ‘good’ means the same thing as ‘something we desire to

desire,’ so we ought to be able to substitute for ‘good’ in (b) to arrive at (d). (c) is

a paraphrase of (d) that is easier for some people to understand. On a theory of

meaning that preserves meaning when synonyms are substituted for each other,38

(b) and (d) will mean the same thing if ‘good’ and ‘that which we desire to desire’

denote the same property. But, says Moore, (b) and (d) do not mean the same

thing. When we assert (b) we do not assert something as complicated as (d).

• More Complicated Question Argument

1. (d) is more complicated than (b).

2. If (d) is more complicated than (b), then (b) does not mean the same as

(d).

3. Therefore, (b) does not mean the same as (d).

4. If (b) does not mean the same as (d), then ‘good’ does not mean

‘something we desire to desire.’

38

A perfectly reasonable view.

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167

5. Therefore ‘good’ does not mean ‘something we desire to desire.’

I have phrased the argument in terms of the word ‘good’ rather than in

terms of goodness, itself, since the premise this argument supports is also in terms

of ‘good.’39

In support of (1), we might point to the words that make up the sentence,

but that would not be particularly helpful. Doing so would undermine our faith in

(2). (d) is syntactically more complex than (b), but that proves very little.

Consider the sentence that conveys the definition of a circle, above. ‘This is a

circle’ is far less complicated, syntactically, than ‘This is a closed plane curve

every point of which is equidistant from a fixed point within the curve’ but these

sentences mean the same thing. Moore does not tell us why he believes (b) is

more complicated than (d). When we consider (b), “we have not before our

minds anything so complicated as” (d).40

This seems right. When we consider

the two questions, one just seems simpler. It has fewer relations to keep straight.

Unfortunately, this is true also of the sentences about the circle. The difference is

that for a person well-versed in geometry, the meaning of the syntactically

complex sentence about a circle does not seem any more complicated than the

meaning of the second one. On the other hand, a committed naturalist who

39

This argument, like the overall argument that this one supports, can be rephrased in terms of

properties rather than words, but it is far easier to treat it, as Moore does, as an argument about

what the denotations. Since Moore is a realist about meaning, we can draw the appropriate

conclusions about the properties themselves. 40

It is not clear here whether he means for us to consider the sentence that expresses the question

or the question itself.

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offered the definition we are considering might stand in the same position as our

geometer with respect to (b) and (d)—although (d) looks more complicated than

(b) to Moore and to me, to an expert naturalist, they might appear equally simple.

I reserve judgment on this premise for the time being. Ultimately, even if this

argument fails, I think we can construct one from its ashes that succeeds.

Premise (2) relies on the implicit claim that no two questions that differ in

complexity mean the same thing. They are different questions. I do not know

whether this is true or not, but I suspect it is. Premise (4) relies on the view that

synonyms can be substituted for each other without a resulting change in the

meaning of sentences in which they appear.41

This seems correct.

On the whole, this argument looks pretty good. Note an important feature

of this argument: it does not work for simple properties offered as definitions of

goodness. For example, if the definition under consideration was that goodness

was pleasantness we would get:

(b') Is it good that A is pleasant?

(d') Is it pleasant that A is pleasant?

Here, the argument would fail at (1) because (d') is no more complicated

than (b'). Without the leverage from their differing levels of complexity, Moore

could not show that (b') and (d') did not have the same meaning. But this is no

41

In Fred Feldman’s version of this argument, he sensibly attributes a compositional theory of

meaning to Moore that accounts for the substitutivity of synonyms. See, Feldman (2005) pp 31-

33.

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drawback of the argument. Remember that this argument was only in support of

the premise that ‘good’ does not denote a complex property. As I have outlined

above, Moore does not present an argument in § 13 that goodness is not identical

with any simple property.

3. The Argument From Inspection

The entire argument from inspection is contained in one sentence in

Principia Ethica. Again discussing the suggestion that goodness means that

which we desire to desire, Moore writes:

Moreover any one can easily convince himself by inspection that

the predicate of this proposition—‘good’—is positively different

from the notion of ‘desiring to desire’ which enters into its subject:

‘That we should desire to desire A is good’ is not merely

equivalent to ‘That A should be good is good.’

The proposition Moore is writing about is not specified. But given the

examples with which he follows, it appears that he means the proposition

expressed by an affirmative answer to (b). On the other hand, we do not think of

words as being the subjects or predicates of propositions, but of sentences.42

We

42

This is a picky point. Moore is pretty clearly not talking about the words ‘good’ and ‘desiring to

desire,’ but the properties to which they refer, which can make up the subject and predicate of the

resulting proposition.

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can cure this defect in one of two ways. We can take Moore to mean either that

we can tell by inspection of the properties that enter into the appropriate places in

the structured proposition that the denotations of ‘good’ and ‘being something we

desire to desire’ are different, or that we can tell by inspection of the meanings of

propositions that result from affirming (b) and substituting the definiens and the

definiendum that ‘good’ and ‘being something we desire to desire’ are different.

The first possibility ought to be rejected. If we had that kind of epistemic access

to the properties themselves, there would be no need for argumentation. Whether

goodness was identical with any complex property would be immediately

ascertainable. It seems to me that the very point of Moore’s dialectical device—

to substitute the properties in propositions and recognize that the resultant

propositions have different meanings—is to provide a way to see that the

properties are different when it is not apparent by direct inspection of the

properties themselves.43

We have, instead, to make use of the second route.

Recall (b):

(b) Is it good to desire to desire A?

The affirmative answer to the question posed might be:

43

In fact, there may be little reason to think that it is any easier to see that the meanings of whole

sentences are different than it is to see that the meaning of constituent parts of those sentences are

different. Given the compositionality of meaning that seems to underlie some of these arguments,

direct inspection of the individual properties is likely what allows us to discern a difference in the

meanings of the sentences. If so, then what I have called the argument from inspection may be

two distinct arguments. One relies on direct inspection of the properties, and the other on

inspection of the properties in the context of a whole sentence.

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(e) It is good to desire to desire A.

If we substitute ‘good’ for ‘to desire to desire’ we get:

(f) It is good that A is good.44

If the definition under consideration is true, we would expect that (e) and

(f) have the same meaning. But we can tell “by inspection” that they do not.

From this we proceed exactly as in the More Complicated Question argument.

• Argument From Inspection

1. (e) does not mean the same as (f).

2. If (e) does not mean the same as (f), then ‘good’ does not mean

‘something we desire to desire.’

3. Therefore ‘good’ does not mean ‘something we desire to desire.’

This argument is slightly less satisfying than the More Complicated

Question argument. This is because we have so little support for (1). In the

previous argument, we had the fact that one question was more complicated than

the other to bolster our intuitions that (b) and (d) were distinct in meaning. Here,

we have inspection of (e) and (f). I am not convinced that we can discern a

difference. Moore claims that we can see that one is not merely equivalent to the

other, but I am not convinced. I expect that someone who really believed that

goodness and being that which we desire to desire were the same property would

44

Again, I think the real puzzle here is how (f) is meaningful at all.

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not see the difference even after close inspection. To tell the difference between

the propositions expressed by (e) and (f) we would need the same privileged

epistemic access that I doubted above.

4. The Argument from Doubt

The last argument I find in § 13 in support of the claim that ‘good’ does

not denote a complex property is the “argument from doubt.” Moore claims that

the fact that we understand what is meant by doubting that goodness and that

which we desire to desire are coextensive shows that we are thinking about

distinct properties. He writes:

It may indeed be true that what we desire to desire is always good;

perhaps, even the converse may be true: but it is very doubtful

whether this is the case, and the mere fact that we understand very

well what is meant by doubting it, shews clearly that we have two

different notions before our mind.45

I have framed the argument in terms of coextension because Moore seems

to grant that it might be true that what has the complex property is always good,

45

Principia Ethica, p. 68, § 13, ¶ 2.

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but he doubts whether the relation goes the other way. He doubts whether every

instance of goodness is an instance of something we desire to desire.46

We can construct a fairly simple argument from this.

• Argument From Doubt

1. We doubt whether goodness is coextensive with being that which we

desire to desire.

2. If (1) then goodness is not identical with being that which we desire to

desire.

3. Therefore, goodness is not identical with being that which we desire to

desire.

Premise (1) is uncontroversial. Many people doubt that the properties are

coextensive. That is, they either doubt that all instances of goodness are instances

of desiring to desire, or they doubt that all instances of desiring to desire are

instances of goodness. Premise (2) is problematic. The fact that we doubt that

two properties are coextensive does not prove that they are not identical. It does

show that we doubt that they are identical because you cannot have identity

without coextension. It might be objected that I have mischaracterized the

argument. Instead of arguing from the presence of doubt to the non-identity of

46

It is not necessary to frame the argument this way. Moore certainly seems to doubt both

propositions. But he doubts one more than the other. Framing the question as I have takes care of

both.

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goodness and the given complex property, Moore argues from the fact that we

understand what it means to doubt the coextension that the properties are not

identical. The argument would go as follows:

1'. We understand what it means to doubt whether goodness is coextensive

with being that which we desire to desire.

2'. If (1') then goodness is not identical with being that which we desire to

desire.

3'. Therefore, goodness is not identical with being that which we desire to

desire.

Unfortunately, this argument is no better than the first, and in fact, I think

it is somewhat worse, in that it really amounts to the traditional interpretation of

the open-question argument, and fails for the same reasons. That is, given the

most likely explanation for (2'), the argument will be plagued by Frege problems.

Presumably, we cannot understand what it means to doubt that two identical

properties are coextensive. An understanding of the relations identity and

coextension seem to guarantee this. If so, to understand what it means to doubt

whether two properties are coextensive is, presumably, to be open to the

possibility that one property can be instantiated without the other, and hence, the

possibility that they are not identical. But, as we know, this willingness to

entertain the non-identity of properties does not demonstrate that they are not

identical. Many of us understand what it means to doubt that Hesperus is

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Phosphorus. But this does not show that Hesperus and Phosphorus are non-

identical. Being Hesperus is identical with being Phosphorus. So premise (2') is

false.

Perhaps it may be objected that competent reasoners cannot know what it

means to doubt that Hesperus is Phosphorus, and that, generally, when we

consider properties that are identical, we cannot know what it means to doubt

their coextension. Such a proposal amounts to amending premise (1'), removing

‘We’ and substituting ‘Competent moral reasoners’ in its place. I think this

modification fails as well. Even a competent moral reasoner may understand

what it means to doubt whether goodness is coextensive with, say, intrinsic value.

Then, the argument would conclude that goodness is not identical with intrinsic

value. But Moore takes these to be the same property.47

Finally, a Moorean

might object to the argument on grounds that the explanation offered for premise

(2') fails. She might claim that there is no general principle about doubting that

justifies the result here, but rather, the argument only holds for goodness and

proposed complex properties offered as definitions. I see no reason to limit the

reasoning for premise (2'). Without an account of goodness that explains why our

understanding what it means to doubt its coextension with a given complex

property has any bearing on whether the properties are identical, the argument

will fail. I do not see a plausible explanation forthcoming.

47

He takes ‘good’ and ‘intrinsic value’ to be names for the same property.

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5. Conclusions regarding the arguments above

The upshot of this discussion is that in support of the claim that ‘good’

does not denote a complex property, we can construct four arguments using

Moore’s text. Of these, only one, the “significant question” argument, seems to

turn on anything that looks like an open question. Three of the arguments—the

“significant question argument,” the “argument from inspection,” and the

“argument from doubt”—suffered from defects that seem insurmountable. The

“more complicated question” argument looked pretty good.

If the defective arguments could be supported, there is a minor difficulty

that I mention only as an aside. Two of the arguments, the “significant question”

argument and the “doubt” argument, conclude that goodness is not identical with

being that which we desire to desire. In order to be support for the overall

argument that ‘good’ neither denotes a complex property nor is meaningless, the

arguments would need additional premises to bring us from the claim about the

distinctness of the properties to the claim that the word ‘good’ does not denote

some complex property. But the required premise is both easy to supply and

plausible. For example, we might try “If goodness is not identical with being that

which we desire to desire, then ‘good’ does not denote the property being that

which we desire to desire.”

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A more significant problem for all of these arguments is that none of the

arguments conclude that no complex property is identical with goodness.48

Each

one argued for the conclusion that a specific property was not identical. So, for

instance, while the “more complicated question” argument might be sound, it

does not, in its current form, support the premise that ‘good’ does not denote

anything complex. There appear to be several ways to resolve this problem.

Moore would need to represent each of these as general arguments, or as

inductive arguments, or perhaps, he could claim that after we perform the

argument on a number of different complex properties, we begin to see that no

complex property can be a satisfactory definition. I expect that the first option

holds out the most hope. Unfortunately this hope is misplaced. For example, to

generalize the “more complicated question” argument, we might start with

generalized versions of (b) and (d). Where X is the definiens of any definition

wherein ‘good’ is made to denote a complex property, we would get:

(b'') Is it good that A instantiates X?

(d'') Is it X that A instantiates X?49

My intuitions about whether (d'') is more complicated a question than (b'')

do not help in this situation. I cannot motivate the first premise of the argument

because I simply do not find (d'') to be more complicated. Of course this is

48

Or alternatively, that ‘good’ does not denote any complex property. 49

This is equivalent to, “(d''') Is A’s instantiating X a thing that instantiates X?” but this, though it

looks more complicated that (b'') does not fare any better than (d'') when (b'') is reformulated to

mirror (d''')’s structure. Consider, (b''') Is A’s instantiating X a thing that instantiates goodness?

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because by substituting ‘X’ for the name of a complex property, I have masked

the syntactic complexity of (d''). And it turns out that my intuitions are tied to

how complicated the question looks syntactically. But this actually highlights a

real problem that afflicts this argument. The complexity of the expression used to

refer to the complex property seems to make a difference to this argument.50,51

So, while this argument is convincing to me for certain properties, if generalized,

it is less convincing.

I have little faith in my ability to make judgments about the complexity of

questions that are perfectly general. This might suggest favoring the Argument

From Inspection but I am afflicted with a similar problem there. I am not

confident in my assertions that statements of the appropriate generalized forms

have different meanings.

Moore, himself, seems to favor the third strategy I suggested for solving

the problem. We should apply the argument to a number of different complex

properties. After multiple applications, we will see that no definition wherein

50

In retrospect, I can think of at least one complex property with a simple-sounding name, and it is

such that competent geometers might find (d'') more complicated. It is the property Being

prismatic. I suggest the following analysis of this property: x is prismatic iff x is a triangular

prism, or x is a rectangular prism, or x is a pentagonal prism. Even a non-disjunctive analysis

would be quite complicated—being a three dimensional object having a polygonal cross section,

etc. The point is that properties with simple names might be extremely complex, and such

properties are the ones to look at to judge whether the More Complicated Question argument and

the Argument from Inspection fail. 51

The property named ‘plaid’ is a complex property consisting of having several colors and some

sort of recurring geometric pattern, etc. If being plaid were offered as a definition of goodness, we

might find the question “is x plaid?” no more complicated than “is x good?”

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‘good’ denotes a complex property will be true.52

I find this suggestion

unsettling. It amounts to yet another argument with a premise I find dubious. We

might construct the following argument on Moore’s behalf.

• Moore’s Generalized Conclusion argument

1. We can apply the More Complicated Question argument against a number

of proposed complex definitions. (Go ahead. Try it. We have seen it

work with being that which we desire to desire. We can apply it also, with

good results, to the properties being in conformance with the collective

will, being such that at least 4 out of 5 people surveyed would approve,

being what Jesus would do, etc.)

2. If (1), then we can see that no complex definition will survive the More

Complicated Question argument.

3. If we can see that no complex definition will survive the More

Complicated Question argument, then ‘good’ does not denote any

complex property.

4. Therefore ‘good’ does not denote any complex property.

I see no reason to accept (2) or (3). And this concern is not limited to the

More Complicated Question argument. For any argument we have considered so

far, the Generalized Conclusion argument seems to fail. Of course, this is rather

unfair of me. Inductive arguments of many sorts, even ones we have no real

52

See Principia Ethica, the first sentence of § 13, ¶ 2.

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doubts about, when reframed as deductive arguments suffer from the defect we

see in (2). Consider, for example, the argument that the sun will rise tomorrow

morning:

S1. The sun has risen every morning in historical memory.

S2. If (1), then the sun will rise tomorrow.

S3. Therefore, the sun will rise tomorrow.

I am quite confident of the conclusion, but not because I find the argument

convincing. In fact, I think (S2) is false. Past performance is no guarantee of

future results. However, since the conditions underlying the former dawns still

obtain, and will obtain (in all likelihood) tomorrow, the conclusion is justified.

And even without knowing about those conditions, the inductive argument would

be pretty good.

Moore likely intends some sort of induction here. We are supposed to see

that the consequent of (2) is true, but not for any deductively valid reason. The

expectation is that we will simply become aware of the fact that there is

something about complex definitions that make them fail the More Complicated

Question argument. I have suggested that the most likely reason, that our

intuitions about the complexity of the question are based on the syntax of the

question, is unsatisfactory. But perhaps there are other reasons.

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6. Final thoughts and the Revised General Significant Question Argument

Before leaving arguments in support of the claim that ‘good’ does not

denote any complex property, I consider the comments of one of Moore’s critics,

and I offer a version of the significant question argument that has a better chance

of succeeding than the one I presented above. Roger Hancock considers what I

have called the Argument From Doubt in his book Twentieth Century Ethics.53

His explanation of the argument fails in two instructive ways.

First, he fails to distinguish this argument from the significant question

argument. Instead, he treats it as an explanation of what Moore means by ‘a

significant question.’ Hancock thinks the question “Is F good?” is significant if

the claim “F is not good” is never self-contradictory. The idea here is that for any

complex property F, it can always be asked with significance, whether F is good

because “F is not good” is never self-contradictory.54

Unfortunately, as I

mentioned in footnote 35, this suggestion for what it means to be a significant

question fails. Moore would not accept it because he thinks the question whether

goodness is good is not a significant question, but I contend, he would reject the

claim that “Goodness is not good” is self-contradictory.

53

Cited above. 54

This, in turn, is based on the claim that “Whatever is F is F” is a tautology. And this claim is

false, at least with regard to predication.

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Hancock’s second error is that he fails to distinguish between the

following statements:

‘That we should desire to desire A is good’

and

‘Whatever is F is good,’ where F is substituted for ‘that which we should

desire to desire.’

Hancock makes this error on his way to his conclusion about what it

means to be a significant question. Moore asserts: “‘That we should desire to

desire A is good’ is not merely equivalent to ‘That A should be good is good.’”55

Hancock generalizes these as

(g) Whatever is F is good

and

(h) Whatever is F is F.56

His argument is that Moore claims that if ‘good’ were synonymous with

some non-ethical expression, F, then (g) and (h) would mean the same thing. (g)

and (h) do not mean the same thing because (h) cannot be doubted and (g) is

doubtable. (h) is not doubtable because the denial of (h) is self-contradictory.57

Why Hancock does not treat this as a distinct argument is unclear to me. He

55

Principia Ethica, pp 67-68. 56

Hancock, p. 30. 57

Alternatively, because (h) expresses a tautology. One reason to think Moore did not intend this

particular argument is that nowhere in his discussion of the arguments in § 13 does he use the

word ‘tautology’ or ‘tautologous.’ In fact, the word does not appear in the entirety of Chapters I

and II. I find it surprising that his commentators attribute to him this claim or ones like it.

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seems to have all he needs to motivate an argument against the definition of

‘good’ as F. Notice, though, that his argument does not faithfully recreate

Moore’s.

The mistake is in not recognizing that Moore’s statement asserts that

something other than what (g) asserts. (g) asserts that something that instantiates

F is good. Moore’s statement asserts that it is good that something (A)

instantiates F. It ought to be easy to see that one asks about the goodness of A

and one asks about the goodness of the state of affairs of A having property F. I

highlight this mistake because it demonstrates a possibility for a Significant

Question-style argument that does not suffer from the defects we identified in the

original.

The question whether it is good that a state of affairs is good is not

equivalent to the question whether it is good that a state of affairs is F, where F is

a complex property. This is because it is a category mistake to ask whether it is

good that a state of affairs is good. But it is not such a mistake to ask whether it is

good that a state of affairs is F, where F is a complex property. Why do I say that

it is a category mistake? This is not the same claim as my contention that

goodness is not good, itself. Instead, this is the claim that moral value simply

does not attach to moral facts. Moral value attaches to acts and states of affairs,

but not to facts about what acts or states of affairs are or are not good. Moral

value might attach to my believing a certain moral proposition, but not to the

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proposition (or the underlying fact) itself—it might be morally obligatory to

believe that torture is wrong. Other normative properties might attach to moral

propositions. For example, the proposition that charitable giving is good might

instantiate the property being a justified belief in Bill. Or a moral proposition

might be self-evident. These would be two different normative properties—

epistemic properties—that can rightly be predicated of moral propositions.

Consider the proposition that it is morally wrong to pay taxes in support of

war-mongering governments. This proposition may be true or false, but the

proposition itself is not morally wrong. Neither is it morally right, permissible,

nor any other moral property.58

In short, the proposition that it is good that it is

good that A is neither true nor false. As a result, the question whether it is good

that it is good that A (alternatively, whether it is good that A is good) is not a

significant question. I have, therefore, been arguing that what it means to be a

significant question is that the question can be answered by a statement that has a

truth value.59

I cannot say with any degree of certainty that this is what Moore

had in mind. But it is an explanation that utilizes the example sentences he gave

without the modifications that others, like Hancock, have introduced. It also has

the benefit of being useful for creating a version of the Significant Question

argument that succeeds without being question begging.

58

What I am objecting to is second-order moral properties. 59

Either ‘true’ or ‘false.’ I do not admit, for purposes of this discussion, the possibility of multi-

valued logics.

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Consider the following questions:

(i) Is it good that A is a thing we desire to desire?

(j) Is it good that A is a thing that is good?

I contend that (i) is a significant question. An answer, yes or no, to that

question will be either true or false. This is because moral values can and do

attach to propositions about complex properties, including complex psychological

properties. If I assert that it is good that we desire to desire A, I am asserting

something true or false. Therefore, (i) is significant. (j) is not significant. This is

because, as I have argued, moral value does not attach to moral propositions.

Note that since the feature of goodness that I am exploiting in this argument is not

one we are trying to prove, the resulting argument will not be subject to claims of

question begging. Note also, that goodness is unique in not being able to be

truthfully predicated of a state of affairs being good. I know of no complex

property that shares this feature. Consequently, for any complex property, the

question whether it is good that A instantiates that complex property is always

significant. Now we are in a position to construct a version of the Significant

Question argument that is general and not obviously unsound.

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• Revised General Significant Question Argument

1. For any complex property F, we may ask with significance

‘Is it good that A is F?’

2. We may not ask with significance

‘Is it good that A is good?’

3. If (1) and (2), then ‘good’ does not denote any complex property.

4. Therefore, ‘good’ does not denote any complex property.

This argument has a conclusion written in terms of the word ‘good,’ as

required by the premise of the overarching argument that this argument is

intended to support. It is also a general conclusion, applicable to any definition

that attempts to define goodness in terms of a complex (non-simple) property.

And finally, it does not turn on an account of significance that requires us to

accept that goodness is simple. The unique feature of goodness that I have

pointed out does not require any particular metaphysical commitments, at least

about the sort of definitions that are acceptable. Finally, premise (3) is supported

by considerations of meaning discussed above.60

This argument is also sufficient to show that many simple properties are

not identical with goodness as well simply by removing the word ‘complex’ from

(1), (3) and (4). There are instances, of course, where such a modification would

60

Preservation of meaning through substitution of synonymous terms.

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prove problematic. If ‘good’ were substituted for ‘F,’ the argument would fail,

because (1) and (2) would be contradictory.

Even without that modification, we might doubt (1) on grounds that there

might be a complex property about which the question whether it is good that A

instantiates the property is not significant. While I suppose this may be true, I am

completely at a loss to think of one, and until this situation changes, I am inclined

to accept (1).

Based on this argument, primarily, and perhaps on particular instances of

the More Complicated Question argument, I think the claim that ‘good’ does not

denote any complex property is well supported. This leaves the possibility that

‘good’ is meaningless, or that it is simple and indefinable. Premise (3) of

Moore’s § 13 argument is that ‘good’ is not meaningless.

A revised version of my Revised General Significant Question Argument

might suffice to show that most simple properties are not identical with goodness,

but I do not take this to be Moore’s purpose in § 13. That is, if successful, the

argument I offered on Moore’s behalf shows a good bit more than he intended,

and maybe as much as most commentators think he intended. I do not pursue this

argument further at this time, as it generally undermines any motivation for

construing the naturalistic fallacy in the way I find most consistent with the text.

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B. Argument in Support of Premise (3)

Here, Moore is more economical and offers only one argument. This

argument, like the ones already discussed, has been fairly well misconstrued. I

very briefly describe three bad approaches to the argument before presenting the

one that best comports with the text. All three approaches share a common

error—that of not treating the argument as what it claims to be, that is, not

treating the argument as supporting the view that ‘good’ is not meaningless.

Hancock uses the first two sentences of the passage in which Moore

makes his argument61

to argue for a view of significance, in support of his version

of the open question argument. He writes

“. . . Moore is attacking the view that ethical words are

synonymous with non-ethical expressions. And his argument is

that when we ask “Are F’s good?” we can recognize on reflection

that there are two distinct things before our mind . . . . The

question “Is S P?” is significant, then, if S and P designate two

distinct things . . . .”62

61

Reproduced here: “But whoever will attentively consider with himself what is actually before

his mind when he asks the question ‘Is pleasure (or whatever it may be) after all good?’ can easily

satisfy himself that he is not merely wondering whether pleasure is pleasant. And if he will try this

experiment with each suggested definition in succession, he may become expert enough to

recognise that in every case he has before his mind a unique object, with regard to the connection

of which with any other object, a distinct question may be asked.” Principia Ethica, p. 68. 62

Hancock, p. 31.

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It is understandable how Hancock might take this passage to make this

argument. But doing so requires ignoring the second sentence which makes it

fairly explicit that Moore is focusing on recognizing that the thing we are

comparing against many different properties is the same property in each case.

Instead of emphasizing the distinction between goodness and any other property

under consideration, Moore is emphasizing the sameness of the property we

referred to by ‘good’ in each case.

Thomas Baldwin claims that Moore’s argument that ‘good’ is not

meaningless really shows something else altogether. He writes that Moore’s

argument is really “that because we can distinguish in thought between the

meaning of ‘good’ and that of any putative non-ethical analysis, all such analyses

must be incorrect.”63

He claims that this argument, like the other Moorean

argument—by which he means the traditional interpretation of the open question

argument64

—hinges on the failure of “reflective substitutivity” of proposed

definitions, which is evidenced by our ability to doubt their identity. In other

words, since we can doubt that ‘good’ and ‘P’ where P refers to any (natural)

property, goodness and P are not identical.

This is certainly not what Moore has done here. He never ever asserted

that the proof shows that we can distinguish in thought between the meaning of

63

Baldwin, T., G.E. Moore, Routledge, 1990 (London), p. 89 64

Baldwin ignores the division of arguments I have advocated, arguing instead that there are only

two arguments, both having equal claim to the title “open question argument” and both to the

conclusion that no definition of ‘good’ is correct.

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‘good’ and that of any putative non-ethical or natural analysis. What he did assert

is that if we keep at it, repeatedly considering the question ‘Is P after all good?’,

after a while, we may see that the word on the right side of the sentence—

‘good’—always refers to the same property, in case after case. And this, supposes

Moore, proves that ‘good’ is not meaningless. We will consider whether he is

right in a moment.

Finally, Fred Feldman, who does a very good job of distinguishing the

various arguments in § 13, fails to see the point of the argument. Rather than

taking it to show that ‘good’ is not meaningless, Feldman takes the argument to

be an attempt to refute the view that goodness is identical with some simple,

natural property.65

Perhaps this is because Moore offers only “Is pleasure . . .

after all good?” and alludes to other questions of the same form about

pleasantness, being desired, and being approved as an examples of the sort of

question one should consider. But he does two things that clarify his true

purpose. First, he writes that the question we consider is “Is pleasure (or

whatever it may be) after all good?” The phrase “or whatever it may be” does not

imply that the question can only be asked of simple, natural properties. It can be

asked of any property, simple or complex, natural or non-natural. I take it that the

example questions were all about simple definitions of goodness because they are

easier to ponder, and we are less likely to get bogged down in considering the

65

Feldman, p. 35.

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question so that we can focus on the appropriate thing—that ‘good’ means the

same thing in each question. And this is because the point of asking the question

is not answering it. It is recognizing that we are asking, every time, whether the

property under consideration instantiates the same property, goodness. The

second clue Moore provides is in the first sentence of the paragraph from which

the example comes. Moore writes “And the same consideration (our ability to

doubt whether those things that instantiate the property offered as a definition

instantiate goodness—WP) is sufficient to dismiss the hypothesis that ‘good’ has

no meaning whatsoever.”66

The very point of the argument that follows is to

show that ‘good’ is not meaningless. It is not to show that proposed simple

definitions fail.67

I have already described the idea behind the argument in my comments

about Hancock, Baldwin, and Feldman. All that remains is to present the

argument. Consider the following questions:

(k) Is pleasure after all good?

(l) Is desire after all good?

(m) Is being approved after all good?

66

Principia Ethica, p. 68. 67

Prof. Feldman does not describe the material where Moore tells us the point of this passage.

Instead he writes “In any case, after a bit of introductory commentary . . . .” and then launches into

the argument. In this case, that introductory commentary demonstrates the real point of the

passage. I suspect Feldman had a different axe to grind. He presents an argument that is not

Moore’s but is an interesting argument nonetheless. It goes toward his overall thesis that

commentators have done a miserable job of presenting the open question argument.

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(n) Is being that which we desire to desire after all good?

Uniqueness Argument

1. (k) – (n) ask the same unique question of each property.

2. If (1) then ‘good’ denotes the same property in every context.

3. Therefore ‘good’ denotes the same property in every context.

4. If (3) then ‘good’ is not meaningless.

5. Therefore, ‘good’ is not meaningless.

Premise (1) is supported by our basic intuitions about what we are asking

when we entertain questions like (k) through (n). I phrased each of these

questions as questions about properties, but we could instead ask whether

particular states of affairs were good and still achieve Moore’s desired conclusion.

That is, we do not have to consider questions based on attempted definitions of

goodness.

Premise (2) is a stretch. Moore writes that when we ask enough of these

questions, we “may become expert enough” to recognize that ‘good’ denotes the

same property in each question. The idea is simply that we always have the same

idea in mind when we ask such questions. And the only way this would be the

case is if ‘good’ meant a single thing. So, in fact, (2) is somewhat stronger than

Moore’s claim.

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This is a modest argument.68

Note what this argument does not do. It

does not prove that goodness is not identical with any simple natural property. In

fact, there is no explicit argument for that proposition in this section. This

argument rules out nothing as a definition of ‘good.’ It merely shows that there is

some one thing to which ‘good’ refers in each of these moral uses.

IV. Conclusion

I have argued that rather than being one unified argument that goodness is not

identical with any non-natural property, Moore’s open question argument really

consists of two arguments. The first is that goodness is not a complex property.

The second is that goodness is not “meaningless.” The first argument is

supported by a number of distinct sub-arguments. These are not all sound,

especially when we consider versions of the argument with general conclusions

(as opposed to arguments that particular complex definitions fail). However,

problems with Hancock’s notion of significance suggest an account of that results

in a very robust argument, the Revised General Significant Question Argument. I

believe this argument poses a significant challenge to definitional naturalists.

68

There might be a sub-argument in here. The primary argument shows that you always have a

unique property in mind when you wonder whether pleasure is good. The sub-argument notes that

everyone understands the question “is X good?” And their state of mind is different when they ask

that question than it would be when they asked “is X pleasant?” or “is X desired?” But this seems

to invite us to do something like the Argument From Inspection but to the conclusion that ‘Good’

is not meaningless. I resist this impulse because it is not clear to me that distinctness of state of

mind yields distinctness of meaning, and further whether this implies that ‘good’ has a meaning at

all.

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Chapter 6

Conclusions

I. Concluding remarks about the relation between the open question argument

and the naturalistic fallacy

In the previous chapter, I argued that rather than being one unified

argument that goodness is not identical with any non-natural property, Moore’s

open question argument actually consists of two arguments. The first is that

goodness is not a complex property. This claim is supported by at least five sub-

arguments, most of which turn on our intuitions about language and meaning.

The second is that goodness is not “meaningless.” This claim amounts to the

claim that there is a unique property which goes by the name “goodness.”

It appears that at least one of the sub-arguments that can be reconstructed

from Moore’s writing is sound and may prove significantly more than Moore

intended.1 Rather than merely proving that goodness is not identical with any

complex property, it may be sufficient to show that goodness is not identical with

any simple property that can be referred to by any natural property referring

name. If this is the case, then Frankena’s question begging claim can be

1 Though it is not clear that it is exactly what he had in mind. My notion of what it means to be

significant is not what most commentators attribute to Moore.

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dispensed with because Moore will have shown that goodness is indefinable.

Recall that Frankena claimed the naturalistic fallacy was question begging

because when conceived as a definist fallacy, it seems to presuppose that

goodness is indefinable. While I strenuously object to this conception of the

naturalistic fallacy, if Moore can show that goodness is indeed indefinable by a

method that does not invoke the naturalistic fallacy, he will have avoided begging

the question. The version of the open question argument I called the “Revised

General Significant Question Argument,” while turning on a conception of

significance that I am not sure Moore shared, seems to show that goodness is

indefinable without invoking the naturalistic fallacy. Hence, I believe that even if

we construe the naturalistic fallacy as Frankena urges, Moore can avoid the

criticism that he has begged the question.

My interpretation of Moore’s open question argument has consequences

for Prior’s argument as well. Prior correctly believes that Moore takes the open

question argument2 to show that goodness is both simple and incapable of

definition. This is a reasonable claim because, for Moore, being incapable of

(analytic) definition is a consequence of being simple. As I pointed out in

Chapter 4, Prior invokes something akin to the traditional interpretation of the

open question argument. His complaint with the argument he reconstructs on

2 When I refer to the open question argument in this section, I am referring to the entire argument

of Section 13 in Principia Ethica, despite the fact that the arguments in that section do not turn on

the “openness” of any particular question or questions, but rather on some other features of

language, such as the presumptive complexity of questions containing property names.

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Moore’s behalf is well founded, although his point can be made clearer. The

central problem for the view is that it turns on a feature of language that is simply

untrue. In order for the standard version of the open question argument, and

Prior’s version as well, to succeed, language would have to be transparent. That

is, the argument requires denying referential opacity—a feature of language that

contemporary philosophers by and large accept. When we consider analyses such

as water is H2O, or a brother is a male sibling, we find that it is possible to create

questions that at least some people would take to be open ones.

We might argue, though, that the fact that the open question argument

seems to fail in these contexts is irrelevant because moral language is unique—

that we have privileged epistemic access to moral properties, and as a result, the

sort of transparency that does not exist with non-moral properties and objects does

not plague our moral language. Whereas ordinary language is referentially

opaque, moral language is transparent. In other words, if two expressions of

moral language, ML1 and ML2, mean the same thing, and an individual

understands the expressions,3 then she will know that any two sentences (or

questions) which differ only in the substitution for ML2 for ML1 (or vice versa)

have the same meaning.

3 As I have phrased this transparency thesis, the privileged epistemic access implies that

understanding an expression means knowing its referent and recognizing that it is the same as that

of any of that expression’s synonyms. For example, if I had such privileged epistemic access to

astronomical objects, I would not make the ‘Hesperus/Phosphorus’ error because I would know,

by virtue understanding the names ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ that each referred to the planet

Venus.

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This response does not succeed. Two problems suggest themselves. First,

and less decisively, Moore might be loathe to accept the principle underlying this

response. Moore would not want to claim that moral language is unique in this

way. He was, after all, attempting to put Ethics on similar footing to other

sciences, in part by employing rigorous thought and process to moral reasoning.

Carving out a special epistemic niche for moral properties and special status to

moral language would run counter to this project. Second and more significantly,

the transparency problem plagues even moral language. Consider the words

‘goodness’ and ‘intrinsic value.’ Moore takes these words to be synonyms that

each refer to the property moral goodness. But if we perform the open question

argument on these words, which do refer to the same property, they would ‘fail’

the test. That is, most people would find the question, “x is intrinsically valuable,

but is it good?” an open question. If the openness of this question is an indication

that ‘goodness’ and ‘intrinsic value’ are not names for the same property, then

presumably, they do not name the same property. Moore cannot accept this. This

suggests that we do not have special epistemic access to moral properties that

would defeat the lack of transparency concerns. This is a point recognized by

Prior.4 So, if the open question argument is given its standard interpretation,

Prior’s criticisms are well-founded.

4 Prior, p. 3.

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Once we place the open question in its proper context, and properly

disambiguate the many arguments contained within it, we can see that Prior’s

objection fails. The open question argument is Moore’s proof that goodness is

simple and indefinable. And although one of the arguments I reconstructed on

Moore’s behalf seems to have as a consequence that goodness is not identical

with any natural property, Moore did not take this to be the point of the argument.

The point of the open question argument really seems to be to show that goodness

is simple. But a simple property, while incapable of analytic definition, is

nonetheless still susceptible to successful property identifications. For example,

the property yellowness is simple, and it is identical to the property being the

color that when mixed with blue yields green.

Moore is concerned to limit this kind of definition (definition as

identification with a simple property) of goodness as well. After all, his thesis

that goodness is a non-natural property would be false if it turned out that a

successful property identification between goodness and some simple natural

property could be made. This is where Moore’s claims about the naturalistic

fallacy become important. And it is the reason I devote two chapters to justifying

an alternative to the traditional definist interpretation. Moore’s claims about the

naturalistic fallacy do not show that any such property identification is incorrect,

only that a particular form of argument, one which might be the only one

available, does not provide adequate support for any such identity claim. The

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picture that emerges on my view of the open question argument and the

naturalistic fallacy is very unlike that conceived by Prior.

That the naturalistic fallacy is commonly confused with the open question

argument is proved by Baldwin, who writes, in his discussion of the open

question argument, that “It is notable that the section in which he advances it is

the only part of the opening discussion in Principia Ethica of the naturalistic

fallacy which does not come straight from The Elements of Ethics.”5 I have

shown that the open question argument is distinct from the naturalistic fallacy.

But Baldwin here asserts that Moore’s presentation of the open question argument

(by which he means his proof that goodness is simple and indefinable) is part of

his discussion of the naturalistic fallacy. This might explain why some take it to

be a simple definist fallacy.

Rather than taking the open question argument to be the proof that it is a

fallacy to try to define goodness, I reverse the concepts. The open question

argument is Moore’s proof that goodness is simple, and hence indefinable, and

Moore’s claims about the naturalistic fallacy show that identifying goodness with

any simple natural property is epistemically problematic.

Recall that for Moore, the way that philosophers who commit the

naturalistic fallacy proceed to define goodness is to recognize that goodness and a

given natural property are instantiated in the same objects or states of affairs, and

5 Baldwin, p. 87.

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to infer from this that they are identical. Moore’s complaint with this approach is

that it gives you no reason to accept the identity of goodness and the natural

property in question. So analytical definitions are inapplicable, by virtue of the

success of the open question argument (in one or more of its variations), and

simple definitions are of dubious value by virtue of the commission of the

naturalistic fallacy by philosophers who offer such definitions. Recall also that

Moore recognizes that we might engage in reasoning about the good without

defining goodness at all. This was the tactic employed by Sidgwick, for instance.

This suggests a question: May we arrive at a property identification, that is, a

definition in terms of a simple property, that does not commit the naturalistic

fallacy?

I suggested in Chapter 3 that we might avoid the naturalistic fallacy by

relying on intuition to arrive at our definition. This might not be particularly

satisfying either, given that we may not share much commonality in our

intuitions. Moore has no objection to identifying the good with natural properties,

and doing so by intuition. But he does not suggest it as a method for arriving at

property identities or definitions. Consider his discussion of Sidgwick’s view that

“pleasure alone is good as an end.” This proposition—that pleasure is the good—

is held as “an object of intuition” by Sidgwick.6 Moore writes that his own

intuition arrives at a different result. “It may always be true notwithstanding;

6 Principia Ethica, p 126, § 45.

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neither intuition can prove whether it is true or not . . . .”7 Moore is left trying to

offer reasons “capable of determining the intellect” rather than to offer conclusive

refutation or even indubitable intuitions in opposition to Sidgwick’s intuitively

derived thesis. If intuition is not a reliable way to arrive at the coextension

between goodness and some natural (or metaphysical) property, then it is surely

inadequate as a route to certainty with respect the identity of goodness and a

natural (or metaphysical) property.

Is there another way to support such a property identification? One

obvious one would be to mount a Leibniz’s Law style argument in favor of the

identity of goodness with a given property.8 This sort of argument would not

suffer the defect of an inference from co-instantiation of goodness and a natural

property to identity of those properties. Instead, it turns on the Identity of

Indiscernibles.9 An example follows:

1. Goodness has every property that pleasantness has.

2. Goodness has no property that pleasantness does not have.

3. If (1) and (2) then goodness has exactly the same properties as

pleasantness.

7 Ibid. Note also that Moore claims that, “propositions about the good are all of them synthetic

and never analytic.” Principia Ethica, p 58, § 6. If this is so, then Sidgwick’s claim, a proposition

about the good, cannot be true by definition. If it is true at all, it could only be contingently so. 8 This, it seems to me, might exhaust the possibilities. Coextension, even necessary coextension,

does not give sufficient reason to accept an identity. Intuition seems inadequate. Inferring from a

relationship weaker than coextension surely will not do. 9 Symbolized as ∀F(Fx � Fy) � x=y.

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4. Therefore, goodness has exactly the same properties as pleasantness.

5. If goodness has exactly the same properties as pleasantness, then

goodness is identical with pleasantness.

6. Therefore goodness is identical with pleasantness.

The only unobvious premise in this argument is premise (5).10

(5) is an instance

of the principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. This principle states that for any

two objects, if they share all of their properties, that is, if each has exactly the

same properties, they really are simply one single object. In this argument, the

principle is applied to properties. If two properties have exactly the same

properties, then, we might think, they really are one and the same property.11

While this argument runs afoul of one of the arguments I offered as a

possible reconstruction of Moore’s open question argument,12

if my claims about

Moore’s real intentions with that argument are correct, since it identifies goodness

with a simple property there can be no complaint that the argument’s conclusion

is barred by the open question argument. And it does not present a problem for

the naturalistic fallacy, because it does not involve any inference from the co-

instantiation or coextension of goodness and pleasantness.

10

(1) and (2) might not be obviously true, but their meaning is obvious enough for our discussion. 11

There are some reasons to doubt whether this principle is applicable to individual properties

and, in fact, whether the principle is true at all. Max Black has argued that a universe containing

only two exactly similar objects would prove the Identity of Indiscernibles false because while the

two objects would be indiscernible, they would clearly not be identical. “The Identity of

Indiscernibles,” Mind, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 242 (Apr., 1952), pp. 153-164 at 156-161. 12

The revised general significant question argument.

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Of course, Moore would not accept this argument. First, Moore would

just reject premises (1) and/or (2). One easy way to show that (1) or (2) is false is

to provide a counterexample. If Moore could offer an example of a state of affairs

or an object that was pleasant, but not good, or vice versa, then that would show

that goodness and pleasantness are not identical. If such an example could be

found, then one property would have a property that the other did not possess.

For example, if donating blood was good, but not pleasant, then goodness would

have the property Being instantiated by instances of blood donation, but

pleasantness would not have this property. This would show that (2) is false, and

hence, the argument is would be unsound.13

Moore would be more inclined to take a different approach to refuting this

argument. He would deny both (1) and (2) but not on grounds that there is a

counterexample, but rather on the ground that goodness simply has a quality that

no natural property can possess. That is, goodness is a normative property and

pleasantness is not. This is, according to Darwall, Gibbard and Railton, the

enduring lesson of the open question argument.14

They believe that even if the

13

One must be careful when utilizing this strategy. This is, in essence, to turn the argument on its

head and rely on the non-identity of discernibles principle. The danger becomes apparent when

we consider another property that goodness has that pleasantness does not, namely, being believed

by Moore to be non-natural. It is well established that this sort of property causes trouble for

arguments utilizing the non-identity of discernibles principle. We need only think of the Lois

Lane, Superman/Clark Kent arguments to remind ourselves of this. 14

Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton, “Toward Fin de Siecle Ethics: Some

Trends,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 101, No. 1 (January 1992), pp 116-117. Note that

Frankena arrived at this conclusion fifty years earlier in his contribution to P. A. Schilpp (ed.) The

Philosophy of G. E. Moore. See, W. J. Frankena “Obligation and Value in the Ethics of G.E.

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204

argument is ultimately unsuccessful in exposing a fallacy,15

Moore has shown that

goodness is irreducibly normative.16

Since goodness is supposed to be unique in

this respect, we might conclude that goodness does not share all of its properties

with any natural property, so again (2) is false.

I expect that this is how Moore would reply, but it does expose him to yet

another claim of question begging. Nicholas Sturgeon has pointed out that even if

we grant that the open question argument successfully shows that ‘good’ refers to

a different property than any natural term does (a proposition that Sturgeon is not

willing to accept), this does not prove that goodness is non-natural. ‘Good’ is

certainly co-referential with ‘good,’ and if ‘good’ happens to refer to a natural

property, then Moore’s argument goes no way toward proving that goodness is

non-natural.17

Sturgeon argues that Moore has begged the question by assuming

that no natural properties have the normativity associated with goodness. Without

an argument that natural properties do not have normative force, Moore is

Moore,” in Schilpp, p. 102. And Prior reached the same conclusion in 1949. See Logic and the

Basis of Ethics (1949) p. 5. Note that Frankena also argues that the fact that goodness can be

defined in terms of “ought” means that it is not a simple property. I believe this is a mistake.

Frankena seems to be offering the wrong kind of definition. A definition in terms of “ought”

would be a conceptual analysis—it tells us a way to think about the property goodness—but it is

not a definition in the Moorean sense. Moorean definition requires an enumeration of the

component properties that make up the definiendum. I can give a definition of yellowness in

terms of greenness, but this does not prove that yellowness is not simple. 15

They, too, treat the open question argument as part and parcel with Moore’s claims about the

naturalistic fallacy. 16

See also, Connie Rosati, “Agency and the Open Question Argument,” Ethics 113 (April 2003):

490–527 at 495. 17

Nicholas Sturgeon, “Moore on Naturalism,” Ethics 113 (April 2003): 528–556 at 536.

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205

foreclosed from arguing against the Identity of Indiscernibles argument on the

grounds set forth in the preceding paragraph.18

Finally, Moore might object to the argument on the ground that he does

not accept the method as a way to define goodness. In all of Principia Ethica, we

never see an instance of identifying the properties that goodness has. There are,

however, certain features asserted of goodness. For instance, Moore asserts that

goodness is the property that is the proper subject matter of Ethics and that it is

that property whose instantiation in a state of affairs gives us a reason to act in

such a way as to bring about that state of affairs. But these are not intrinsic

properties of goodness. These are relational properties of goodness. They tell us

things about how goodness is related to our philosophizing, or about its causal

relation to our motivations,19

but they do not tell us about the nature of the

property itself. On Moore’s scheme, this is a consequence of the simplicity of

goodness. If the property had intrinsic properties which we could enumerate, it

would have parts, and be susceptible to the sort of analytic definition Moore

claims is impossible. So, in fact, the sort of enumeration of properties required to

motivate this Identity of Indiscernibles argument is ruled out as a consequence of

the open question argument.

18

This is not quite true. Moore could easily make such an argument for any particular natural

property. Sturgeon’s argument only forecloses claiming that (2) is false on the ground that no

natural property is normative. 19

Assuming for purposes of this example only that we are motivated to do that which we ought to

do.

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206

The same is true for natural properties. Consider, again, the simple

property yellowness. We can assert of yellowness that it is the color of lemons

and sunflowers, or that paint instantiating this color, when mixed with blue paint,

yields green paint. These properties are not intrinsic properties of yellowness, but

rather, they tell us how yellowness is related to other things. More importantly,

they are not necessary to yellowness, and hence, do not uniquely identify that

property.

In all, these are rather potent reasons to reject this sort of approach to

defending a property identity for goodness. This suggests that the only way open

to naturalists20

who wish to define goodness is to proceed from the co-

instantiation of goodness and their preferred natural property, and in so doing,

commit the naturalistic fallacy. If my interpretation of the naturalistic fallacy is

correct, committing the naturalistic fallacy does not guarantee that the proffered

view is false. It merely means that it cannot be supported by a well-justified,

deductive argument.

II. Overall Conclusions

The purpose of this dissertation was to offer an interpretation of what it

means to commit the naturalistic fallacy that is maximally consistent with Moore's

text and examples, to distinguish Moore's claims about the naturalistic fallacy

20

Again, we are discussing reductive naturalists here, those who attempt to define goodness in

terms of natural properties.

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207

from the open question argument, and to correct mistaken interpretations of the

open question argument. In pursuing these goals, I found that the naturalistic

fallacy and the open question argument are complementary, rather than redundant,

arguments. Moore uses the open question argument to show that goodness is not

identical with any complex natural or metaphysical property. But this still leaves

the possibility that goodness is identical with a simple natural or metaphysical

property. His claim that philosophers who attempt to define goodness commit the

naturalistic fallacy undermines support for any such identification, even if it does

not conclusively refute such definitions.

My first chapter provided justification for this dissertation. I noted that

Principia Ethica has had an enduring legacy, though there is little agreement on

what Moore claimed or how he attempted to support his claims. I identified

Moore’s discussion of the naturalistic fallacy as the most celebrated yet least well-

understood portion of the text, and so began my examination of his moral

philosophy with this concept.

In Chapter 2, I explained the rudiments of Moore’s view on the nature of

goodness, and considered some implications of his view. Goodness is a simple

property, meaning it has no constituent parts, and hence it is indefinable. I also

explained what a successful definition might look like for Moore.

In Chapter 3, I examined rival interpretations of the naturalistic fallacy

provided by Baldwin, Prior and Frankena, and interpretations provided by Moore,

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208

himself, finding that none of them maintains high fidelity to the text of Principia

Ethica. Baldwin offers three possible interpretations, none of which were

particularly appealing. Each relied on taking a particular bit of Moorean text out

of context. Where the interpretations were consistent with the text, they did not

offer a fallacy, that is, there was no bad inference being made.

Prior offered two interpretations similar to the view I defend. One of

Prior’s interpretations—that to commit the naturalistic fallacy is to infer from the

necessary coextension of goodness and some natural property that they are

identical—seems to me to be a correct statement of one version of the naturalistic

fallacy. However, Prior attributes far too much to Moore, claiming that the

naturalistic fallacy is Moore’s entire argument that all forms of naturalism are

false. Naturally, Prior finds that the naturalistic fallacy is not well suited to this

task. What Prior did, we saw, was to conflate the naturalistic fallacy and the open

question argument, which together, make some significant strides (yet, fall short

as we have seen) toward proving non-naturalism.

Finally, we looked at Frankena’s influential views on the naturalistic

fallacy. Frankena takes the most methodical approach of Moore’s critics, but

ultimately attributes too much to Moore’s claims about the naturalistic fallacy as

well. Foreshadowing Prior, Frankena takes the naturalistic fallacy to be Moore’s

argument against all forms of naturalism, and finds that such an argument cannot

be sustained without assuming non-naturalism from the start. I argued that Moore

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209

need not provide an argument that naturalism is false before he accuses a

philosopher of committing the naturalistic fallacy, because committing the fallacy

does not entail the falsity of the view. The naturalistic fallacy was not intended to

refute any theory, but rather to show that any attempt to define goodness is based

on a bad inference.

In Chapter 4, I offered a close read of Moore’s statements wherein he

describes the naturalistic fallacy and of his examples of philosophers who commit

the naturalistic fallacy. I found that in each case, to commit the naturalistic

fallacy is to infer from either the coextension (necessary or otherwise) of two

properties or the mere supposition that all instances of one property are also

instances of another, that the properties are identical. My interpretation of the

naturalistic fallacy suggests that while it is a common enough error, it is not well-

suited to play the role that many of Moore’s commentators assigned to it. As we

have seen above, it does have a role, and the contours of that role are shaped by

the open question argument.

In Chapter 5, and concluding in this chapter, I offered a reading of

Moore’s open question argument that emphasizes fidelity to the text (despite the

fact that I retain the ill-deserved name) and rejects the traditional interpretation.

Rather than proving that all naturalistic definitions of goodness are wrong, I find

that the argument really only demonstrates that no complex definition is correct.

Where Moore does deploy an argument that can rightfully be called an open

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210

question argument21

against a simple definition, it fails, and for the usual reasons

cited.

We are left, then, with an array of arguments, some of which are fairly

robust, in support of the proposition that goodness is a simple property. It seems

likely that one of the arguments that is effective against complex definitions will

be effective against some simple ones as well, but it is not clear that this was

Moore’s intention. Nevertheless, we are now in position to deploy the naturalistic

fallacy against the naturalist. Any naturalist who offers a simple definition of

goodness, i.e., a property identity in terms of a simple property, is likely to

commit the naturalistic fallacy, thereby undermining support for her position.

This does not disprove all versions of reductive naturalism, but it suggests that no

version can cite as support for its definition a robust deductively valid argument.

There will always be some reason to doubt the inference from the co-instantiation

of goodness and the proffered natural property to their identity.

21

In sections 14 and 26.

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211

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