Moral Realism in G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica

Abstract

The general purpose of this investigation is to analyze G. E. Moore’s moral realism in Principia Ethica. In section 2, the arguments that underpin ethical investigation on the question “what is good?”, with “good” presented as a simple and indefinable concept, are shown. Then, in sections 3 and 4, the notion of the naturalistic fallacy and the open question argument are discussed, respectively. The core of this article and its more specific purpose lie in these latter sections. It aims to investigate whether Frankena’s criticisms are sufficient to refute Moore and whether the open question argument involves begging the question. It concludes that there is no actual begging of the question in this argument. The premise that it is always an open question whether, given any x with a natural (or metaphysical) property N, x also has the property G (“good”), is based on the impossibility of philosophical analysis of propositions that establish an identity relation between the properties G and N, as such propositions always seem to be synthetic. This premise is, at the very least, plausible—considering Moore’s analysis in Principia based on the philosophical tradition that preceded him—and therein lies its strength.