[5.2.3.] The Open Question Argument.

 

Moore’s Open Question Argument (sec. 13, pp.320-1) is intended to show that any naturalistic definition of goodness cannot be correct and that the word “good” cannot be defined at all.

 

Before giving the argument, Moore considers three possibilities regarding the word “good”:

1.      “Good” is meaningful, and it can be defined (in the sense that it denotes something complex which can be analyzed, like “horse”).

2.      “Good” is meaningful, but it cannot be defined in that way.

3.      “Good” is not meaningful.

 

The Open Question Argument is intended to show that “good” cannot be defined in the relevant way:

 

                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 be offered, it may be always asked, with significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is itself good. (320-21)

 

The specific naturalistic definition that Moore considers is: “to be good is to be that which we desire to desire.” But he intends his argument to work against any naturalistic definition of goodness...

 

(D) “X is good” = “X has property P”

 

(A) X has P, but is X good? (are things that have P good?)

(B) X has P, but does it have P? (do things that have P have P?)

 

1.      If (D) is true, then (A) and (B) have the same meaning.

2.      But (A) and (B) do not have the same meaning. (A) is an significant question, which might be answered by a substantial piece of information. (B) is not a real question. (A) is an open question, and (B) is not, so (A) and (B) do not mean the same thing.

3.      Therefore, (D) is not true.

 

... ‘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 also 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 minds. (321)

 

[In the second half of sec.13, he applies the Open Question Argument to show that it is not the case that “good” is not meaningful: p.321.]

 

 

[5.2.4.] Against Bentham.

 

According to Moore, Henry Sidgwick (British philosopher, 1838-1900) is the only other philosopher to recognize that “good” is indefinable.

 

Moore quotes Sidgwick quoting Jeremy Bentham (British philosopher, 1748-1832), and at this point Moore’s attention turns to Bentham. Moore argues that Bentham was guilty of committing the Naturalistic Fallacy.

 

Bentham was an early proponent of one the most influential theories of normative ethics:

 

utilitarianism (df.): the right thing to do in any situation is whatever will increase the overall amount of happiness in the world and decrease the overall amount of suffering.

·         This is how some utilitarians in the 19^th century (such as Bentham and John Stuart Mill) stated the theory; it is sometimes called “classical Utilitarianism.”

·         Contemporary utilitarians tend to focus, not on increasing happiness, but on increasing well-being and making people generally better off.

·         Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism (df.): the only thing that determines whether an action is right or wrong is its consequences; nothing else matters so far as an action’s morality is concerned.

 

Bentham’s fundamental principle (as stated by Sidgwick), was: “the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question [is] the right and proper end of human action.” (322)

 

Moore sees Bentham’s view as an example of the Naturalistic Fallacy.

 

As Moore reads Bentham, he has identified “the right” with human happiness. In so doing, he has identified a non-natural property (which he calls “rightness”) with a natural property, and thus committed the fallacy.

 

Moore himself reserves the word “right” to describe actions that are means to good ends, whether or not those actions themselves are good. For Moore, if performing action a will lead to end e, and if e is good (has the indefinable property of goodness), then performing a is the right thing to do. (322)

 

On the other hand, Bentham was using it to describe the end toward which an action should be directed, viz. human happiness.[1]

 

Bentham ends up arguing in the following fashion, which Moore takes to be illegitimate:

 

“Right” means “conducive to general happiness.”*

Therefore, general happiness is the right end.

 

*This premise is an example of the Naturalistic Fallacy.

 

Moore thinks this is an important mistake, but not necessarily because he disagrees with Bentham’s utilitarian conclusion (the normative ethical views accepted by Moore were in fact utilitarian!).

 

Rather, the mistake is important because had Bentham not made it, he might not have been a utilitarian. The mistake was in giving a bad argument for utilitarianism. Had Bentham recognized that his argument was bad, he presumably would have looked for other arguments to support his view. And had he not found them, he might have ended up with a normative theory other than utilitarianism.

 

 

[5.2.5.] Other Moorean Themes.

 

Moore’s Principa Ethica introduces other ideas which are central to his approach to ethics:

 

·         Moore itemizes a number of things which he says have the (unanalyzable, non-natural) property of goodness, including pleasure resulting from personal interactions and beauty:

 

By far the most valuable things, which we know or can imagine, are certain states of consciousness which may be roughly described as the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects. No one probably, who has asked himself the question, has ever doubted that personal affection and the appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good in themselves; nor if we consider strictly what things are worth having purely for their own sakes, does it appear probable that any one will think anything else has nearly so great a value as the things which are included under these two heads. [from the final chapter of Principia Ethica; not in your textbook]

 

He identifies other things which he says have the (unanalyzable, non-natural) property of badness, including loving what is ugly or bad; hating what is beautiful or good; and pain. So he augments his meta-ethics with normative claims about what things possess the properties goodness and badness.

 

·         He maintained that we can have knowledge of which things are and are not good by way of intuition. This is a sort of knowledge that results neither from sensory perception nor from a deduction from other things that we know. (This is sometimes called Moore’s intuitionism.)

 

·         Moore was a consequentialist, in that he held that whether an action is right depends only on its consequences. He took right actions to be those which increased the amount of good things (e.g., pleasurable personal relationships, beauty) in the world and decreased the amount of bad things (e.g., pain)

.

·         He held that cannot be absolutely certain which actions are right because we can never be certain what consequences our actions will have. But we can nonetheless have very good reason for thinking that our actions will have some consequences and not others, and so we can make firmly-grounded judgments about whether a given action would be moral or not.

 

 

[You can read about how other 20^th century philosophers criticized Moore’s views at pp.308-12 of your textbook.]

 

Stopping point for Wednesday April 22. For next time, begin reading the article by C. L. Stevenson (pp.333-38, secs. I-III).