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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2009
Moore is taken to have followed Sidgwick in his arguments against naturalism and in his consequentialism. I argue that there are differences on both issues. Sidgwick's arguments against naturalism do not rely on a controversial view of analysis, and one of his arguments for consequentialism gives him greater resources against critics of consequentialism such as T. M. Scanlon.
1 The cover's attribution is wrong; the quotation is from Keynes, not Russell (Keynes, J. M., Two Memoirs, London, 1949, p. 81)Google Scholar. Russell did write a very favourable review in the Independent Review and his ‘Elements of Ethics’ is ‘largely based on Mr G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica, to which the reader is referred for further discussion’ (Russell, Bertrand, Philosophical Essays, Cambridge, 1910, p. 13n.)Google Scholar
2 Keynes, p. 82.
3 Quoted in Regan, Tom, Bloomsbury's Prophet: G. E. Moore and the Development of his Moral Philosophy, Philadelphia, 1986, p. 197Google Scholar, from Woolf quoting Keynes.
4 Woolf, Leonard, Sowing: An Autobiography of the Years 1880–1904, London, 1960, p. 147Google Scholar.
5 Quoted in Regan, p. 16. For Moore and Bloomsbury see, in addition to Regan, , Levy, Paul, G. E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles, London, 1989Google Scholar.
6 McGilvary, E. B., ‘Review of Principia Ethica’, Philosophical Review, xiii (1904), 351, 358CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Wilde, Norman, ‘Review of Principia Ethica’, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, ii (1905), 581CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Mackenzie, J. S., ‘Review of Principia Ethica’, International Journal of Ethics, xiv (1903–1904), 378, 377Google Scholar.
9 Bosanquet, Bernard, ‘Critical Notice of Principia Ethica’, Mind, xiii (1904), 260 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on Principia's, reception, see Welchman's, Jennifer fine ‘G. E. Moore and the Revolution in Ethics: A Reappraisal’, History of Philosophy Quarterly, vi (1989)Google Scholar.
10 An (incidental) reason for choosing Sidgwick is that, in the person of his Memoirs, he represents, for Keynes and Strachey, ‘the mind of the Victorian period’, and so presumably what Moore left bafouée – the Memoirs are ‘all so dreadfully depressing – no intimacy, no clear-cut boldness’ (Keynes); ‘What an appalling time to have lived!… It was the Glass Case Age. Themselves as well as their ornaments were left under glass cases. The[y] refus[ed] to face any fundamental question fairly’ (Strachey). When Leavis attacked Bloomsbury, he quoted Keynes on the Memoirs and commented ‘[w]e can guess well enough what Sidgwick would have thought of Lytton Strachey. And an élite of young Cambridge minds that could find the ethos of Lytton Strachey more congenial than that of Henry Sidgwick was certainly a significantly new thing’. I take the quotations from Regan, pp. 118, 257.
11 References to Moore's works are as follows: CV = ‘The Conception of Intrinsic Value’, in Moore, , Philosophical Studies, London, 1922Google Scholar; E = Ethics, Oxford, 1965Google Scholar; GQ = ‘Is Goodness a Quality?’ in Moore, , Philosophical Papers, London, 1959Google Scholar; MP = Some Main Problems of Philosophy, London, 1953Google Scholar; NMP = ‘The Nature of Moral Philosophy’, in Studies; P = ‘Preface to the Second Edition’, in Moore, , Principia Ethica, rev. edn., ed. Baldwin, Thomas, Cambridge, 1993Google Scholar; PE = Principia Ethica, Cambridge, 1903Google Scholar; R = ‘Replies’, in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, ed. Schilpp, P. A., Chicago, 1942Google Scholar; RTD = ‘Russell's “Theory of Descriptions”’, in Papers.
12 For a short history of Moore's predecessors, see Prior, A. N., Logic and the Basis of Ethics, Oxford, 1965, ch. 9Google Scholar.
13 References to Sidgwick's works are as follows: GSM = Lectures on the Ethics of T. H. Green, Mr H. Spencer, and J. Martineau, ed. Jones, E. E. Constance, London, 1902Google Scholar; ME = The Methods of Ethics, Indianapolis, 1981Google Scholar.
14 For examples of ‘analysis as inspection’ from many of Moore's non-ethical works, see White, Alan R., G. E. Moore: A Critical Exposition, Oxford, 1958, pp. 66–72Google Scholar.
15 Moore does see a difference between arguments which rely on the bare possibility of thinking one thing without another and arguments which point out a particular problem in an analysis. The former, as quoted, give ‘good, even if not conclusive’, reasons for rejecting an analysis. The latter give conclusive reasons. Thus Moore rejects Frankena's analysis of ‘X is intrinsically good’ as ‘[i]f we are capable of producing X, then we have a prima facie duty to do so’ by arguing that X can be intrinsically good without there being a prima facie reason to do X. The intrinsic goodness of X gives only a weak reason for producing X, whereas if there is a prima facie reason to produce X, there must (Moore thinks) be a strong reason for producing X. This ‘is not merely a good, but an absolutely conclusive reason for rejecting’ the analysis (R 596; also 565).
16 Compare Russell's ‘The Elements of Ethics’: ‘Whenever a proposed definition sets us thinking whether it is true in fact, and not whether that is how the word is used, there is reason to suspect that we are not dealing with a definition, but with a significant proposition.… By applying this test, we shall easily convince ourselves that all hitherto suggested definitions of the good are significant, not merely verbal, propositions; and that therefore, though they may be true in fact, they do not give the meaning of the word “good”’ (Russell, pp. 19 f.).
17 This objection is repeated by each generation since at least the 1920s. (For an excellent recent statement, see Smith, Michael, The Moral Problem, Oxford, 1994, pp. 36–9.)Google Scholar For example, after giving the open question argument, Ross objects that ‘there seem to be cases in which we seek for the definition of a term and finally accept one as correct.… [T]he fact that we are for some time in doubt whether the term is analysable, and if so, what the correct analysis is, shows that this complex of elements was not distinctly present to our mind before, or during, the search for a definition.… [T]here is such a thing as using a term which implicitly refers to a certain complex, while yet the complex is not explicitly present to our minds.’ Ross recommends ‘attending to any proposed definition that seems at all plausible. If it is the correct definition, what should happen is that after a certain amount of attention to it we should be able to say, “yes, that is what I meant by ‘good’ all along, though I was not clearly conscious till now that it was what I meant”’ (Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good, Oxford, 1930, pp. 92 f.)Google Scholar. Broad notes that in cases where a proposed analysis cannot be rejected as picking out something not coextensive with concept analysed, one might still reject it by noting that the analysis ‘misses out something’ or is ‘too complex’ to fit the concept analysed. He is unimpressed by the complexity worry, since, if I can fail to know the correct analysis, I can presumably fail to know how complex the correct analysis must be (Broad, C. D., ‘Is “Goodness” a Name of a Simple Non-Natural Quality?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, xxxiv (1934), 256–9)Google Scholar. Perry notes that ‘analysis will invariably reveal a structure which is not present to a mind.… It would, for example, scarcely be urged that circularity is indefinable because one can judge an object to be circular without judging that all points on its perimeter are equi-distant from the centre’ (Perry, R. B., General Theory of Value: Its Meaning and Basic Principles Construed in Terms of Interest, New York, 1926, pp. 131 f.)Google Scholar. Moore himself sometimes doubts that I can correctly identify or describe what is before my mind; see esp. MP 220–2 and Baldwin, Thomas, G. E. Moore, London, 1990, pp. 63 fGoogle Scholar.
18 Smith, pp. 37–9. Moore notes that two concepts can be logically equivalent without being identical. (He offers ‘x is a cube’ and ‘x is a cube and has twelve edges’.) In effect Moore says ‘perhaps so-and-so is logically equivalent to “good”, but since there is a gap between logical equivalence and identity, you have not yet shown identity’ (R 599–601). The problem is that what Moore adds to logical equivalence seems too strong. Moore himself suggests a way to rule out ‘x is a cube and has twelve edges’ as an analysis of ‘x is a cube’ by proposing that an analysans ‘should also not contain as a part of itself’ the analysandum unless the analysans is a part of the analysandum (RTD 169 f.). This proposal would not rule out Frankena's analyses.
19 Russell gives a different example: ‘Whoever believes that “good” means “desired” will try to explain away the cases where it seems as if what is desired is bad; but if he no longer holds this theory, he will be able to allow free play to his unbiased ethical perceptions’ (Russell, p. 19).
20 Russell gives Sidgwick's no-disgreement argument (Russell, pp. 20 f., 27). Baldwin claims Moore offers the no-disagreement argument concerning beauty at PE 201, but Moore notes only that subjective definitions of ‘beautiful’ entail that ‘precisely the same thing may, according to circumstances, be both beautiful and not beautiful’, without explaining why this is a problem (Baldwin, p. 319n55). Ewing's, A. C.Ethics (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, the swan song of non-naturalism, gives specific things lost by various analyses (pp. 82–9, 99–101) along with the ‘general’ open question objection (p. 91).
21 See Baldwin, p. 72.
22 One of Sidgwick's arguments against analysing ‘one ought to tell the truth’ as ‘not truth telling will be penalised by God’ may also rely on mere inspection rather than counter-example: he notes that ‘it is right for God to punish sinners’ ‘cannot be taken to mean that He is “bound under penalties”’ (ME 31). It is unclear whether it cannot be taken to have this meaning because that is not what is before one's mind or because giving it this meaning is (say) inconsistent with one's other beliefs about God.
23 Sidgwick does reject the proposed analysis of my ‘future good on the whole’, but not on grounds of the substitution argument given against Bentham and Spencer. See ME 112.
24 Moore also gives tu quoque arguments against some analyses. For example, he reads Kant as analysing ‘x ought to be’ as ‘x is what a free or pure will must do’. He then objects that Kant has made ethics heteronomous by making ought-claims depend on the existence of a free or pure will (PE 127 f).
25 For one list of predecessors, see Rashdall, Hastings, The Theory of Good and Evil, 2 vols., 2nd edn., Oxford, 1924, i. 216–18Google Scholar.
26 In addition to Rashdall, see Hayward, F. H., The Ethical Philosophy of Sidgwick, London, 1901, esp. pp. 243, 246Google Scholar.
27 See especially Braithwaite, R. B., ‘George Edward Moore 1873–1958’, G. E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect, ed. Ambrose, Alice and Lazerowitz, Morris, London, 1970, p. 21Google Scholar.
28 Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other, Cambridge, MA, 1998, pp. 81, 101Google Scholar.
29 Ibid., pp. 79, 106.
30 Ibid., p. 89. I concentrate on the friendship example because Scanlon takes it to be more convincing than his knowledge example (p. 91) and because his third main example of a valuable thing not to be promoted – human life – is intrinsically valued neither by Moore nor, I think, by many others.
31 Ibid., pp. 82, 100, 101.
32 Scanlon notes that if what one adds as valuable to pleasure is, like pleasure, properly valued by promotion, consequentialism would be saved (Scanlon, p. 101). I put this aside since Scanlon argues that (one of) Moore's additions – friendship – is not properly valued by promotion.
33 Ibid., p. 383n15. This is also noted by Pettit, Philip, ‘A Consequentialist Perspective on Contractualism’, Theoria, lxvi (2000), 235Google Scholar. For a similar split between the reasons of those outside and within a practice, see Scanlon's discussion of scientific knowledge (Scanlon, pp. 93 f).
34 For another non-naturalist with a coherentist approach, see Ewing, pp. 10 f., 117.
35 Similarly, Rashdall's main argument for consequentialism consists in repeating Sidgwick's attack on common sense morality (i. 81–91) and criticising Kant (i. 110–38), although he also endorses Sidgwick's axioms (i. 90–1) and finds it irrational to ignore consequences (i. 83–4, 91, 93, 134). Ewing argues for consequentialism by attacking Kant and then arguing that ideal utilitarianism is at least on a par with Ross's theory of prima facie duties. He adds against Ross that judgements of goodness seem to call for less justification than judgements of rightness; appeals to the production of goodness clearly justify acts as right; and ‘it is very hard to believe that it can ever be our duty deliberately to produce less good than we might’ (Ewing, pp. 75 f.).
36 For the same objection, see Shaw, William H., Moore on Right and Wrong: The Normative Ethics of G. E. Moore, Dordrecht, 1995, pp. 58–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 See Ross, ch. 2.
38 See Darwall, Stephen L., ‘Agent-Centered Restrictions from the Inside Out’, Philosophical Studies, 1 (1986), 296Google Scholar; Baldwin, p. 125. For an agent-neutral rationale for deontology that would avoid this reply, see Kamm, Frances, Morality, Mortality, 2 vols., New York, 1993, ii. ch. 10Google Scholar.
39 In Ethics, he drops the incoherence charge against egoism. There it is self-evident that egoism is false (E 100). Later, Moore offers as a clarification of Principia the bewildering argument that egoism is self-contradictory if ‘ethical neutralism’ is true (R 613 f.).
40 Scheffler, Samuel, The Rejection of Consequentialism, Oxford, 1982Google Scholar, ch. 4 and ‘Agent-Centred Restrictions, Rationality, and the Virtues’, Mind, xciv (1985)Google Scholar.
41 Kagan, Shelly, The Limits of Morality, Oxford, 1989, p. 14Google Scholar; see also pp. 11–15, 24–32; ‘Thinking about Cases’, Social Philosophy and Policy, xviii (2001), 52 fGoogle Scholar.
42 Kagan, p. 14.
43 Scanlon, pp. 85, 68, 98.
44 See ibid., pp. 229–41.
45 Scanlon's recent papers touch on the issue, but without explicitly considering a paradox of deontology example. See Scanlon, , ‘Intention and Permissibility’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol., lxxiv (2000)Google Scholarand ‘A Contractualist Reply’, Theoria, lxvi (2000)Google Scholar.
46 Shaw, p. 27; Regan, pp. 267 f. Ross directs the same charge of seeking system rather than truth against Moore's consequentialism (Ross, p. 19). Scanlon directs the charge at the consequentialist Philip Pettit (pp. 99, 384n20).
47 Rashdall, i. 102 f.
48 For a taste for metaphysics as a difference between Sidgwick and Moore, see Baldwin, , ‘Editor's Introduction’, in his revised edition of Principia, p. xvGoogle Scholar.
49 Ayer, A. J., ‘On the Analysis of Moral Judgments’, Philosophical Essays, London, 1954, p. 242Google Scholar; Nowell-Smith, P. H., Ethics, Harmondsworth, 1954, p. 48Google Scholar. For a good brief discussion of the possible metaphysical consequences of Moore's account, see Brink, David, ‘Realism, Naturalism, and Moral Semantics’, Social Philosophy and Policy, xviii (2001), 156 fGoogle Scholar.
50 Welchman has challenged the standard history, noting differences between Moore and Ayer on analysis and noting Stevenson's roots in American naturalism (Welchman, 322–6). But it remains true that Ayer and Stevenson both use a version of the open question argument against naturalism, explain the open question argument through non-cognitivism, and ridicule intuition and Platonist metaphysics. (See Ayer, , Language, Truth and Logic, New York, 1952, pp. 104–6Google Scholar; for Stevenson on Moore, see Stevenson, C. L., ‘The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms’, Mind, xlvi (1937), 16, 18, 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Ethics and Language, New Haven, 1944, pp. 272Google Scholar f.) Ayer explicitly presents non-cognitivism as the way to avoid the choice between naturalism and intuitionist epistemology (Logic, pp. 106 f.) and takes Moore as his representative non-naturalist (‘Analysis’, p. 239). Furthermore, Broad's statement of the non-cognitivism of Duncan Jones – published before Ayer or Stevenson – is offered as part of an evaluation of Principia.
51 See Stevenson, ‘Moore's Arguments against Certain Forms of Ethical Naturalism’, in Schilpp. Ayer also responds, by denying that there are ethical disagreements (Logic, pp. 110–12).
52 Thanks to Roger Crisp, Paul Hurley, an audience at Manitoba (especially Bob Bright, Ben Caplan, and Carl Matheson) and, most of all, Joyce Jenkins.
