G.E Moore

• What is the naturalistic fallacy?

  it is a mistake to try and define the concept of 'good' in terms of some natural property, such as 'pleasant' or 'desirable'
• argued that it is not possible to derive an ought from an is

  we cannot go from 'pleasure is good' to 'we ought to seek pleasure'
• we cannot derive moral values from facts
• Example:

  i) she is old and lonely - fact

  ii) you ought to help her - moral value

  Deriving 2 from 1 is logically invalid because it could also be:

  i) she is old and lonely - fact

  ii) you ought to euthanise her - moral value

  Shouldn't be able to get two different values so naturalism fails
• argued that instead that good is undefinable 


  open question argument
• Open question argument

  • e/g a utilitarian will seek to maximise pleasure over pain - any action which gives a balance over pain is 'good'
  • if you asked a utilitarian 'this action maximises utility but is it good?' - closed question as they would have to say yes (no other answer is possible for them)
  • Moore says this can be an open question because we can always stand back and ask 'is it good to bring about more pleasure than pain?'