Was Moore a Subjectivist, a Non-cognitivist, or What?

**This is from guest blogger, Claire S.**

In The Subject-Matter of Ethics, Moore is presenting a thesis opposing the view of ethical naturalism, which is the view that moral facts and properties of those facts are natural entities, that moral facts and properties supervene upon naturally existing properties; in other words, there is no change in moral facts or properties without a change in the natural properties. An ethical naturalist would thereby define “goodness” or “morality” in solely natural properties; this is something that Moore thinks is impossible. In his essay he struggles to come up with a way to define goodness at all, claiming it impossible.  He says, “propositions about the good are all of them synthetic and never analytic,” (51). By this he means that it is impossible to define what good is itself, for the goodness can only be defined as being in terms as a property of some other end; what I mean is, to define a “good bike” would be to explain what about the bike makes it optimal for its function, or what makes it good as a bike. To define a “good book” is to define what makes the book pleasurable or functional according to its purpose. What makes a book good is entirely different than what makes a bike good, so it is difficult if not impossible to come up with a definition for the good alone because the goodness of some thing depends on what properties make it optimal according to its function. So the goodness is always synthetic depending on what thing it is a property of, and it is never analytic, we can never define what it is to be good in itself. In order to define the intrinsic value of good, Moore says we must be able to determine the intrinsic nature of good, which he has shown is not possible.

Moore on page 55 focuses on the fact that “good” cannot be defined in an analytic way like “bachelor” can be defined as “an unmarried man”, in this case, you can substitute the phrase “an unmarried man” for the word “bachelor” and still retain the truth value of a proposition. “Good” however does not work this way, for it is not the case that, say, if I said the phrase, “this song is good” that I can then substitute “this song” for “good” in another sentence, like “hot coffee in the morning is this song”.

I agree with Moore that “good” cannot ever be defined as analytic, for it seems to always be synthetic with regard to whatever thing we are attributing the good to. I do not, however, think that Moore’s argument denies the fact that there can be epistemological ethical beliefs that are subjective that a person draws from when they make ethical claims.

I am also interested in seeing if there is a way to define “goodness” analytically by saying something like, “is such a way that it is optimal in function for its subject”. Like, what makes a bike good is that it works according to its function or what makes a book good is that it is optimal considering its function. This is almost a weird way of subjective things having the ability to be objective. However, it does not seem like this definition can even be applied to questions of ethics, for it doesn’t make sense to say that when I say, “that Bill Gates gives to charity is good” that I mean “giving to charity is optimal for Bill Gates function”, rather it is not necessarily something that is optimal for Bill Gates’ function in the way that breathing and eating are optimal for Bill Gates’ functions as a human. It seems that we would have to categorize these even further in order for a functionalist argument to work for ethics.

I am wondering what exactly Moore is trying to do after he shows ethical naturalism is false. Does Moore’s view support a subjectivist argument for the goodness of things, or is he leaning toward a more non-cognitive argument that it doesn’t at all make sense to talk about things being ethically good or bad? I think after subjectivism gets pushed passed a certain point it can turn into non-cognitivism, which could be a danger for Moore if he wants to support a subjective view of ethics. 

More on Moore

**This is from guest blogger, Nathan T.**

I just have to say this: G. E. Moore makes philosophy seem so annoyingly simple.

In the selection, “The Subject-Matter of Ethics,” Moore proposes that good is fundamentally undefinable. In considering definitions of good, Moore refutes an appeal to semantics and the common useage of the word “good,” stating that he instead wants to know the property or thing to which “good” refers. Likewise, he does not ask what things have the property of being good, or “the good,” (p. 52) but what the property “good” is in of itself.

Moore believes that there are certain foundational properties or entities that are completely simple; namely, that they cannot be reduced to any further properties or components (unlike a horse or a Chimera). Moore considers an example with the color yellow: while yellow can be described in terms of wavelengths and retinas, yellow is a basic perception that cannot be broken up into any more basic parts. Likewise, good is a property that is completely basic, and therefore undefineable (because, according to Moore, a definition “states what are the parts which invariably compose a certain whole” (p.53)). Therefore, any naturalist attempt to define “good” in terms of more basic concepts, such as pleasure or desire, will fail, as he considers for the last half of the selection.

I have to admit, I agree largely with Moore. However, I am slightly uncertain as to what his ultimate “project” is. By making “good” undefinable, is Moore precluding meta-ethics as a legitimate field of study? If “good” is a simple (and, implicitly, unanalyzable) concept, then it seems that the only valid subject matter are the things which are good, which Moore seems to take as the enterprise of ethics (p. 52, second column).  Or is Moore simply “cleaning house,” and doing away with muddled and blurred concepts, such as thinking that good and pleasure are related? Perhaps Moore is instead saving the enterprise of meta-ethics from unclear ideas.

I think I probably side with the first interpretation, but I’m open to other thoughts. So what do y’all think?

G.E. Moore, Definitions, and Moral Terms

**This is from guest blogger, Daniel S.**

First, I’d like to start off by saying that I felt that this piece by G.E. Moore was fascinating, and some of the undefinable definitions he was portraying in the beginning of the piece were things that I have been pouring over rather recently. To start off with, Moore believes that there are notions which we are unable to define solely because of how simple these notions are. For instance, Moore gives the example of “yellow” and wonders about how are we to define “yellow” to a person who does not know yellow? This simple notion, “yellow”, is often used to describe and define other objects, but when it comes to defining itself, all we can really say is that yellow is yellow. Moore continues by saying that we may be able to define yellow by looking at the physical events which occur that allow us to perceive yellow, such as light vibrations in the eye.  But, these light vibrations aren’t really what we mean when we’re talking about yellow, but rather the light vibrations are merely our way of being able to see yellow.

It’s worthwhile to take an additional look at how we perceive these simple notions. Moore uses an example of a chimera. A chimera is a mystical creature that has the head of a lioness, a goat head growing from the middle of its back, and with a snake as its tail. This being is so complex that we are able to chip away its parts. We can take away the snake for the tail, or the head of the lioness. But, even after we do separate these parts we are still left with some highly complex parts. The head of the lioness is still going to have two eyes, it’ll have hair, and it’ll be a multitude of different colors. It is when we get to the very basic of these descriptions that we can find the simple notions, where we are no longer able to break it away into any additional parts. We often use these simple notions to express the parts of complex objects, but these simple notions in themselves express a certain quality; yellow is yellow.

The reason this is important is because Moore finds that the simple notion, “yellow”, is in some respects analogous to “good”. Moore believes that good, just like yellow, is a simple notion. This leads to Moore being asked, “What is good”, and consequently Moore would ambiguously reply, “good is good”.  Well, this seems frustrating and leads to a conundrum. If we, as ethicists, are attempting to find good and define what it is, then how are we supposed to be able to do that if all we are able to say about good is that “good is good”? Moore would reply that even though good is an undefinable notion, it is still something which we know. Just as we know what yellow is, we know what good is.

Personally I found this to be quite interesting, and this eventually leads into Moore’s naturalistic fallacy. I’d like to hear what you guys think though. Do you think it IS actually possible for us to be able to define good? Or are you content with Moore finding that it is a simple notion? And further, if we are to agree with Moore, then are those who are unable to realize the simple notion of good morally responsible for their actions? Because we can imagine a person who is color blind of yellow, and thus does not have any idea of what it is, but we do not portray him in a negative light. This might be one of the falling points for Moore’s argument, because it seems as though the consequences for being unable to recognize good are much greater than the consequences for not recognizing yellow, which may mean that "good" is actually a complex notion.