Principia Ethica · G. E. Moore
METAPHYSICAL ETHICS.
We may, first of all, notice one, which seems to have had some influence in causing the view that good must be defined by _some_ such property, although it does not suggest any _particular_ property as the one required. This reason lies in the supposition that the proposition ‘This is good’ or ‘This would be good, if it existed’ must, in a certain respect, be of the same type as other propositions. The fact is that there is one type of proposition so familiar to everyone, and therefore having such a strong hold upon the imagination, that philosophers have always supposed that all other types must be reducible to it. This type is that of the objects of experience--of all those truths which occupy our minds for the immensely greater part of our waking lives: truths such as that somebody is in the room, that I am writing or eating or talking. All these truths, however much they may differ, have this in common that in them both the grammatical subject and the grammatical predicate stand for something which exists. Immensely the commonest type of truth, then, is one which asserts a relation between two existing things.
Ethical truths are immediately felt not to conform to this type, and the naturalistic fallacy arises from the attempt to make out that, in some roundabout way, they do conform to it. It is immediately obvious that when we see a thing to be good, its goodness is not a property which we can take up in our hands, or separate from it even by the most delicate scientific instruments, and transfer to something else. It is not, in fact, like most of the predicates which we ascribe to things, a _part_ of the thing to which we ascribe it. But philosophers suppose that the reason why we cannot take goodness up and move it about, is not that it is a different _kind_ of object from any which can be moved about, but only that it _necessarily_ exists together with anything with which it does exist. They explain the type of ethical truths by supposing it identical with the type of scientific laws. And it is only when they have done this that the naturalistic philosophers proper--those who are empiricists--and those whom I have called ‘metaphysical’ part company. These two classes of philosophers do, indeed, differ with regard to the nature of scientific laws.
The former class tend to suppose that when they say ‘This always accompanies that’ they mean only ‘This has accompanied, does now, and will accompany that in these particular instances’: they reduce the scientific law quite simply and directly to the familiar type of proposition which I have pointed out. But this does not satisfy the metaphysicians. They see that when you say ‘This would accompany that, _if_ that existed,’ you don’t mean only that this and that have existed and will exist together so many times. But it is beyond even their powers to believe that what you do mean is merely what you say. They still think you must mean, somehow or other, that something does exist, since that is what you generally mean when you say anything. They are as unable as the empiricists to imagine that you can ever mean that 2 + 2 = 4. The empiricists say this means that so many couples of couples of things have in each case been four things; and hence that 2 and 2 would not make 4, unless precisely those things had existed.
The metaphysicians feel that this is wrong; but they themselves have no better account of its meaning to give than either, with Leibniz, that God’s mind is in a certain state, or, with Kant, that your mind is in a certain state, or finally, with Mr Bradley, that something is in a certain state. Here, then, we have the root of the naturalistic fallacy. The metaphysicians have the merit of seeing that when you say ‘This would be good, if it existed,’ you can’t mean merely ‘This has existed and was desired,’ however many times that may have been the case. They will admit that some good things have not existed in this world, and even that some may not have been desired. But what you can mean, except that _something_ exists, they really cannot see. Precisely the same error which leads them to suppose that there must _exist_ a supersensible Reality, leads them to commit the naturalistic fallacy with regard to the meaning of ‘good.’ Every truth, they think, must mean somehow that something exists; and since, unlike the empiricists, they recognise some truths which do not mean that anything exists here and now, these they think must mean that something exists _not_ here and now. On the same principle, since ‘good’ is a predicate which neither does nor can exist, they are bound to suppose either that ‘to be good’ means to be related to some other particular thing which can exist and does exist ‘in reality’; or else that it means merely ‘to belong to the real world’--that goodness is transcended or absorbed in reality.
That the proposition ‘This is good’ is thus distinct from every other proposition was proved in Chapter I.; and I may now illustrate this fact by pointing out how it is distinguished from two particular propositions with which it has commonly been identified. That so and so _ought to be done_ is commonly called a moral _law_, and this phrase naturally suggests that this proposition is in some way analogous either to a natural law, or to a law in the legal sense, or to both. All three are, in fact, really analogous in one respect, and in one respect only: that they include a proposition which is _universal_. A moral law asserts ‘This is good _in all cases_’; a natural law asserts ‘This happens _in all cases_’; and a law, in the legal sense, ‘It is commanded that this be done, or be left undone, _in all cases_.’ But since it is very natural to suppose that the analogy extends further, and that the assertion ‘This is good in all cases’ is equivalent to the assertion ‘This happens in all cases’ or to the assertion ‘It is commanded that this be done in all cases,’ it may be useful briefly to point out that they are _not_ equivalent.
Kant’s assertion of the ‘Autonomy of the Practical Reason’ thus has the very opposite effect to that which he desired; it makes his Ethics ultimately and hopelessly ‘heteronomous.’ His Moral Law is ‘independent’ of Metaphysics only in the sense that according to him we can _know_ it independently; he holds that we can only infer that there is Freedom, from the fact that the Moral Law is true. And so far as he keeps strictly to this view, he does avoid the error, into which most metaphysical writers fall, of allowing his opinions as to what is real to influence his judgments of what is good. But he fails to see that on his view the Moral Law is dependent upon Freedom in a far more important sense than that in which Freedom depends on the Moral Law. He admits that Freedom is the _ratio essendi_ of the Moral Law, whereas the latter is only _ratio cognoscendi_ of Freedom. And this means that, unless Reality be such as he says, no assertion that ‘This is good’ can possibly be true: it can indeed have no meaning. He has, therefore, furnished his opponents with a conclusive method of attacking the validity of the Moral Law. If they can only shew by some other means (which he denies to be possible but leaves theoretically open) that the nature of Reality is not such as he says, he cannot deny that they will have proved his ethical principle to be false. If that ‘This ought to be done’ _means_ ‘This is willed by a Free Will,’ then, if it can be shewn that there is no Free Will which wills anything, it will follow that nothing ought to be done.
Now that this is an error has been already shewn in Chapter I. That the assertion ‘This is good’ is _not_ identical with the assertion ‘This is willed,’ either by a supersensible will, or otherwise, nor with any other proposition, has been proved; nor can I add anything to that proof. But in face of this proof it may be anticipated that two lines of defence may be taken up. (1) It may be maintained that, nevertheless, they really are identical, and facts may be pointed out which seem to prove that identity. Or else (2) it may be said that an _absolute_ identity is not maintained: that it is only meant to assert that there is some special connection between will and goodness, such as makes an enquiry into the real nature of the former an essential step in the proof of ethical conclusions. In order to meet these two possible objections, I propose first to shew what possible connections there are or may be between goodness and will; and that none of these can justify us in asserting that ‘This is good’ is identical with ‘This is willed.’ On the other hand it will appear that some of them may be easily confused with this assertion of identity; and that therefore the confusion is likely to have been made. This part of my argument will, therefore, already go some way towards meeting the second objection. But what must be conclusive against this is to shew that any possible connection between will and goodness _except_ the _absolute_ identity in question, would not be sufficient to give an enquiry into Will the smallest relevance to the proof of any ethical conclusion.
What, that is true, can possibly be meant by this view? =79.= First of all, it may be meant that, just as, by reflection on our perceptual and sensory experience, we become aware of the distinction between truth and falsehood, so it is by reflection on our experiences of feeling and willing that we become aware of ethical distinctions. We should not know what was meant by thinking one thing better than another unless the attitude of our will or feeling towards one thing was different from its attitude towards another. All this may be admitted. But so far we have only the psychological fact that it is only _because_ we will or feel things in a certain way, that we ever come to think them good; just as it is only because we have certain perceptual experiences, that we ever come to think things true. Here, then, is a special connection between willing and goodness; but it is only a _causal_ connection--that willing is a necessary condition for the cognition of goodness.
But it may be said further that willing and feeling are not only the origin of cognitions of goodness; but that to will a thing, or to have a certain feeling towards a thing, is the _same thing_ as to think it good. And it may be admitted that even this is _generally_ true in a sense. It does seem to be true that we hardly ever think a thing good, and never very decidedly, without at the same time having a special attitude of feeling or will towards it; though it is certainly not the case that this is true universally. And the converse may possibly be true universally: it may be the case that a perception of goodness is included in the complex facts which we mean by willing and by having certain kinds of feeling. Let us admit then, that to think a thing good and to will it are _the same thing_ in this sense, that, wherever the latter occurs, the former also occurs as a _part_ of it; and even that they are _generally the same thing_ in the converse sense, that when the former occurs it is generally a part of the latter.
It seems to be owing to this confusion, that the question ‘What is good?’ is thought to be identical with the question ‘What is preferred?’ It is said, with sufficient truth, that you would never know a thing was good unless you preferred it, just as you would never know a thing existed unless you perceived it. But it is added, and this is false, that you would never know a thing was good unless you _knew_ that you preferred it, or that it existed unless you _knew_ that you perceived it. And it is finally added, and this is utterly false, that you cannot distinguish the fact that a thing is good from the fact that you prefer it, or the fact that it exists from the fact that you perceive it. It is often pointed out that I cannot at any given moment distinguish what is true from what I think so: and this is true. But though I cannot distinguish _what_ is true from _what_ I think so, I always can distinguish what I mean by saying _that_ it is true from what I mean by saying _that_ I think so. For I understand the meaning of the supposition that what I think true may nevertheless be false.
When, therefore, I assert that it is true I mean to assert something different from the fact that I think so. _What_ I think, namely _that_ something is true, is always quite distinct from the fact that I think it. The assertion that it is true does not even _include_ the assertion that I think it so; although, of course, whenever I do think a thing true, it is, as a matter of fact, also true that I do think it. This tautologous proposition that for a thing to be thought true it is necessary that it should be thought, is, however, commonly identified with the proposition that for a thing to _be_ true it is necessary that it should be thought. A very little reflection should suffice to convince anyone that this identification is erroneous; and a very little more will shew that, if so, we must mean by ‘true’ something which includes no reference to thinking or to any other psychical fact. It may be difficult to discover precisely _what_ we mean--to hold the object in question before us, so as to compare it with other objects: but that we do mean something distinct and unique can no longer be matter of doubt.
That ‘to be true’ _means_ to be thought in a certain way is, therefore, certainly false. Yet this assertion plays the most essential part in Kant’s ‘Copernican revolution’ of philosophy, and renders worthless the whole mass of modern literature, to which that revolution has given rise, and which is called Epistemology. Kant held that what was unified in a certain manner by the synthetic activity of thought was _ipso facto_ true: that this was the very meaning of the word. Whereas it is plain that the only connection which can possibly hold between being true and being thought in a certain way, is that the latter should be a _criterion_ or test of the former. In order, however, to establish that it is so, it would be necessary to establish by the methods of induction that what was true was always thought in a certain way. Modern Epistemology dispenses with this long and difficult investigation at the cost of the self-contradictory assumption that ‘truth’ and the criterion of truth are one and the same thing.
This confusion is due to a failure to observe that when we say we have a _sensation_ or _perception_ or that we _know_ a thing, we mean to assert not only that our mind is cognitive, but _also_ that that which it cognises is true. It is not observed that the usage of these words is such that, if a thing be untrue, that fact alone is sufficient to justify us in saying that the person who says he perceives or knows it, does not _perceive_ or _know_ it, without our either enquiring whether, or assuming that, his state of mind differs in any respect from what it would have been had he perceived or known. By this denial we do not accuse him of an error in introspection, even if there was such an error: we do not deny that he was aware of a certain object, nor even that his state of mind was exactly such as he took it to be: we merely deny that the object, of which he was aware, had a certain property. It is, however, commonly supposed that when we assert a thing to be perceived or known, we are asserting one fact only; and since of the two facts which we really assert, the existence of a psychical state is by far the easier to distinguish, it is supposed that this is the only one which we do assert. Thus perception and sensation have come to be regarded as if they denoted certain states of mind and nothing more; a mistake which was the easier to make since the commonest state of mind, to which we give a name which does not imply that its object is true, namely imagination, may, with some plausibility, be supposed to differ from sensation and perception not only in the property possessed by its object, but also in its character as a state of mind.
It has thus come to be supposed that the only difference between perception and imagination, by which they can be defined, must be a merely psychical difference: and, if this were the case, it would follow at once that to _be_ true was identical with being cognised in a certain way; since the assertion that a thing is perceived does certainly _include_ the assertion that it is true, and if, nevertheless, that it is perceived means _only_ that the mind has a certain attitude towards it, then its truth must be identical with the fact that it is regarded in this way. We may, then, attribute the view that to be true _means_ to be cognised in a certain way partly to the failure to perceive that certain words, which are commonly supposed to stand for nothing more than a certain kind of cognitive state, do, in fact, _also_ include a reference to the truth of the object of such states.
But the very fact that we can thus distinguish the question whether, though the one is always accompanied by the other, yet this other may not always be accompanied by the first, shews that the two things are not, in the strict sense, identical. The fact is that, whatever we mean by will, or by any form of will, the fact we mean by it certainly always includes something else _beside_ the thinking a thing good: and hence that, when willing and thinking good are asserted to be identical, the most that can be meant is that this other element in will always both accompanies and is accompanied by the thinking good; and this, as has been said, is of very doubtful truth. Even, however, if it were strictly true, the fact that the two things can be distinguished is fatal to the assumed coordination between will and cognition, in one of the senses in which that assumption is commonly made. For it is only in respect of the _other_ element in will, that volition differs from cognition; whereas it is only in respect of the fact that volition, or some form of volition, _includes_ a _cognition_ of goodness, that will can have the same relation to ethical, which cognition has to metaphysical, propositions. Accordingly the fact of volition, _as a whole_, that is, if we include in it the element which makes it volition and distinguishes it from cognition, has _not_ the same relation to ethical propositions which cognition has to those which are metaphysical. Volition and cognition are _not_ coordinate ways of experiencing, since it is only in so far as volition denotes a _complex_ fact, which includes in it the one identical simple fact, which is meant by _cognition_, that volition is a way of experiencing at all.
But, (3) if we allow the terms ‘volition’ or ‘will’ to stand for ‘thinking good,’ although they certainly do not commonly stand for this, there still remains the question: What connection would this fact establish between volition and Ethics? Could the enquiry into what was willed be identical with the ethical enquiry into what was good? It is plain enough that they could not be identical; though it is also plain why they should be thought so. The question ‘What is good?’ is confused with the question ‘What is thought good?’ and the question ‘What is true?’ with the question ‘What is thought true?’ for two main reasons. (1) One of these is the general difficulty that is found in distinguishing what is cognised from the cognition of it. It is observed that I certainly cannot cognise anything that is true without cognising it. Since, therefore, whenever I know a thing that is true, the thing is certainly cognised, it is assumed that for a thing to _be_ true at all is the same thing as for it to be cognised. And (2) it is not observed that certain words, which are supposed to denote only peculiar species of cognition, do as a matter of fact _also_ denote that the object cognised is true. Thus if ‘perception’ be taken to denote only a certain kind of mental fact, then, since the object of it is always true, it becomes easy to suppose that to be true means only to be object to a mental state of that kind. And similarly it is easy to suppose that to be truly good differs from being falsely thought so, solely in respect of the fact that to be the former is to be the object of a volition differing from that of which an apparent good is the object, in the same way in which a perception (on this supposition) differs from an illusion.
It is plain that if what is willed in a certain way were always _also_ good, then the fact that a thing was so willed would be a _criterion_ of its goodness. But in order to establish that will is a criterion of goodness, we must be able to shew first and separately that in a great number of the instances in which we find a certain kind of will we also find that the objects of that will are good. We might, then, perhaps, be entitled to infer that in a few instances, where it was not obvious whether a thing was good or not but was obvious that it was willed in the way required, the thing was really good, since it had the property which in all other instances we had found to be accompanied by goodness. A reference to will might thus, just conceivably, become of use towards the end of our ethical investigations, when we had already been able to shew, independently, of a vast number of different objects that they were really good and in what degree they were so. And against even this conceivable utility it may be urged (1) That it is impossible to see why it should not be as easy (and it would certainly be the more secure way) to prove that the thing in question was good, by the same methods which we had used in proving that other things were good, as by reference to our criterion; and (2) That, if we set ourselves seriously to find out what things are good, we shall see reason to think (as will appear in Chapter VI.) that they have _no_ other property, both common and peculiar to them, beside their goodness--that, in fact, there is no criterion of goodness.
And secondly we must be able to shew this in a very large number of instances, if we are to be entitled to claim any assent for the proposition that these two properties _always_ accompany one another: even when this was shewn it would still be doubtful whether the inference from ‘generally’ to ‘always’ would be valid, and almost certain that this doubtful principle would be useless. But the very question which it is the business of Ethics to answer is this question what things are good; and, so long as Hedonism retains its present popularity, it must be admitted that it is a question upon which there is scarcely any agreement and which therefore requires the most careful examination. The greatest and most difficult part of the business of Ethics would therefore require to have been already accomplished before we could be entitled to claim that anything was a _criterion_ of goodness. If, on the other hand, to be willed in a certain way was _identical_ with being good, then indeed we should be entitled to start our ethical investigations by enquiring what was willed in the way required. That this is the way in which metaphysical writers start their investigations seems to shew conclusively that they are influenced by the idea that ‘goodness’ is _identical_ with ‘being willed.’
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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