Principia Ethica · G. E. Moore
METAPHYSICAL ETHICS.
They do not recognise that the question ‘What is good?’ is a _different_ one from the question ‘What is willed in a certain way?’ Thus we find Green explicitly stating that ‘_the_ common characteristic of the good is that it satisfies some desire[22].’ If we are to take this statement strictly, it obviously asserts that good things have no characteristic in common, except that they satisfy some desire--not even, therefore, that they are good. And this can only be the case, if being good is _identical_ with satisfying desire: if ‘good’ is merely another name for ‘desire-satisfying.’ There could be no plainer instance of the naturalistic fallacy. And we cannot take the statement as a mere verbal slip, which does not affect the validity of Green’s main argument. For he nowhere either gives or pretends to give any reason for believing anything to be good in any sense, except that it is what would satisfy a particular kind of desire--the kind of desire which he tries to shew to be that of a moral agent. An unhappy alternative is before us.
Such reasoning would give valid reasons for his conclusions, if, and only if, being good and being desired in a particular way were identical: and in this case, as we have seen in Chapter I., his conclusions would not be ethical. On the other hand, if the two are not identical, his conclusions may be ethical and may even be right, but he has not given us a single reason for believing them. The thing which a scientific Ethics is required to shew, namely that certain things are really good, he has assumed to begin with, in assuming that things which are willed in a certain way are always good. We may, therefore, have as much respect for Green’s conclusions as for those of any other man who details to us his ethical convictions: but that any of his arguments are such as to give us any reason for holding that Green’s convictions are more likely to be true than those of any other man, must be clearly denied. The _Prolegomena to Ethics_ is quite as far as Mr Spencer’s _Data of Ethics_, from making the smallest contribution to the solution of ethical problems. [22] _Prolegomena to Ethics_, p. 178.
But the most important source of the supposition that Metaphysics is relevant to Ethics, seems to be the assumption that ‘good’ _must_ denote some _real_ property of things--an assumption which is mainly due to two erroneous doctrines, the first _logical_, the second _epistemological_. Hence (3) I discussed the _logical_ doctrine that all propositions assert a relation between existents; and pointed out that the assimilation of ethical propositions either to natural laws or to commands are instances of this _logical_ fallacy (72-76). And finally (4) I discussed the _epistemological_ doctrine that to be good is equivalent to being willed or felt in some particular way; a doctrine which derives support from the analogous error, which Kant regarded as the cardinal point of his system and which has received immensely wide acceptance--the erroneous view that to be ‘true’ or ‘real’ is equivalent to being thought in a particular way. In this discussion the main points to which I desire to direct attention are these: (_a_) That Volition and Feeling are _not_ analogous to Cognition in the manner assumed; since in so far as these words denote an attitude of the mind towards an object, they are themselves merely instances of Cognition: they differ only in respect of the kind of object of which they take cognisance, and in respect of the other mental accompaniments of such cognitions: (_b_) That universally the _object_ of a cognition must be distinguished from the cognition of which it is the object; and hence that in no case can the question whether the object is _true_ be identical with the question how it is cognised or whether it is cognised at all: it follows that even if the proposition ‘This is good’ were always the object of certain kinds of will or feeling, the _truth_ of that proposition could in no case be established by proving that it was their object; far less can that proposition itself be identical with the proposition that its subject is the object of a volition or a feeling (77-84).
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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