Preamble & summary of lec. 1
Moore is one of the earliest and best (most obvious) examples of modernist philosophers.
The history of Analytic Philosophy is the history of the 20th century; it’s the century of the (rise and fall of) modernism, and Analytic Philosophy is a strand of a strand within philosophy that is modernistic.
The course will split into the rise of modernism, and the reactions and the way we can do philosophy once we’ve lost much of that modernist faith.
Modernism aims at renewal through a better understanding of the subject at hand; many analytical philosophers seek to break out of discourse towards the arche beyond discourse.
→ looking towards things which do not depend on humans speaking about them, almost Platonic ideals.
The rise of science also presents two key issues for philosophy, which analytical philosophy seeks to resolve and integrate.
(1) modern science can break out of discourse to an arche
(2) Skorupski: modern science also creates the problem of naturalism.
How do we reconcile the fact that humans, like any other animal, are part of nature and are subjects of science, with the fact that humans claim some form of knowledge and normativity.
Meaning is also a normative concept, and is part of the problem of
naturalism.
The guiding questions for this course are: (i) How do we reach that arche beyond discourse? How do the various philosophers in this course interpret this ambition? (ii) What is the role of science, in addition to its study of nature? (iii) what does it mean to be part of nature? what are the philosophers’ interpretations of normativity, and how do they argue that humans can know, after all?
Effectively none of the philosophers in the course are skeptics that just deny all human knowledge and normativity; the question is whether their positions are good.
The study of nature presupposes a relationship between the scientist and nature; discourse can mean whatever (language as a whole, contemporary discourse), but there is always a speaker and what they are saying. → A further question hides here, which is how do these philosophers see the relation between the thinker and what he’s thinking about, the speaker and what he speaks about, the subject and its object.
Modernists tend to disagree with each other (in every field, whether art or philosophy), but are still within the same intellectual current.
All of them still think new = good, and knowledge (of the tradition) leads to renewal.
Modernism also (often) sees itself as the avant-garde, a small group of thinkers leading the charge.
And a lot of them also reconsider the mediums (language, materials, … ) they use.
G. E. Moore (Principia Ethica)
Moore gives a meta-ethical account: he does not deal with ethics proper (what is good in itself, what should I do), but analyzes the concepts we use to think about these substantial issues.
Meta-physics isn’t physics, and meta-ethics isn’t ethics: meta-ethics does not give advice, but tries to understand the concepts we use in it.
This meta-ethical analysis does try to renew ethics. See seminar Ostap
”If you read my book and believe it, it will solve all disagreements.”
This book does also deal with the individual/collective distinction (PE, 57-8), though this was skipped in the seminar; the book says: in order to lead a good life, you do not need to read the PE, you don’t need to know what is ‘the good in itself.’
This book, thus, is targeted at a very small elite; the majority can just follow their parents’/teachers’ directions on morals.
‘Bloomsbury’s prophet’ →
Virginia Wolfe, E. M. Foster, J. M. Keynes, were members of a small group (the Bloomsbury group) that lived together and wrote on important stuff, and Moore’s PE was something like a bible to these people.
Importantly, the PE does not deal with lexicography, but with concepts. ← This is a claim about the medium within which you are thinking ethically.
All of these are traits of modernism, and are evidently found within Moore’s Principia Ethica.
(regarding question (i) of the course guiding questions) Moore explicitly says: ‘my aim is to establish a future science of ethics;’ thus, he seeks to institute a science for ethics in addition to a science for nature.
‘Good in itself’ vs. ‘good as a means’ vs. ‘good as a part’
Good in itself is indefinable. (see Seminar again)
If to define is to break up into parts, then simple concepts cannot be defined.
(aside on what parts mean) If one defines a dean as the leader of a faculty, the faculty is not necessarily a ‘part’ of the dean.
‘The good’ vs ‘is good’ → the set of all good things, definable by enumeration vs. ‘the good in itself,’ which is indefinable.
So, the question of definition applies to ‘good,’ not ‘the good.‘
Open Question argument
X is good ≠ X is what I desire is not necessarily true, since one can hold ‘exercise is good’ but still be lazy and not want to do it.
Second-order desire;
A cruel man could wish for himself to be more violent; a cruel person desires to desire to do more violent things, but might be afraid. ← one can ask whether that is ‘good’
^ this is the Open Question Argument
The paradox of analysis.
The naturalistic fallacy is turning around the implication, in a sense. Good might always correlate with some kind of thing, much like all yellow things may have a certain wavelength they reflect, but that doesn’t mean the two are identical.
If good can’t be defined by other sciences, then Ethics is autonomous.
→ Ethics is scientific, but not part of the natural sciences!
Moore’s ethical realism argues that ETHICS HAS TRUE STATEMENTS about the good/knowledge of the good.
How do we know the answer to the question ‘what is good in itself?’
He says there is no answer to it that can be evidentially substantiated; you simply intuit it.
In order to know what you ought to do, you need to look at the consequences (causal truths), and ethical statements which can be the base of your evaluation (moral truths).
He isn’t saying that there’s no proof to be adduced for all ethical judgements. Simply for the answers to the first question (“what ought to exist for its own sake”).
Moore is an INTUITIONIST
Skorupski on Moore’s position
On the relational conception of a priori knowledge.
moore’s model is a relational conception of a priori knowledge because of two reasons:
(1) All cognition involves a transparent, immediate, or primitive relation of apprehension, between a thinker and some concepts.
(2) it treats concepts as real non-actual entities among which real non-actual relations hold.
In Moore, words do refer to some object, independent from the individual word (friendship, amitié, vriendschap).
The relation between subject and object (key questions (iii)) is thus immediate and transparent.
“to know is to have an object before the mind” → when you ask if something is good the best response is to just go “well think about whether it is and tell me, you already know”
So, knowledge of Ethics is a priori for Moore.
“real non-actual entities among which real non-actual relations hold” → non-actual is Platonically ideal, real means they exist.
Modernist project ends by returning to (neo-)Plato.
Good is a property, but not a natural property
Good is a non-natural property; some [stupid bastards hashtag-fuckyougeach] have mocked the turn of phrase and idea.
MacIntyre quotes J. M. Keynes’ explaining discussion among Moore’s disciples, about how to resolve disagreement between two moral observers:
according to Keynes (who is interpreting Moore), either the two are not talking about the same object, or one has a better (moral) ‘perception’ than the other, and is simply more correct.
‘In practice, victory was with those who could speak with the greatest appearance of clear, undoubting conviction and could best use the accents of infallibility.’
Then, the question comes: if you cannot give evidence, arguments, or justification for or against a view, how can we speak of ‘ethical knowledge?’ → How can we still speak of the normativity of ethics?
If one simply says ‘good is good for me,’ that is no longer normative.
Basically, Moore’s ethics is anything but naturalist.
The prof. thinks that in Moore you find an interpretation of normativity that, in the prof’s eyes, does not really stand up to his (common-sense) conception of normativity, as it does nothing to command assent.
Moore’s view of concepts is effectively of concepts beyond discourse → this is his arche, standing beyond discourse.
[I cannot be bothered noting geach down]
Moore effectively tries to define good as a predicative adjective (i.e., independent), while (according to Geach), it is exclusively attributive; thus, of course Moore would conclude it is indefinable.
One of Moore’s assumptions is meaning atomism; acc. to him, one concept can be understood independently of other concepts.
Guiding questions for Frege & Russel:
They talk about declarative sentences (Snow is white) that ‘say’ the world is a certain way, with a truth-value.
What is the truth value of ‘Odysseus sleeps.’