Moore
Moore seeks to renew the pursuit of ethics by clarifying the questions we ask of it.
At all events,
philosophers seem, in general, not to make the attempt; and,
whether in consequence of this omission or not, they are
constantly endeavouring to prove that ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ will answer
questions, to. which neither answer is correct, owing to the fact
that what they have before their minds is not one question, but
several, to some of which the true answer is ‘No,’ to others ‘Yes.’
Such a question is “should I stop beating my wife?”
If one is not beating their wife, they can neither say ‘yes’ nor ‘no,’ as saying
yes → conceding that you are beating your wife in the first place
no → conceding that you are beating your wife and that you won’t stop
the two kinds of evidence for the (second of the) two key questions.
Intuitionism:
two different interpretations of an ‘intuitionist,’
- intuitionism-proper: Moore agrees in the sense that one intuits answers to the first question, but would disagree with them, as they’d say that answers to the second question are also merely intuited, rather than argued from is-ought premisses.
- Moore intuitionism: one only intuits the first question, not the second one.
On the topic of ethics; Moore is controversial if you do not take moral statements to have truth-values.
Analytic vs. synthetic:
‘All bachelors are unmarried men’ → ‘unmarried’ is already contained within ‘bachelor;’ analytical statements can derive unmarried out of bachelors.
‘All bachelors are happy’ → gives us new information, it is synthetic.
‘The good is desired’ → synthetic statement, rather than analytic.
First argument p. 59, section 7
’Good’ is a simple notion, and cannot be defined; a ‘real’ definition is a compositional one, which cannot be given for ‘good.’
Second argument p. 60-61, section 9
the good vs. ‘good’ → the set of all good things vs. good
you can enumerate all that is good, but not necessarily what that unifying factor is
Third argument p.62, paragraphs 2-3
We already know that good and yellow are simple, and neither can be defined. There may be a material correlate to everything that is yellow (some specific wavelength reflected), but that is not actually equivalent to what yellow is.
^^^^^^^^^
This is the Naturalistic Fallacy!!!!!!!
Fourth argument p.69
Let us define
Good = what gives pleasure
’But is what gives pleasure good?’
^^
This is the open question argument
Geach
[Did not occur to me that I should take notes]