Outline the naturalistic fallacy Outline the naturalistic fallacy. What was Moore attempting to show with this criticism? Summarise Moore’s open question argument. What was Moore attempting to show with this criticism? Do you think he is right?

Draw a diagram to highlight similarities and differences between ethical naturalism and non-naturalism Naturalism Non-Naturalism

Non- Naturalism Naturalism Similarities

Ethical non-naturalism - intuitionism Ethical non-naturalism, or (the only version we will consider) intuitionism, is the view that we can’t reduce moral terms to natural ones. Moral judgements are known intuitively. It is a realist, cognitivist position that claims that there are moral truths to be known, and that moral judgements are capable of being true or false. However moral terms do not stand for natural properties, they cannot be discovered through sense experience and the sciences. Instead they are special non-natural properties in their own category.

What do we mean by Intuitions? Not worked out inductively from evidence (as Mill believes moral judgements are). Worked out just by rationally considering a moral claim i.e. not known empirically or analytically: but using reason alone Incapable of proof. However self-evidently true not ‘6th sense’ – more like maths / logic. Moore seemingly thinks they are examples of synthetic, a priori knowledge. NB: For Moore knowing morality through intuition means morality is self-evident. ‘Self-evident’ does not mean obvious – but that we grasp the evidence of truth directly, without relying on senses, or definitions of words. We still need to develop our ability to do this: our reasoning skills.

So what does Moore think? Some things are intrinsically valuable, and we should strive towards them (ideals) Moore identifies love of friendship and beauty as two of the most important but there are others. These values are known through intuition. We must consider our actions in terms of consequences: whether they promote these goods or damage them.

Extension - Deontological non-naturalism Prichard: Moore is right that moral claims are indefinable and self-evident. But he doesn’t think moral claims are about goodness – how good the outcome of an action is. Rather, they are about obligations. We use our intuition to work out whether something we think we should do is a duty or not. It’s intuitionist because we can’t give reasons for it! It’s my duty because it’s my duty – we can only know this from seeing and understanding the situation.

Criticism 1 – Missed Mill’s Mark To show that something is desirable, we need to show that people do desire it. Everyone desires their own happiness. If something is desirable, then it is good to the individual who desires it. Therefore people’s happiness is desirable, and good. Because each of us desires our own happiness, the sum of all our desires is happiness for all. C: Therefore the ‘good’ for all people can be defined as the general happiness of all. What is Mill actually saying about happiness here? How is he judging something to be ‘good’? Is he really defining good as happiness?

Criticism 1 – Missed Mill’s Mark To show that something is desirable, we need to show that people do desire it. Everyone desires their own happiness. If something is desirable, then it is good to the individual who desires it. Therefore people’s happiness is desirable, and good. Because each of us desires our own happiness, the sum of all our desires is happiness for all. C: Therefore the ‘good’ for all people can be defined as the general happiness of all. Mary Warnock: Mill is not defining what good is, or even what desirable is. He is empirically describing which things are, as a matter of fact, considered good by most people (i.e. fulfilling desires). By this reading, his naturalistic argument merely points out that people do in fact consider happiness good because that is what they desire. But this doesn’t mean Mill is (as Moore believes) claiming that good and happiness/pleasure are the same thing! If people desired pain, then it would be pain that is good.

Criticism 2 - Are these the same thing?

Criticism 2 – Open Question Failure Just because it makes sense to question whether two terms mean the same thing, doesn’t mean the two terms can’t refer to the same thing ‘Goodness’ and ‘pleasure’ are different concepts – but they may refer to the same property of the universe. E.g.: It makes sense to ask ‘Is water H2O?’, even though they are the same thing. It’s not like asking ‘is water water?’ This is because the two concepts mean something different, even though they refer to the same property. So ‘goodness’ and ‘pleasure’ might refer to the same property, but mean something slightly different in terms of the way we use them (think about MBTIT). In which case it would still make sense to say e.g. ‘Is pleasure good?’, even though they are the same thing! C: So Moore has not shown that being able to form an open question around the definition necessarily means that a given definition is wrong. In turn this means that naturalism could still be correct!

Criticism 3 – ‘Good’ is difficult! The only reason it always seems like an open question whether ‘good’ really is a given property, is that concepts like ‘good’ are complicated. They are unclear in ordinary usage (if they were clear we wouldn’t be having this conversation!). So when the naturalist provides a definition of ‘good’ it’s no surprise we don’t immediately recognise its accuracy. If we truly understood the terms, the question ‘Is happiness really good?’ wouldn’t make sense. It only does because we are unclear about the proper use of the term ‘good’. In contrast, concepts like a bachelor are straightforward and very well defined.

Criticism 4 -Intuitions? If there is no way of proving intuitions, how can we tell which are true? Which intuitions of ‘the good’ are the right and correct ones? E.g. The commander of Auschwitz wrote in his memoirs that he felt what he had done was ‘right’ Mill can argue that this intuition was wrong – by pointing out the suffering caused. But all Moore can say is ‘his intuitions clash with most other people’s intuitions’ Moore’s ‘intuitions’ are just ways of avoiding the question of what good actually is.

Outline 3 reasons why some people think that the open question argument and intuitionism fail.