Principia Ethica
1903
In 1903, a young Cambridge philosopher asked a question that would detonate the foundations of Western ethics: what does it actually mean when we call something 'good'? G.E. Moore's answer shocked his contemporaries: 'good' is indefinable. Any attempt to define it in natural terms, whether as pleasure, survival, or desire fulfillment, commits what he called the 'naturalistic fallacy,' collapsing ethics into mere biology or psychology. This short, audacious book doesn't tell you what is good; it insists you cannot know until you understand what 'good' means. Principia Ethica分成 six bracing chapters. Moore dismantles the ethical systems of his predecessors, exposes the hidden assumptions in utilitarian and evolutionary ethics, and builds toward a startling conclusion: the good life may have nothing to do with what we can prove. His final chapter on 'the ideal' suggests that friendship, beauty, and art possess intrinsic worth that rational argument can never capture. A century later, Moore's question remains unanswered, and undismissable. If you have ever wondered why ethics feels so slippery, so resistant to proof, Principia Ethica is the book that explains why. It is required reading for anyone serious about thinking clearly about right and wrong.
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“...fiction is as useful as truth, for giving us matter, upon which to exercise the judgment of value.””
— G. E. Moore
“If i am asked 'what is good? my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked 'How is good to be defined?' my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it””
— G. E. Moore
“Was the excellence of Socrates or of Shakespeare normal? Was it not rather abnormal, extraordinary? It is, I think, obvious in the first place, that not all that is good is normal; that, on the contrary, the abnormal is often better than the normal...””
— G. E. Moore
“Egoism holds, therefore, is that each man's happiness is the sole good--that a number of different things are each of them the only good thing there is--an absolute contradiction! No more complete and thorough refutation of any theory could be desired.””
— G. E. Moore
“....it seems to me that a pleasurable Contemplation of Beauty has certainly an immeasurably greater value than mere Consciousness of Pleasure.””
— G. E. Moore
“For it is the business of Ethics, I must insist, not only to obtain true results, but also to find valid reasons for them.””
— G. E. Moore
“The expression 'self-evident' means properly that the proposition so called is evident or true, by itself alone; that it is not an inference from some proposition other than itself. The expression does not mean that the proposition is true, because it is evident to you or me or all mankind, because in other words in appears to us to be true. That a proposition appears to be true can never be a valid argument that true it really is.””
— G. E. Moore
“Philosophical questions are so difficult, the problems they raise are so complex, that no one can fairly expect, now, any more than in the past, to win more than a very limited assent.””
— G. E. Moore
“If indeed good were a feeling....then it would exist in time. But that is why to call it so is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. It will always remain pertinent to ask, whether the feeling itself is good; and if do, then good cannot itself be identical with any feeling.””
— G. E. Moore
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Moore, G. E.. Principia Ethica. Lex, lex-books.com/book/principia-ethica-65b67448-f8c0-4acb-81bd-ee8cc56ae032.Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/principia-ethica-65b67448-f8c0-4acb-81bd-ee8cc56ae032Moore, G. E.. Principia Ethica. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/principia-ethica-65b67448-f8c0-4acb-81bd-ee8cc56ae032.
