G.E. Moore

1873-1958 · British · Ethics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Perception, Foundations of Analytic Philosophy

This question, how 'good' is to be defined, is the most fundamental question in all Ethics.

When G.E. Moore arrived at Cambridge in the 1890s, British philosophy was dominated by idealism — the doctrine that reality is mind-dependent. Moore refused it. His 1903 "Refutation of Idealism" argued that perceiving blue and the blue itself are two distinct things; the idealist formula esse is percipi — to be is to be perceived — conflates them. That argument, alongside Russell's, became the founding move of analytic philosophy.

Topics G.E. Moore addresses

• the naturalistic fallacy
• the open-question argument
• goodness as a simple, indefinable, non-natural property
• ideal utilitarianism
• the principle of organic unities
• friendship and aesthetic experience as highest goods
• the refutation of idealism
• esse is percipi
• the act and object distinction
• pure realism
• the break with British idealism
• common-sense propositions
• truisms
• here is one hand
• proof of an external world
• anti-skepticism
• sense-data theory
• direct realism
• the paradox of analysis
• Moore's paradox
• p but I do not believe p
• the analysis question
• Bradley and McTaggart as idealist opponents
• the Bloomsbury Group reception

Questions to put to G.E. Moore

The Naturalistic Fallacy and the Open Question

• What do you mean by the naturalistic fallacy?
• How does the open-question argument work?
• Why can't goodness just be whatever produces pleasure?
• What makes goodness a non-natural property?
• If goodness is indefinable, how can we know what's good?

Ideal Utilitarianism and the Highest Goods

• Why are friendship and aesthetic experience the highest goods?
• What's the principle of organic unities?
• How is your utilitarianism different from Bentham's or Mill's?
• Does maximizing good always require sacrificing personal relationships?
• How did the Bloomsbury Group understand your ethics?

The Refutation of Idealism

• What's wrong with the idealist formula 'to be is to be perceived'?
• What's the difference between the act of perceiving and its object?
• How did you break with Bradley and British idealism?
• Can the blue I perceive exist when I'm not perceiving it?
• What makes your position realist rather than idealist?

Common Sense and the External World

• Why are you so certain you have hands?
• How does holding up your hands prove an external world exists?
• What makes common-sense propositions more certain than philosophical arguments?
• Don't skeptics have good reasons to doubt we know anything?
• How do you know you're not dreaming right now?

Sense-Data and the Analysis of Perception

• What's a sense-datum?
• When I look at a red apple, what am I directly perceiving?
• Is the sense-datum part of my mind or part of the physical object?
• How did your views on perception change over your career?
• What's the paradox of analysis?

Moore's Paradox and Philosophical Method

• What's Moore's Paradox about believing and asserting?
• Why is it absurd to say 'It's raining but I don't believe it'?
• How do you approach philosophical questions so carefully?
• What's the difference between knowing something and knowing how you know it?
• Why did you spend so much time editing Mind?

Converse with G.E. Moore on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in G.E. Moore's own writing, cited to the page.