Principia Ethica

Principia Ethica is a 1903 book by the British philosopher G. E. Moore, in which Moore insists on the indefinability of "good" and provides an exposition of the naturalistic fallacy. Principia Ethica was influential, and Moore's arguments were long regarded as path-breaking advances in moral philosophy, though they have been seen as less impressive and durable than his contributions in other fields.

Moore insists that "good" is indefinable, and provides an exposition of what he calls the "naturalistic fallacy." He defends the objectivity and multiplicity of values, arguing that knowledge of values cannot be derived from knowledge of facts, but only from intuition of the goodness of such states of affairs as beauty, pleasure, friendship and knowledge. In Moore's view, right acts are those producing the most good. However, he also believed that there are only various different sorts of things that are good, including knowledge and aesthetic experience. Moore argues against consequentialism. Moore's argument begins from the claim that "ordinary people" think they ought to do what they promised to do, not because of the probable consequences of breaking their promise, but simply because they promised. In thinking this way, they are not considering their moral duties in terms of consequences. The consequences of the actions lie in the future, but they are thinking more about the past (that is, about the promises they made).

Principia Ethica was influential, and helped to convince many people that claims about morality cannot be derived from statements of fact.Clive Bell considered that through his opposition to Spencer and Mill, Moore had freed his generation from utilitarianism.Principia Ethica was the bible of the Bloomsbury Group, and the philosophical foundation of their aesthetic values. Leonard Woolf considered that it offered a way of continuing living in a meaningless world. Moore's aesthetic idea of the organic whole provided artistic guidance for modernists like Virginia Woolf, and fed into Bell's concept of Significant form.

Principia Ethica also had a powerful influence on modernism through the anti-empiricism of T. E. Hulme.

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