The Naturalistic Fallacy: Revisited

Upon the completion of G.E. Moore’s “Principia Ethica”, a new method in the approach to ethics was heralded. From henceforth, until relatively recently, in the history of Western philosophy, ethics would not be viewed as the science of proper conduct, but rather as the study of ethical concepts. The implications of this method for natural law ethics will be as serious as its implications for any other doctrine of ethics which precedes Moore’s inauguration of conceptual analysis as the new science of ethics, as, under this new method, the task of the philosopher is to discover what ethical concepts mean, not how they apply to conduct itself.

Before I begin on this topic, I’d like to borrow an insight from Terry Penner which appears in his article “Socrates on the Impossibility of Belief Relative Sciences.” As Penner judiciously points out, when Socrates seeks to discover what courage ‘is’ in the dialogues ‘Protagoras’ and ‘Laches,’ he is not trying to uncover what the concept of courage ‘is.’ Rather Socrates wants to know how a man becomes courageous. What are the circumstances, what are the things themselves, which make a man courageous. The idea of ethics as merely conceptual analysis are as far from Socrates’ mind as any other concern.

Now, as for Moore’s method in ethics itself, I’ll begin by providing a brief exposition of the argument Moore provides, which, if true, would limit the scope of ethics to the determination of ethical concepts. Moore’s rigorous criticism is based largely on what he terms the ‘Naturalistic Fallacy.’ According to Moore, when a philosopher attempts to frame the definition of good as synonymous with any other concept, that philosopher is committing the naturalistic fallacy. A hedonist, therefore, is at fault when he declares pleasure to be good, in the sense that pleasure itself is the only thing which is sought for its own sake. In Moore’s own words, “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” (Moore 7).

So as not to condemn Moore for something he did not say, let me be clear on what he means and does not mean by the application of the naturalistic fallacy. He does not mean that a thing such as pleasure, for instance, cannot be good, as he affirms that there is a sense in which all pleasurable things are good, but this affirmation can itself have two distinct meanings. It can mean that, although pleasure is not the same thing as the good, pleasure as a quality can itself be good, in the sense that there are other things which are sought in themselves besides pleasure. It can also mean that pleasant things, taken by themselves, can be considered good. As Moore himself explains, “it is, indeed, only when we have detected [the naturalistic fallacy], when we have become clearly aware of the unique object which is meant by ‘good,’ that we are able to give to Hedonism the precise definition used above, ‘Nothing is good but pleasure’ ” (Moore 63).

We may, therefore, reasonably infer that by the naturalistic fallacy, Moore means precisely that to define ‘good’ by any other quality besides ‘good,’ is to commit the fallacy aforesaid named. This raises an interesting question — is the term ‘that which cannot be defined’ in itself a definition? In reply, Moore might reasonably argue, “yet, you fail to detect one thing here, as you did in fact notice above, for I did not argue that things simpliciter cannot be good, merely that a thing cannot be the only thing defined as the good.” Hence my comment above, that pleasure can indeed be considered good, as long as one does not try to assert that it is the only thing that is good in itself. I do not think, however, that this objection saves Moore from the original criticism.

For indeed Moore does contend that the good itself cannot be subject to a definition, yet, if this is so, what are we to make of the locution ‘that which cannot be defined?’ If this statement which Moore makes in regard to the good is not a definition, then it escapes my powers to discover what in fact it could be. If it is a description, then this is nothing more than a battle of semantics, for what essential difference is there in describing a thing properly and defining it? If it is the negation of a definition, whatever such a thing could be, then I am at a loss at what this could seriously mean.

Now there is a sense in which Moore could define a thing by negation, as was the theological method of the Cappadocian Fathers and the Neoplatonist Christian St. Dionysius the Areopagate, called apothatic theology, by which one tries to define God’s attributes by negation. If God is indeed beyond what we could describe as finite, then his nature is infinite. If God’s wisdom is not bound by any single object, then his wisdom is unlimited. It is perhaps in this fashion that Moore might frame a negative description of the good as ‘that which is undefinable.’ Yet it is not clear in what manner this method allows Moore to escape the charge I have leveled against him. For a negative definition is still a definition, and if it is not a definition he is applying to the good, I know not how he could say anything at all about it while being coherent at the same time. If this is the case, then their appears more to Moore’s definition of the good as that which is “good is good.” It would seem, in other words, that Moore’s account of the good cannot be correct, as one cannot set as a standard that a particular thing cannot be defined at the same time that one is defining it.

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