Principia Ethica

It appears to me that in Ethics, as in all other philosophical studies, the difficulties and disagreements, of which its history is full, are mainly due to a very simple cause: namely to the attempt to answer questions, without first discovering precisely what question it is which you desire to answ......more

Did anyone participating in metaethical philosophy ever consider that it’s the most painstakingly dull agonisingly irrelevant debate ever......more

Principia Ethica (PE) was first published in 1903 and it is still in print today. I would think that there is hardly an introductory university course in ethics that could do without some mention of it. Moore says in the preface that the book is intended to sort two kinds of questions. “The two ques......more

The continental/analytical divide, which has split philosophy for around the past hundred years, is less a debate than a division of labour. Continental philosophers, liberated by Kant from the need to ground their intuitions empirically, have taken on the grand mantle of philosophy of old: metaphys......more

Moore's book, regarded as one of the classics on ethics, is probably mostly known nowadays for one short, but important, section in the first chapter. Here Moore introduces the much debated "naturalist fallacy". Chapter 1 also explains Moore's views on "organic wholes", which is helpful. It's an int......more