G. E. Moore on goodness and reasons

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8064044
AutoresJonas Olson (0000-0001-8323-9882, autor de correspondencia)
Año2006
Volumen84
Número4
Páginas525-534
Fecha de publicación2006-11-27
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAustralasian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0004-8402 • E-ISSN: 1470-6828
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00048400601079029
OpenAlexW1995261493
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas12

Several proponents of the 'buck-passing' account of value have recently attributed to G. E. Moore the implausible view that goodness is reason-providing. I argue that this attribution is unjustified. In addition to its historical significance, the discussion has an important implication for the contemporary value-theoretical debate: the plausible observation that goodness is not reason-providing does not give decisive support to the buck-passing account over its Moorean rivals. The final section of the paper is a survey of what can be said for and against the buck-passing account and Moore's views about goodness and reasons. Notes 1But only generally so. In my [2004a], I argue that the notion of final goodness is contextually conditional, by way of suggesting that pain is sometimes positively valuable for its own sake, and pleasure sometimes negatively valuable for its own sake. This is an anti-Moorean view that we need not consider further in this paper. 2Parfit [Citation2001: 20] and Stratton-Lake and Hooker [Citation2006: 154 – 7] offer examples that are very similar to Dancy's and Scanlon's, and argue in favour of the same general conclusion. 3I should point out that Crisp himself [2005] endorses neither the redundancy argument, nor the buck-passing account. 4Particularists about reasons hold that there is an important difference between the grounds of a reason and its supervenience base. We need not worry about this distinction here, however. See Dancy [Citation2004]. 5More accurately: it is difficult to see how a supervening non-natural property of value or goodness can provide reasons. On a naturalist view of value according to which the supervenience relation is an identity relation, and badness consequently is identical with, e.g., painfulness, it might be less implausible to hold that value or goodness is reason-providing. The same goes for naturalist views according to which supervenience is a relation of constitution. But it must be noted that the buck-passing account and Moore's views are all non-naturalistic accounts of value. 6Dancy attributes this view to the later Moore, while Scanlon and Stratton-Lake and Hooker attribute it to the Moore of Principia. Parfit is unspecific on this point. 7At one point in Principia [169f.], Moore is quite explicit about this. This is one of the few passages in which he does talk about reasons. I thank an anonymous referee for reminding me about this passage. 8Moore [Citation1942: 558] acknowledges that it was Bertrand Russell's review of Principia Ethica that made him change his mind. Russell's manoeuvre was in effect to use the open question argument against Moore's definition of ought in terms of goodness. See Russell [Citation1999: 101]. 9Moore [Citation1942: 608 – 11] provides a detailed enumeration of deontic claims that he takes to be logically equivalent to claims about intrinsic goodness. 10Interestingly, what I claim to have been Moore's real later view is rather similar to the view Dancy suggests as an alternative to the buck-passing view, namely that 'reasons and values are distinct but may have the same ground' [2000: 165]. 11In this paper I disregard one significant argument that has been posed against the buck-passing view, namely what has become known as the 'wrong kind of reasons' objection. This is the observation that there might be reasons to take up attitudes for and against certain things without this having any bearing on the values of those things. See Rabinowicz and R⊘nnow-Rasmussen [Citation2004] for a lucid elaboration of the problem. I disregard the objection here since I have suggested a solution elsewhere [2004b]. See Rabinowicz and R⊘nnow-Rasmussen [Citation2006] for a rejoinder. I also disregard a presumptive argument in favour of the buck-passing view. The argument is this: It is a desirable feature of a formal account of value that it leaves substantive normative issues, such as the one between consequentialism and deontology untouched. But Moore's Principia view makes consequentialism conceptually true, while Moore's later view makes consequentialism necessarily, albeit not conceptually, true. The buck-passing account might seem to be in the better position here, but not obviously so. For instance, the foremost predecessor of the buck-passing view, A. C. Ewing, argued that his view would dissolve the contrast between consequentialism and deontology rather than leave it untouched [Citation1939: 10f.; 1947: 188] and Dancy [Citation2000: 167 – 9] goes as far as to claim that passing the buck threatens to resolve prematurely the debate in favour of consequentialism. While there are grains of truth in both of these claims, I believe that, ultimately, the buck-passing view is neutral between consequentialism and deontology. If this can be made plausible, its presumptive normative neutrality might be an argument in favour of the buck-passing view. However, due to its complexity I cannot undertake this discussion here. See Olson [Citation2007]. 12A. C. Ewing prided himself on having suggested 'the minimum non-naturalistic theory of ethics, i.e., the theory other than naturalism which admits least in the way of non-natural concepts' [1939: 14]. In his [1939] and [1947], Ewing's view was that goodness and any other normative concepts are analysable in terms of ought. In his [1959], Ewing got even closer to anticipating Scanlon's buck-passing view, since he there formulated his view in terms of reasons. The argument from parsimony is also put forward by Stratton-Lake and Hooker [Citation2006: 157]. 13This line of argument can be found in Ewing [Citation1947: ch. 5] and Scanlon [Citation1998: ch. 2]. 14I allot to Ewing and Frankena the ugly label 'proto-buck-passers' because although they didn't formulate their views in terms of reasons, they clearly anticipated the buck-passing approach insofar as they both suggested that goodness might be defined in terms of some deontic notion, such as ought or obligation, and that goodness itself is not a property that gives rise to oughts or obligations. (As I mentioned above, Ewing seems to be a 'proper' buck-passer in his later work from 1959, in which he defined goodness in terms of reasons.) 15This paper was written while I was an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Earlier versions were read at the Philosophy Seminar at the University of Otago in September 2004 and at the International Society for Utilitarian Studies 2005 Conference at Dartmouth College. I thank the listeners for stimulating discussions. Anette Baier, Sven Danielsson, Shelly Kagan, Andrew Moore, Alan Musgrave, Charles Pigden, Robert Pulvertaft, Jussi Suikkanen, Frans Svensson, and Michael Zimmerman provided written and oral comments for which I am very grateful. Lastly, I am indebted to two anonymous referees for several helpful suggestions

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