George Edward Moore is a British analytic philosopher who formulated the so-called naturalistic fallacy in his Principia Ethica (1903). In the book, his thesis is critically assessed and rejected as the expression of an is-ought dichotomy that rests on a positivistic concept of nature.
The Naturalistic Fallacy
Moore claimed that “good” cannot be defined in terms of natural properties — every attempt to do so commits the naturalistic fallacy. Together with Hume’s separation of is and ought, this thesis became the foundation of modern analytic ethics. The dissertation shows, however, that Moore’s thesis rests on a narrowed concept of nature and that objective values belong to the being of reality itself (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 115, 232, 241).
William K. Frankena (1908–1994) demonstrated, moreover, that Moore’s so-called naturalistic fallacy is not a genuine naturalistic fallacy, but a definist fallacy: the error lies not in the inference from nature to value, but in the conflation of two properties at the level of definition (cf. Naturalistic Fallacy; Frankena 1939, pp. 464–477; Bexten 2017, p. 241).
Consequences for the Concept of Person
If Moore’s thesis held, the person would possess no ontologically sufficient ground for inalienable rights — such as the right to life and bodily integrity, or the right not to be instrumentalized. The substance-ontological-relational concept of person contradicts this: the dignity of the human being is grounded in his being, not in his performance. The Personalistic Norm is the only adequate value-response to the being of the person (cf. Bexten 2017, p. 116).
Place in the Book
Moore is discussed in Chapter 3: The Concept of Person (German) and Chapter 4: Personhood (German). His thesis serves as a contrast foil to the realist-phenomenological philosophy of value of Hildebrand, Seifert, and Spaemann.
Sources: Bexten 2017, pp. 115, 232, 241 (Moore’s naturalistic fallacy and Frankena’s correction as a definist fallacy).
Further sources:
- Principia Ethica (1903). Cambridge University Press (the naturalistic fallacy — foundation of the modern is-ought dichotomy)
See also
- David Hume
- Robert Spaemann
- Josef Seifert
- Dietrich von Hildebrand
- Naturalistic Fallacy
- Is-Ought Fallacy
- Definist Fallacy
- Theoretical Oblivion of the Person
- Ontological Dignity
- Personalistic Norm
- Moral Ought
- Intrinsic Value
- Value-Response
- Nature
- Natural Law
- Personhood
- Person
- Chapter 3: The Concept of Person (German)
- Chapter 4: Personhood (German)