[lit-ideas] Re: Grice and Foot on the foundations of morality
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:41:29 -0700
Donal quotes me
As Foot nowhere said what was reported above the criticism of it is a fortiori not
a criticism of a philosophical view held by her. Whether anyone else believes it,
I don't know.>
and comments on some perfectly sensible remarks of JL's
JLS (not the band) comments "Again, one would need to trace one's argument back to
Foot's actual words, not her obituarist." It would seem the obituarist believed it
was her view. It was the reported view I was criticising (obviously). If she were alive
it might be proper to clarify this and, in the light of Robert Paul's remark, retract any
possible suggestion it was her actual view, if it was not.
and then on something I said
The 'Naturalistic Fallacy,' in ethics was presented in G. E. Moore's Principia
Ethica, in 1903. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives an account of it,
of which this is part.>
to this effect
It is not necessary to identify the 'naturalistic fallacy' with Moore's views
any more than it is necessary to identify the right account of 'dialectical
materialism' with Marx, or of utilitarianism with Bentham, or of 'empiricism'
with Locke, or of 'falsificationism' with Popper, or of 'the private language
argument' with Wittgenstein.
It may not be 'necessary,' whatever that means, but it's correct.
Although Bentham coined the expression (so I'm told) his use of it was
not Moore's. 'Russell's Paradox' can be thought about without referring
to Russell. But knowing who 'discovered' it, and in the course of what,
is something every schoolchild should know.
Donal then explains himself.
In broad terms the 'naturalistic fallacy' is about whether an 'ought' can be
derived from an 'is' or whether a standard of evaluation can be deduced from a set
of facts. As such, it predates Moore in the form of 'Hume's Fork' and in Kant's
'Critique of Practical Reason' etc. It was a central contention of P's _TOS&IE_
that forms of the fallacy lie at the heart of many political theories, including
those of Plato, Hegel and Marx. Any view that seeks not merely to partially explain
but to fully reductively explain 'morality' in factual terms, is arguably
perpetrating the fallacy.
This is simply mistaken. The 'naturalistic fallacy,' is that of
identifying 'good' with some 'natural property,' e.g. in 'x is good,'
'good' could be replaced by 'its atoms are loosely bound,' or in 'A is
good,' 'good' could be replaced by 'is Chinese.' (These are not Moore's
examples.)
For a comment on the conflation of the naturalistic fallacy with the
is-ought problem, see that indispensable philosophical reference work,
Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
Robert Paul
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