ABSTRACT
G.E.Moore’s Principia Ethica (1903) has had two distinct and rather confusing reputations. Professional philosophers have for the last fifty years treated it almost solely as the source of the notion that all reasoning in support of moral conclusions is vitiated by a ‘naturalistic fallacy’. Moore’s book, along with a rather grim article by H.H.Prichard called ‘Does Moral Philosophy rest on a Mistake?’1 was thought to establish this bizarre position, and so to prove that academic moral philosophers ought to keep out of all substantial moral argument, and occupy themselves only with ‘meta-ethics’, that is, with propounding and refining moral scepticism. Academics regarded it simply as a book about argument, and a negative, destructive one. This is hardly the stuff that fires enthusiasm and gives meaning to people’s lives. But Principia Ethica did do that. It had a very wide sale and influence outside academic circles, primarily among people interested in the arts, to whom it had a quite different and entirely positive message. Clive Bell, whose lively book Art is largely an exposition and celebration of Moore’s ideas, grows lyrical about it:
Are they talking about the same book? Yes, but different parts of it. The first five chapters do indeed make the negative case. But the sixth (called ‘The Ideal’) is as bold and positive a piece of substantial ethics as could be desired.
