ABSTRACT
Those who are influenced by the emotivist theory of ethics, and yet wish to defend what Hare has called ‘the rationality of moral discourse’, generally talk a lot about ‘giving reasons’ for saying that one thing is right, and another wrong. Moore tried to show that goodness was a non-natural property, and thus not to be defined in terms of natural properties; the problem was to explain the concept of a ‘natural property’, and to prove that no ethical definition in terms of natural properties could be correct. In conclusion it is worth remarking that moral arguments break down more often than philosophers tend to think, but that the breakdown is of a different kind. When people argue about what is right, good, or obligatory, or whether a certain character trait is or is not a virtue, they do not confine their remarks to the adducing of facts which can be established by simple observation, or by some clear-cut technique.
