ABSTRACT
The Moore of Principia neither distinguished different kinds of normativity nor drew a sharp line between evaluative and deontological terms and judgments. Moore appears to endorse a strong version of this criterion, one that vindicates the universal overridingness of morality. A weaker criterion of morality’s overridingness may allow Moore to say that, in certain circumstances, the requirements of rationality might compete with moral requirements. The constraint for psychological states concerns what an agent can do or feel/believe if she chooses to. The sense of ‘can’ relevant to this constraint is the one at work in the Kantian dictum, which, like other classical non-naturalists, Moore accepted. An account of the evaluative/deontic distinction sensitive to Moore’s analysis may also reveal the misleading character of a common contrast drawn between the goodness-first doctrine of Principia Ethica and Sidgwick’sought-first doctrine. Redundancy raises questions about Moore’s actual commitments when it comes to explaining the relation of value and practical reason.
