ABSTRACT
G. E. Moore would deny that evaluative experience is sufficient for the presence of some non-derivative value in a subject's mental life, but he would agree that it is necessary. Moore held that 'the intrinsic value of a whole is neither identical with nor proportional to the sum of the value of its parts'. Furthermore, he held that evaluative experiences on their own were of little value. Moore has evaluative experience as important in partially constituting a highly valuable organic whole. In the Principia Ethica, Moore was concerned to undermine hedonism – that is, 'the principle that nothing is good but pleasure', or 'the doctrine that pleasure alone is good as an end' – while upholding a central role for certain forms of consciousness in the constitution of non-derivative value. For Moore, goodness was in the world, and consciousness was, in the main, merely the subject's form of access to, or appreciation of, that goodness.
