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\title{Moore's Open Question Argument}
\author{Marc Horowitz}
\date{5 October 1995}
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Moore tries to show two things by his Open Question Argument.  First,
he tries to show that naturalism's attempts to provide a definition
for ethical terms are misguided, since ethical terms defy definition
in the natural sense.  Second, he tries to show that naturalism does
not provide a reason for ethical beliefs.  This is important, since it
is not enough for a study of ethics to produce true ethical
statements; it must also demonstrate some system as to why these
statements are true.

To begin, Moore explains what he means by a definition.  A definition
explains how a complex whole is composed of simple parts.  These
simple parts themselves have no definition, and cannot be explained to
someone who has not experienced them.  Moore gives as an example of
this colors.  You cannot describe ``yellow'' in terms of anything
else, since the perception of color is fundamental.  I believe other
examples of this might be direction words, like ``up''.  There are a
set of words which denote direction, which can be related to each
other, but if the concept of direction itself is unfamiliar to you,
there will be no way to explain it.

Some philosophers, according to Moore, have misunderstood what a
definition is.  Statements such as ``pleasure is good'' might be true,
but they do not defined pleasure to mean good, or vice versa.  This
would be like saying ``the sun is yellow'' to define the sun to mean
yellow.  Such a statement is what Moore calls the ``naturalistic
fallacy''.  This fallacy is found in assuming that since a thing can
have ethical and natural properties at the same time, that the ethical
and natural properties must reflect the same thought.

One way to show that ethical terms are simple and indefinable is to
show that no other notion of ethical terms makes sense.  This is done
by taking all other cases, and disprove those.  Moore states that if
ethical terms are not simple, than they are either a complex whole, or
that ethical terms have no meaning at all.

Moore's argument against ethical terms being complex is somewhat
circular, since he tries to demonstrate that a complex definition of
an ethical term is itself circular.  He asserts that given a complex
definition of an ethical term, say ``good'', it is meaningful to ask
if that definition of ``good'' is itself ``good''.  This quickly leads
to an argument which makes no sense, since you can apply the
definition to itself any number of times, and this thought is clearly
different from the original thought which was originally being
expressed.

In contradicting that ethical terms have no meaning at all, Moore
engages in a thought experiment.  If one considers a number of
possible natural terms which might apply to the same thought as an
ethical term, one realizes that one does have something in mind to
which the natural term is being compared.  It does seem, therefore,
that ethical terms do have a distinct meaning, even if this exact
meaning is rather elusive.

I find the last two arguments a little too informal for my liking.
They both assume a certain kind of thought, and although I find the
arguments appealing, I do not believe that Moore has demonstrated that
a rational person must think in this way.  For example, an emotivist
might say in response to this that ethical terms do not have meaning
at all, and any difference in mental state which results in comparing
natural and ethical terms results in comparing the emotions which each
evoke in the thinker, not in comparisons of simple terms.  I do not
believe the emotivist's argument is valid, since it seems wrong to
compare a natural thought with an emotion, but there could be other
arguments which are not as easy to refute.

Another way to show that ethical terms are simple and indefinable is
to come from the other direction, and show that if one accepts a
definition of an ethical term, then a contradiction is reached.  Given
a definition for an ethical term, no argument against this definition
can succeed, for the meaning of the term establishes an
incontrovertible argument, by definition.  But it is obvious that the
meaning of an ethical term is an open argument.  For example, if
certain natural properties are generally ascribed to all ``good''
things, it is not irrational to believe that some thing which has
these properties is not ``good''.  No definition has been violated; it
just seems to be the case that the ascribing of some natural property
to all ``good'' things is somehow mistaken.

The second aim of Moore's Open Question Argument is to show that
naturalism does not give reasons for ethical statements.  Moore
strongly believes that Ethics is about ``why'' and not ``what''.  If
one accepts a naturalistic view of ethical statements, even if this
view is truly accurate, and correctly ascribes ethical terms to
things, it does not explain why this this ethical view is correct.

This argument also seems sound.  One objection I have to naturalistic
ethical systems such as Utilitarianism is that they don't explain why
the system is true.  Even disregarding the other arguments presented
here, without some explanation why a system is true, there seems to be
little reason to believe any of it.

In summary, Moore sees the problem with naturalism as that it leads
one to believe that ethical terms can be defined.  Once this is done,
questions about ethical terms are not open questions, but are decided
by the definitions of the terms.  Yet ethical questions are open
questions, since one can rationally disagree about ethical statements.
This leads to a contradiction which Moore calls the naturalistic
fallacy, which is itself the basis of the Open Question Argument
against naturalism.

In general, I find that Moore did prove what he set out to prove.
There are two common arguments which can be used against Moore, but I
find neither appealing.

The first argument is that Moore's explanation of a definition is
wrong.  Moore explains that a definition describes what parts in what
relation constitute a whole; that is, it expresses the same thought as
the term.  An alternate notion explains that a definition ascribes the
same properties to the same object as the term it defines.  This
explanation of a definition causes problems for the first part of
Moore's argument because there is no need for the definition to
express the same thought as the term.

This alternate notion definition seems implausible to me, because a
definition is supposed to be able to represent the term it defines in
a sentence.  When viewed linguistically, I believe that changing the
thought of a term or phrase changes the meaning of a sentence.  This
can occur if proper names are replaced with definitions, for example.

The second common argument against Moore's argument is that ethical
properties aren't really properties at all.  Some naturalists read
Moore's arguments not as demonstrating that ethical terms name simple
and indefinable properties, but that they do not name any properties
at all.

To these people, a property does not exist unless it can be observed,
and conditions for verification established.  Although it is difficult
to establish verification conditions for ethical terms, supervenience
can be used to indirectly show that some verification conditions must
exist.  If ethical properties had no meaning and no verification
condition, then this would not have to be the case, since of two
naturally identical possible worlds, one could be ``good'' and the
other ``bad''.  However, if these worlds have the same natural
properties, it seems contradictory that arbitrary ethical properties
can be imposed.

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