Abstract
I discuss Soames’s proposal that Moore could have avoided a central problem in his moral philosophy if he had utilized a method he himself pioneered in epistemology. The problem in Moore’s moral philosophy concerns what it is for a moral claim to be self-evident. The method in Moore’s epistemology concerns not denying the obvious. In review of the distance between something’s being self-evident and its being obvious, it is suggested that Soames’s proposal is mistaken.
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References
G. E. Moore (1993) Principia ethica Cambridge University Press Cambridge
Moore, G. E. (1939). Proof of an external world. Proceedings of the British Academy. Vol. 25.
Moore, G. E. (1962). A defense of common sense. In: G. E. Moore (Ed.), Philosophical papers (pp. 32–59). London: Collier Books. (Original Publication 1925).
W. D. Ross (1930) The right and the good Clarendon Press Oxford
S. Soames (2003) Philosophical analysis in the twentieth century, Vol. 1. The dawn of analysis Princeton University Press Princeton
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Stoljar, D. Should Moore have Followed his Own Method?. Philos Stud 129, 609–618 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-0013-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-006-0013-5