Abstract
Moore held that to call something good is to ascribe a property to it. But he denied that the property could be expressed in non-evaluative terms. Can one accept this view of the meaning of ‘good’ without falling into skepticism about whether anything can be, or be known to be, good? I suggest a way of doing this. The strategy combines the idea that ‘good’ is semantically entangled, as opposed to semantically isolated, with the idea that rational agents have a generic disposition to follow reasons.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Anderson, E. (1993): Value in Ethics and Economics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Foot, P. (1978): “Moral Arguments” and “Moral Beliefs”, in Virtues and Vices (pp. 96–109, 110-131), Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Goldstein, I. (2002): 'The Good's Magnetismand Ethical Realism', Philosophical Studies 108, 1–14 (this volume).
Hurley, S. (1993): Natural Reasons, Oxford: Oxford.
Mackie, J.L. (1977): Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin.
Moore, G.E. (1978): Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Clark, P. The Meaning of ‘Good’ and the Possibility of Value. Philosophical Studies 108, 31–38 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015703929318
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015703929318