George Edward Moore Critical Essay | Critical Essay by C. D. Broad

Critical Essay by C. D. Broad

SOURCE: "Certain Features in Moore's Ethical Doctrines," in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, edited by Paul Arthur Schlipp, Northwestern University, 1942, pp. 41-68.

In the following essay, Broad, the author of the "Compound Theory of Materialistic Emergency, " argues against the validity of Moore's Principia Ethica.

From the many topics in Moore's ethical writings which might profitably be discussed I am going to choose two in the present paper. They are (1) his attempted refutation of Ethical Egoism, and (2) his distinction between "Natural" and "Non-natural" characteristics, and his doctrine that the word "good" (in one very important use of it) is a name for a certain non-natural characteristic.

(i) Ethical Egoism

I shall begin by defining three opposed terms, viz., "Ethical Egoism," "Ethical Neutralism," and "Ethical Altruism." The second of these is the doctrine which Moore accepts in Principia Ethica; the other two are extreme deviations from it in opposite directions....
(read more)