Abstract
Contemporary ethical theory is marked by a certain set of questions that are often called meta-ethical. One of these meta-ethical questions relates to the possibility of defining the basic ethical terms of a particular theory. The historical basis for such a question, at least in the present century, is G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica. In particular, the notion of the naturalistic fallacy as developed by Moore in this book has great influence on present-day thinking about the possibility of defining basic terms. Yet there seem to be some basic misunderstandings about what Moore meant by the naturalistic fallacy. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate exactly what Moore meant by the naturalistic fallacy and also to look at one common interpretation of it-namely, the is-ought interpretation. Also the paper will compare the two to see if they are saying the same thing. Thus, there are three distinct sections to the paper: (1) the naturalistic fallacy according to Moore; (2) the is-ought problem; and (3) the relationship between Moore's views and the is-ought problem.
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