Open Questions and the Nature of Philosophical Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Moore was one of the most influential philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. With influence comes controversy. His defense of common sense against the challenge of skepticism, for example, earned both strong support and ridicule. In the field of ethics, he is still probably viewed as the paradigmatic objectivist— a philosopher who grounds knowledge of all ethical truths in a foundation of selfevident truths describing the objective and intrinsic value of various sorts of states. But just as his epistemology is arguably best known for a negative thesis— his rejection of skepticism, so also his ethics is arguably best known for a negative thesis— his rejection of all attempts to analyze the property of being intrinsically good. His famous open question argument is still cited by some as the decisive objection to all attempts at defining value in naturalistic terms. The interest of the argument, however, goes far beyond its implications for one’s analysis of ethical concepts. The argument forces one to think carefully about fundamental metaphilosophical issues concerning the nature of analysis— indeed the very subject-matter of philosophy.