Principia Ethica 2

Principia Ethica 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

 

 

CHAPTER I.

 

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS.

 

A.

 

SECTION. PAGE

 

=1.= In order to define Ethics, we must discover what is both

common and peculiar to all undoubted ethical judgments; 1

 

=2.= but this is not that they are concerned with human

conduct, but that they are concerned with a certain predicate

‘good,’ and its converse ‘bad,’ which may be applied both to

conduct and to other things. 1

 

=3.= The subjects of the judgments of a scientific Ethics are

not, like those of some studies, ‘particular things’; 3

 

=4.= but it includes all _universal_ judgments which assert

the relation of ‘goodness’ to any subject, and hence includes

Casuistry. 3

 

B.

 

=5.= It must, however, enquire not only what things are

universally related to goodness, but also, what this predicate,

to which they are related, is: 5

 

=6.= and the answer to this question is that it is indefinable 6

 

=7.= or simple: for if by definition be meant the analysis of

an object of thought, only complex objects can be defined; 7

 

=8.= and of the three senses in which ‘definition’ can be used,

this is the most important. 8

 

=9.= What is thus indefinable is not ‘the good,’ or the whole

of that which always possesses the predicate ‘good,’ but this

predicate itself. 8

 

=10.= ‘Good,’ then, denotes one unique simple object of thought

among innumerable others; but this object has very commonly

been identified with some other--a fallacy which may be called

‘the naturalistic fallacy’ 9

 

=11.= and which reduces what is used as a fundamental principle

of Ethics either to a tautology or to a statement about the

meaning of a word. 10

 

=12.= The nature of this fallacy is easily recognised; 12

 

=13.= and if it were avoided, it would be plain that the only

alternatives to the admission that ‘good’ is indefinable, are

either that it is complex or that there is no notion at all

peculiar to Ethics--alternatives which can only be refuted by

an appeal to inspection, but which can be so refuted. 15

 

=14.= The ‘naturalistic fallacy’ illustrated by Bentham; and

the importance of avoiding it pointed out. 17

 

C.

 

=15.= The relations which ethical judgments assert to hold

universally between ‘goodness’ and other things are of two

kinds: a thing may be asserted either to _be_ good itself or to

be causally related to something else which is itself good--to

be ‘good as a means.’ 21

 

=16.= Our investigations of the latter kind of relation cannot

hope to establish more than that a certain kind of action will

_generally_ be followed by the best possible results; 22

 

=17.= but a relation of the former kind, if true at all,

will be true of all cases. All ordinary ethical judgments

assert _causal_ relations, but they are commonly treated as

if they did not, because the two kinds of relation are not

distinguished. 23

 

D.

 

=18.= The investigation of intrinsic values is complicated by

the fact that the value of a whole may be different from the

sum of the values of its parts, 27

 

=19.= in which case the part has to the whole a relation, which

exhibits an equally important difference from and resemblance

to that of means to end. 29

 

=20.= The term ‘organic whole’ might well be used to denote

that a whole has this property, since, of the two other

properties which it is commonly used to imply, 30

 

=21.= one that of reciprocal causal dependence between parts,

has no necessary relation to this one, 31

 

=22.= and the other, upon which most stress has been laid, can

be true of no whole whatsoever, being a self-contradictory

conception due to confusion. 33

 

=23.= Summary of chapter. 36

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

NATURALISTIC ETHICS.

 

=24.= This and the two following chapters will consider certain

proposed answers to the second of ethical questions: What is

_good in itself_? These proposed answers are characterised by

the facts (1) that they declare some _one_ kind of thing to be

alone good in itself; and (2) that they do so, because they

suppose this _one_ thing to define the meaning of ‘good.’ 37

 

=25.= Such theories may be divided into two groups (1)

Metaphysical, (2) Naturalistic: and the second group may be

subdivided into two others, (_a_) theories which declare some

natural object, other than pleasure, to be sole good, (_b_)

Hedonism. The present chapter will deal with (_a_). 38

 

=26.= Definition of what is meant by ‘Naturalism.’ 39

 

=27.= The common argument that things are good, because they

are ‘natural,’ may involve either (1) the false proposition

that the ‘normal,’ as such, is good; 41

 

=28.= or (2) the false proposition that the ‘necessary,’ as

such, is good. 44

 

=29.= But a _systematised_ appeal to Nature is now most

prevalent in connection with the term ‘Evolution.’ An

examination of Mr Herbert Spencer’s Ethics will illustrate this

form of Naturalism. 45

 

=30.= Darwin’s scientific theory of ‘natural selection,’ which

has mainly caused the modern vogue of the term ‘Evolution,’

must be carefully distinguished from certain ideas which are

commonly associated with the latter term. 47

 

=31.= Mr Spencer’s connection of Evolution with Ethics seems to

shew the influence of the naturalistic fallacy; 48

 

=32.= but Mr Spencer is vague as to the ethical relations of

‘pleasure’ and ‘evolution,’ and his Naturalism may be mainly

Naturalistic Hedonism. 49

 

=33.= A discussion of the third chapter of the _Data of Ethics_

serves to illustrate these two points and to shew that Mr

Spencer is in utter confusion with regard to the fundamental

principles of Ethics. 51

 

=34.= Three possible views as to the relation of Evolution to

Ethics are distinguished from the naturalistic view to which

it is proposed to confine the name ‘Evolutionistic Ethics.’ On

any of these three views the relation would be unimportant, and

the ‘Evolutionistic’ view, which makes it important, involves a

double fallacy. 54

 

=35.= Summary of chapter. 58

 

 

CHAPTER III.

 

HEDONISM.

 

=36.= The prevalence of Hedonism is mainly due to the

naturalistic fallacy. 59

 

=37.= Hedonism may be defined as the doctrine that ‘Pleasure is

the sole good’: this doctrine has always been held by Hedonists

and used by them as a fundamental ethical principle, although

it has commonly been confused with others. 6