Yes, Bert, ethics is about what we ought do. And I guess it's clear, so far as it goes, that we ought do what is right, and we ought do what is good. — Banno

That's directional ethics, for lack of my knowledge of a better, well-accepted expression for it. Instructional ethics is another way to summarize it in an expression. It is, however, not the only area of ethics, and it does not apply to all domains of thoughts on ethics.

Therefore to say that ethics is about what we ought to do is false, inasmuch as the tone presupposes that it's the purpose of all ethics; well, it's not.

Ethics is not about what you want. — Banno

I don't know where you get this from. I agree with it, but the thread is not about ethics; you are derailing the topic. The topic is, as stated, "good" is impossible to define. (Not worded precisely as this, but it's close enough.)

To bring in ethics is, as I see it, is to counter the definition I and bert1 proposed. But we had no notion of bringing in ethics. You did, which is fine, but it's not a counter-argument to the definition. It is a completely different kettle of fish, so to speak.

You are pivoting the definition of "good" and the notion that ethics dictate we must do good, on the point that both endeavours use the word "good".

I put forth, that it's an equivocation. The "good" in the definition defines a subjective quality. The good in ethical theory describes a restricted value range of good, namely, that only those good-s are acceptable in the "ought" domain of ethics, which contain no "bad" for anyone concerned.

This restriction may be warranted in ethical theory of the "ought" kind, but it diverts from the definition of "good", and unnecessarily so for the general meaning of "good". The "ought" ethics does ask for a certain condition for "good" that is NOT part of the general meaning of "good", therefore the two are not equivalent, and that is where your fallacy lies: you want to force a meaning on a general meaning, which forced meaning is only applicable to a sub-field of ethics. And that is an invalid application.

Excuse my stupidity, but how is it possible to give a property properties without first considering goodness to be an an object in itself? — NOS4A2

This can be shown by the following thought experiment:

A man thinks of a house. He calls that house "House". The name of that house is House, while it is at the same time a house.

Now someone comes along, and saye to the man, "I hear you have something that you call House. But I actually don't know what you call House: your car key, your fridge, or your wife. What is the thing that you call House?" To which the man truthfully answers, "Well, the thing that I call the House is my thought of a house."

I hope this clears up your confusion on how it is possible for qualities to have qualities.

This can be transferred very easily by lateral thought to how it is very possible for properties to have properties.

I think that what you have provided is a list of reasons why we might want to call something 'good' — that it's advantageous, or pleasant, or helpful, or accommodating — which is not the same thing as a definition. — Herg

Define definition then for me, please, so I can proceed on satisfying your demand to comply to the form of the definition of any thing, as defined by you.

Ok. No more talk of ethics in a thread about defining good.

:wink:

I think that what you have provided is a list of reasons why we might want to call something 'good' — that it's advantageous, or pleasant, or helpful, or accommodating — which is not the same thing as a definition.
— Herg

Define definition then for me, please, so I can proceed on satisfying your demand to comply to the form of the definition of any thing, as defined by you. — god must be atheist

I Googled 'definition definition' (that was fun), and it said 'a statement of the exact meaning of a word, especially in a dictionary.' That will do for me.

I'm suggesting that if someone says 'that painting is good', they probably don't mean 'that painting is any 3 or more of advantageous, pleasant, helpful, or accommodating.' It seems unlikely. What advantage would the average person find in a painting? What would it help them to do? What wishes would it accommodate? They might find it pleasant, but equally, I think someone could find a painting unpleasant (think of Francis Bacon's Screaming Popes) and still think the painting was good.

So, if you like, paintings are my offer of the counter-example you were asking people to provide.

I'm suggesting that if someone says 'that painting is good', they probably don't mean 'that painting is any 3 or more of advantageous, pleasant, helpful, or accommodating.' It seems unlikely. What advantage would the average person find in a painting? What would it help them to do? What wishes would it accommodate? They might find it pleasant, — Herg

You got the pleasant right. And you're right, it is not to the viewer's advantage, the look of the painting.

In the meantime, since I wrote that first paragraph, bert1 has helped me out. He started with Hume's claim that pleasure (of any kind, not only physical, base, dirty pleasures) is the... forgot what he called it, but basically, it is the end of all endeavours. Beyond pleasure there is nothing a man or a woman wishes to attain.

So bert1 improved my definition by saying that something that is "good" is pleasure, or else an instrument to attain pleasure.

Then I went into saying that that's basically why "good" is a concept that is subject to subjectivity: it is fully subjective. I feel my pleasure, but not yours. (Althoug I can interpret your reactions to know you are in a state of pleasure.)

I rested on my laurels after that.

Banno, (please correct me if I say something that is not attributable to you) raised objections, and I shot them down saying that raising those objections served only his objective to debunk my definition, but the object, kernel to his objection, was using the word "good" in a different context.

I also talked about equivocation; meaning, that the same word means different things in different contexts.

I hope this explains that "good" is something that is pleasurable, or else it is helpful, accommodating and advantageous.

And finally, your second comment:

I think someone could find a painting unpleasant (think of Francis Bacon's Screaming Popes) and still think the painting was good. — Herg

They would have to elaborate what they meant by the painting being good, if it did not please them. I really can't wrap my head around that. I mean, there are tons of possibilities: good, because other people find it pleasing, or good, because it is the print of the queen's head on the twenty-dollar Canadian note, or good because the paint is not chipping yet, and there are no dried spit spots on the surface. In this latter sense, they are pleased with the condition, it pleased them, so it is some form of pleasure. In the case of the queen on the $20 bill, it pleases them because they know the money is not counterfeit. Good, because if other people like it, the person who does not revels in the fact that pleasure is still disseminated by this picture in the world at large, and though he does not personally enjoy viewing it, knowing that other people are caused to feel pleasure viewing the painting is pleasing him.

I really don't know, next time ask the guy and then get back to me, what he precisely means.

I Googled 'definition definition' (that was fun), and it said 'a statement of the exact meaning of a word, especially in a dictionary.' That will do for me. — Herg

So there you have it. The definition is a statement of the exact meaning of a word, especially in a dictionary.

Now look up what it says about the entry "life" and the entry "time".

I thought that the gist with Moore was in pointing out that the naturalistic fallacy constantly occurs when surveying what is "good".

No. The naturalistic fallacy involves confusing "X is good" (where this means that X has goodness" with "X is good" (where this means that X and goodness are one and the same). In other words, it involves confusing the 'is' of predication with the 'is' of identity.

I explained this above. So, normative theories - theories about what makes an act right or something good - are theories about what 'has' goodness and 'has' rightness. But they are not metaethical theories - that is, they are not theories about what goodness and rightness are in themselves. The naturalistic fallacy involves confusing normative theories with metaethical ones. That's another way of saying what I just said in the above paragraph.

Moore himself commits the very same error when he arrives at his conclusion that good is indefinable.

Have you read Moore?

Note, when I attempted to define what good is above, I did not commit the naturalistic fallacy. That is, I did not make the mistake of trying to isolate some feature that all good things have in common aside from being good and then identify the goodness with that feature or features. Rather, I simply noticed that for something to be good is for it to be valuable and for something to be valuable is for it to be the object of a valuing relation that has the source of all moral value and norms as its source.

The naturalistic fallacy involves confusing "X is good" (where this means that X has goodness" with "X is good" (where this means that X and goodness are one and the same). In other words, it involves confusing the 'is' of predication with the 'is' of identity. — Bartricks

it's good that here we are actually referring to Principia.

A note, if you would. If A=B, if they are the very same thing, then extensionally, any property of A os also a property of B, and necessarily. So if an ethical naturalist insists that "the good = B" then any extensional property of B will also be a property of the good.

The statue is made of clay. There is no statue independent of the clay. But if I alter the shape of the clay, it'll still be the same clay, but it won't be the same statue. Indeed, I can destroy the statue by changing the shape of the clay. The clay is the statue, but the clay has properties the statue does not (namely, its shape can be altered without destroying it, whereas the statue does not have this property).

But anyway, all of this is beside the point. The point is that the naturalistic fallacy involves taking the true normative theory to be, by dint of its being the true normative theory, the true metaethical theory.

All you are doing is pointing out that if the true metaethical theory is some form of naturalism, then the true normative theory will be a description of what 'goodness' is made of. But that's beside Moore's point. Moore's point is that you cannot infer that naturalism is true from the fact that the true normative theory will describe which natural properties moral properties track. For that is all a normative theory tells us - it tells us which, if any, natural properties moral properties such as goodness and rightness seem to follow from, but it does not license one to conclude that the moral properties 'are' those natural properties. Whether they are or not remains an open question.

:100: :clap:

because we can say that something is good because it is instrumentally good, not just because it is intrinsically good — Herg

But this then becomes "good for".

The point of "intrinsic" was that the pro-Sally sentiment expressed by "Sally is good" is about Sally, as opposed to my personal preference. Even if Sally is just "good for" something, that usefulness of Sally in this situation arises from her, not from my opinion of her.

The point is that the naturalistic fallacy involves taking the true normative theory to be, by dint of its being the true normative theory, the true metaethical theory. — Bartricks

Perhaps, but I'd characterise it as mistaking the extension of "good" for it's intension. That's the error the Open Question outs.

What do you mean? What is the difference between the extension of good and the intension of good? In your own words. Is a normative theory a theory about the extension of good, and a meteathical theory a theory about its intension? Is that what you think?

What is the difference between the extension of good and the intension of good? In your own words. — Bartricks

Just sense and reference.

So an open question supposedly shows that, even if some naturalist term picks out the very same things as "good", we have a different sense for "good".

"But does good just mean what is pleasurable?"

Just sense and reference. — Banno

What do you mean?

Note, I provided a very clear explanation of the error that Moore was highlighting. The error involves confusing two very different questions that can be expressed with the same words (and thereby thinking the correct answer to one is the correct answer to the other).

Now, either what you're doing is trying to find a more obscure way of saying the same thing, or you're saying something quite different. Which is it?

I don't think this conversation is worth the bother. Thanks.

Perhaps it would be useful to work through Moore’s Moral Philosophy? At least then we would have before us a common text that's not too long.

Perhaps it would be useful to work through Moore’s Moral Philosophy? — Banno

Sure, I'll tag along. Is that something you wanted to survey?

Is that something you wanted to survey? — Shawn

It wasn't on my to do list, but I'm not disinterested.

So part 1, Moore is supposing that moral statements have a truth value, and that this truth value is not just the opinions of the individual involved. And Moore is supposing that moral judgements are distinct from and not reducible to other sorts of judgements.

What you mean is "shit, I don't actually know what I'm saying..." yes?

Stop trying to sound clever. It isn't working.

Now, once again, did you take yourself to be saying the same thing I was saying, or did you think you were saying something different?

Is a normative theory a theory about the extension of the word 'good' and a metaethical theory a theory about the intension of the word 'good'. Come along. Say what you think.

So part 1, Moore is supposing that moral statements have a truth value, and that this truth value is not just the opinions of the individual involved. And Moore is supposing that moral judgements are distinct from and not reducible to other sorts of judgements. — Banno

In terms of what is a moral statement a truth value? Further, what does it mean to say that it's not reducible to other sorts of judgements?

In terms of what is a moral statement a truth value? — Shawn

Moral statements have a truth value - they are true or false; as opposed to being, perhaps, mere expressions of one's opinion, grunts of appreciation or contempt.

So, how do they obtain as either true or false?

Obtain?

Yes, in that how do they represent true state of affairs or not?

Well, I suppose that's the unanswered question. Presumably it's intuitive:

Closely connected to his non-naturalism was the epistemological view that our knowledge of moral truths is intuitive, in the sense that it is not arrived at by inference from non-moral truths but rests on our recognizing certain moral propositions as self-evident, by a kind of direct or immediate insight.

A humdrum!

You do realize, do you, that Banno doesn't know what he's talking about? What you get from Banno is half-understood regurgitated SEP pages.

Before Moore no distinction was drawn between normative ethics and metaethics. The distinction is a result of his work. The naturalistic fallacy involves conflating the question at the heart of normative ethics - "what is moral?" - with the question at the heart of metaethics - "what is morality?". Those distinct areas of inquiry grew out of his work. That is, he drew our attention to the fact these were distinct questions and that how we go about answering one is not how we go about answering the other.

The naturalistic fallacy - to which the distinction between normative ethics and metaethics can be seen as the result - involves confusing answers given to the first with answers to the second.

That's not how he himself would describe the naturalistic fallacy. Indeed, as he himself admitted, he provides no very clear explanation of what the fallacy actually involves. But that's actually what it involves, and that's precisely why these two distinct lines of ethical inquiry developed. They developed out of his work.

There's the destructive part of Moore - the part that involves highlighting (which, note, he does quite badly and confusingly) the mistake I have just described. This part lands us with a puzzle - if what we have been thinking were answers to the "what is morality?" question were, in fact, no such thing (they were answers to the "what is moral?" question), then what is morality? We thought we knew, but now we find we don't.

Then there's the constructive part in which Moore attempts to tell us what morality is. And his answer, which he assures us we'll find unimpressive, is that morality 'is what it is'. He arrives at this conclusion fallaciously. Ironically, he's committed his own fallacy. For he sees the failure of other answers to be evidence that morality is indefinable. But of course, if those answers were not answers to the 'what is morality?" question, but a quite different one, then one is not licensed to draw this conclusion.

Anyway, Moore's positive view is original, even though it doesn't enjoy the support he thought it did. His view is that as morality exists - we clearly have moral obligations - but has resisted (it hasn't) our best attempts to say what it is, it is itself and not another thing. That is, it is among those basic elements of reality, the raw ingredients, that cannot be broken down any further. It might be thought to be analogous to time and space, which are also candidates for that status. Time is time and not another thing and space is space and not another thing. Yet things are 'in' time and have temporal properties. The things that are in time do not constitute it. They just have temporal properties. Likewise then, we and our actions and the states of affairs around us are 'in' morality and have moral properties. Happiness is sometimes good. But happiness and goodness are not the same, just as some events occur at 3pm but are not thereby constitutive of 3pm.

That's Moore's view and it is known as 'non-naturalism'. It's a misleading name. But it is basically the view that morality is morality and that we make a mistake when we assume it must be made of something more basic than itself.

Non-naturalism is a form of what's known as 'objectivist' metaethical theory. 'Objective' in this context means 'exists as something other than subjective states'. Moore positively rejects the idea that morality could be made of our own - or someone else's - subjective states, for that would be to reduce morality to something else.

And Moore himself was a realist. A 'realist' about morality is someone who thinks morality exists. That is, moral objects and relations are real.

Many non-naturalists are not realists, however, but often endorse 'nihilism', the view that nothing is right or wrong in reality.