Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T15:05:20.657Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Maclntyre On Defining Morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

William K. Frankena
Affiliation:
University of Michigan

Extract

IN “What Morality is Not”, Philosophy, XXXII (1957), Mr. Alasdair Maclntyre argues against the view, now common, “that universal–izability is of the essence of moral valuation”. On page 331 he uses an argument which is an adaptation and extension of Moore's naturalistic fallacy argument, and which is generalizable. As Moore's argument, if cogent, holds against all definitions of “good”, “right”, etc., so Maclntyre's argument, if good, holds against all definitions of “moral” and “morality”. For this reason I shall examine his argument, as I once examined Moore's.1 I wish to do this partly because I should like to go on looking for definitions or elucidations of words like “moral” such as are contained in the uni–versalizability view, and partly in order to air some general questions which are raised by what Maclntyre says.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1958

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See “The Naturalistic Fallacy”, Mind, XLVIII (1939).