Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction: Irony, Naïveté, and Moore
- 1 Simplicity, Indefinability, Nonnaturalness
- 2 Good's Nonnaturalness
- 3 The Paradox of Ethics and Its Resolution
- 4 The Status of Ethics: Dimming the Future and Brightening the Past
- 5 The Origin of the Awareness of Good and the Theory of Common Sense
- 6 Moore's Argument Against Egoism
- 7 The Diagnosis of Egoism and the Consequences of Its Rejection
- 8 Moore's Practical and Political Philosophy
- 9 Moore's Cosmic Conservatism
- 10 Cosmic Conservatism II
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Moore's Argument Against Egoism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction: Irony, Naïveté, and Moore
- 1 Simplicity, Indefinability, Nonnaturalness
- 2 Good's Nonnaturalness
- 3 The Paradox of Ethics and Its Resolution
- 4 The Status of Ethics: Dimming the Future and Brightening the Past
- 5 The Origin of the Awareness of Good and the Theory of Common Sense
- 6 Moore's Argument Against Egoism
- 7 The Diagnosis of Egoism and the Consequences of Its Rejection
- 8 Moore's Practical and Political Philosophy
- 9 Moore's Cosmic Conservatism
- 10 Cosmic Conservatism II
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In the next two chapters, we discuss Moore's argument against ethical egoism – the view that each person ought only to be concerned with and pursue his or her “own” good. This is his one argument that makes Moore incontestably revolutionary not just against philosophy, but also common sense. He argues not merely that ethical egoism is wrong, but that it is irrational – egoists contradict themselves when they try to state their view. From this the conclusion follows, despite Moore's efforts to avoid it, that the distinction enshrined by common sense between one's interests and the interests of others, between goods that affect oneself and others that do not, is illusory. The changes in the understanding of ourselves and our fellows wrought by recognition of this fact are so momentous that what remains seems hardly human.
In the first part of this chapter, we examine assumptions about the nature of the self that lurk in the background of Moore's argument against egoism. In the second part, we first consider how his presentation of his argument against egoism sheds further light on the tension between his conservative and his revolutionary impulses, and then examine and evaluate the argument. In the third, we consider more exactly what his argument commits him to by examining his critique of Sidgwick's view that egoism is rational.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- G. E. Moore's Ethical TheoryResistance and Reconciliation, pp. 112 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001