Misconstrue Moore's 'Principia Ethica'

In Principia Ethica (PE) Moore seems to set out to clarify what is good and what the good is. Although history has concluded that he did not reach his goals it's my contention that those who so conclude have misunderstood the more subtle, pedagogical point of Principia Ethica. Just two examples of those that misconstrue Moore’s strategy might be indicative of my contention: Bertrand Russell’s elegant review of PE ('The Meaning of Good,' The Independent Review 2, Mar 1904, 328-33) and more recently, Thomas Baldwin’s sophisticated treatment of the open question argument (class readings; 2010). It seems to me that they both miss the salient point of The Naturalistic Fallacy. Russell misses the point when he focuses on what ought one do (p.330) …show more content…
Russell’s critique comes about when Moore makes the claim, “That the assertion ‘I am morally bound to perform this action’ is identical with the assertion ‘This action will produce the greatest possible amount of good in the Universe’” and that such a claim is “demonstrably certain” (PE147). Russell mistakenly rephrases those two sentences to say, “… [W]hat we ought to do is that action, among all that are possible, which will produce the best results on the whole.” (p.330) But Moore’s is a non-heteronomous claim about coincidental states of affairs: When I do what I am morally bound to do; when I correctly perceive the good; attendant to that action is that the whole world will be better as a whole. Moore does not claim that the actor or agent in question perceives, in a consequentialist manner, that the act in question will bring about the greatest good. He only says that when one does what is good (or the morally imperative thing) then the good of the