Anybody understand this?

onejontwo

My daughter is currently in her last year of college (A levels) and part of her work study is to review certain passages and theories from the given papers. One passage she can't make any sense of is the following taken from the Naturalism evaluation bit in the Meta-ethics section in a theology book (OCR Philosophy and Ethics) and we're hoping some clever person out there could shed some light on it or even someone who's recently done it themselves.

'Moore based his teaching on the naturalistic fallacy on the work of David Hume who thought that to derive an 'ought' from an 'is' would be logically wrong. All too often according to Moore we are talking about facts and then slip into speaking about ethical or moral values without making clear the basis of how we did so, because we ascribe natural properties to morality, which is fallacious.
Good cannot be defined in any simpler way, yet moral values about what is good are applied to the facts but are not discoverable among the facts like naturalism would suggest. Moore said attempting to define good using natural terms committed the naturalistic fallacy, he believed that it could be approached using the Open Question Argument. Suppose I believe that the natural quality of pleasure is the good. Now suppose I said 'I find hurting people pleasant'. It makes, most of us would say, perfect sense to ask, 'But is it good?' But, if pleasure = good, then it makes no sense to ask the questions, because it would mean, 'Hurting people is good (=pleasant), but is it good?" As long as you can still ask, of any natural quality, 'But is it good?' (the Open Question), then that quality can never be the good.'

ecoelle

Yeah...erm feeling really dumb right now! Sorry!

Mankysteve

Not quite sure not doing Philosophy, but It sounds like it could be something to go with facts are entities without morals they just exist and so are natural things even though we try to apply morals too them. The 2nd paragraph is something to do IS is inappropriate word for use.

I could be very wrong.

newport.david

its sounds like that to me, but maybe a bit more complicated.

googling naturalistic fallacy will get you a lot of results - after reading about 20 of them maybe it will start to make sense.

May as well start with wikki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

lynzpower

God this brings back memories!

I did a module in this! Give me half an hour lol

lynzpower

Moore based his teaching on the naturalistic fallacy on the work of David Hume who thought that to derive an 'ought' from an 'is' would be logically wrong. All too often according to Moore we are talking about facts and then slip into speaking about ethical or moral values without making clear the basis of how we did so, because we ascribe natural properties to morality, which is fallacious. Meaning- the way we discuss a fact, is based on our own moral judgement in the presentation of those facts. Indeed, many facts are skewed by the opinion of the holder/ teller.
Good cannot be defined in any simpler way, yet moral values about what is good are applied to the facts but are not discoverable among the facts like naturalism would suggest. Moore said attempting to define good using natural terms committed the naturalistic fallacy, he believed that it could be approached using the Open Question Argument. Suppose I believe that the natural quality of pleasure is the good. Now suppose I said 'I find hurting people pleasant'. It makes, most of us would say, perfect sense to ask, 'But is it good?' But, if pleasure = good, then it makes no sense to ask the questions, because it would mean, 'Hurting people is good (=pleasant), but is it good?" As long as you can still ask, of any natural quality, 'But is it good?' (the Open Question), then that quality can never be the good.

Good cant ever be a quality as it is loaded with your own viewpoint. Basically. I might say smoking crack and beating someone up is good, but that "good" in the conversation is loaded with my own values, values you probably dont share.

Good in itself therefore is laden with the moral judgements of the person that says it.

The naturalistic aspect is applying intrinsically valuble aspects of nature ( and im sure i argued some essay about whether nature was good in itself- the horror!!!:eek: ) to human activities. I cant go there as its just too complicated for me and its late!

MrsManda

From a very basic point I think it's pointing out that the idea that morality is intrinsic in nature rather than something which is ascribed to nature with no basis other than what we think is a lie. Morality is something humans apply to nature rather than nature being moral.
Gravity, the speed of light, humans give birth are all natural truths but what we suggest is immoral such as cannabalism, hurting people etc... and what we ascribe as being good and moral, such as caring for people, saving lives, are often seen as being natural and deviation from these 'good' attributes is unnatural and means the perpertrator has something wrong with them. Yet 'good' isn't a intrinsic property of the universe. Much of the animal kingdom are not 'good' or 'moral' when our own beliefs of morality and what is 'good' are applied and even human populations have different rituals which they consider to be good and right which other human populations are horrified about, cannabalism and ritural sacrifice are two examples of this. Therefore to suggest there is a intrinsic property 'good' in nature is to lie.

Taiko

What philosophy question?