Topic
Open-question argument
About: Open-question argument is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 66 publications have been published within this topic receiving 660 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
1 Jan 2005
TL;DR: This article argued that moral properties such as goodness were irreducible sui generis properties, not identical to natural properties, and thus moral properties could not be identified with any natural (or supernatural) properties.
Abstract: At the beginning of the twentieth century, G. E. Moore’s open question argument convinced many philosophers that moral statements were not equivalent to statements made using non-moral or descriptive terms. For any non-moral description of an object or object it seemed that competent speakers could without confusion doubt that the action or object was appropriately characterized using moral terms such as ‘good’ or ‘right’. The question of whether the action or object so described was good or right was always open, even to competent speakers. In the absence of any systematic theory to explain the possibility of synthetic as opposed to analytic identities, many were convinced this demonstrated that moral properties could not be identified with any natural (or supernatural) properties. Thus Moore and others concluded that moral properties such as goodness were irreducible sui generis properties, not identical to natural
109 citations
TL;DR: For instance, this article argued that the meaning of "good" is not fundamentally descriptive, and any account that construes it as such will leave open the question whether to approve of or to recommend whatever has the naturalistic property identified with goodness.
Abstract: The phenomenal influence of G. E. Moore's "open question" argument on twentieth century metaethics may now seem undeserved.2 On one important interpretation, for instance, Moore's argument for the unanalyzability of 'good' relies upon an account of analysis that would have the result that no terms are definable.3 If the argument shows anything, then, it shows too much, and thus it reveals nothing of special interest about 'good.' The noncognitivists who followed Moore, however, accepted the argument as a refutation of analytic naturalism, though they offered their own diagnosis of the argument's force. The meaning of 'good' is not fundamentally descriptive, they contended, and any account that construes it as such will leave open the question whether to approve of or to recommend whatever has the naturalistic property identified with goodness. Questions about good remain open because 'good' is used to express a pro-attitude or a recommendation, and it is logically open to us to approve of or to recommend anything.4 The open question argument shows us, the noncognitivists concluded, that evaluative concepts cannot be fundamentally descriptive and still perform their unique expressive and recommending functions.5 In recent years, certain "new naturalists" have disputed the noncognitivists' conclusion and have attempted to construct naturalistic accounts of nonmoral goodness that are invulnerable to the open question argument.6 These new naturalists recognize that earlier forms of definitional naturalism failed effectively to capture the expressive and recommending functions of evaluative terms. At the same time, they deny that these functions can be preserved only by treating 'good' as purely or primarily prescriptive. Instead, they argue, we can construct a descriptive meaning for 'good' that secures its recommending and expressive functions simply in virtue of the proposed descriptive content.7
54 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that normative claims do express beliefs, even by their own lights, and that arguing for non-cognitivism on the basis of the Open Question Argument leads them to embrace a contradiction.
Abstract: The main objection to non-cognitivism explored in the philosophical literature to date has been semantic in nature. How can normative claims lack truth conditions when they have so many features in common with claims that have truth conditions? The main aim of this paper is to shift attention away from this dominant line of objection onto a range of other problems that non-cognitivists face. Specifically, I argue that, contrary to the non-cognitivists, normative claims do express beliefs, even by their own lights; that the truth of Normative Judgement Internalism does not support non-cognitivism; that arguing for non-cognitivism on the basis of the Open Question Argument, as non-cognitivists do, leads them to embrace a contradiction; and, finally, that non-cognitivists do not provide us with plausible candidates for the desires and aversions that, as they see things, get expressed in normative claims.
51 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors defend G. E. Moore's open question argument against analytic reductionism, the view that moral properties are analytically reducible to non-moral properties.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to defend G. E. Moore's open question argument, understood as an argument directed against analytic reductionism, the view that moral properties are analytically reducible to non-moral properties. In the first section I revise Moore's argument in order to make it as plausible and resistant against objections as possible. In the following two sections I develop the argument further and defend it against the most prominent objections raised against it. The conclusion of my line of reasoning is that the open question argument offers the best explanation of our responses to the questions put in the argument, namely that analytic reductionism is mistaken.
31 citations
10 Jul 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, the Open Question Argument and the Frege-Geach Problem are used to argue against moral realism after Moore: Naturalism and expressivism and minimalism about truth.
Abstract: 1. The Open Question Argument 2. Error Theory and Moral Realism 3. Moral Realism after Moore: Naturalism 4. Moral Realism after Moore: Non-naturalism 5. Expressivism 6. Expressivism and the Frege-Geach Problem 8. Expressivism and Minimalism about Truth 9. Expressivism and Non-natural Moral Realism 10. Thick Concepts 11. Judgement and Motivation 12. Humean Theory of Motivation
26 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 3 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2018 | 1 |
| 2017 | 5 |
| 2016 | 4 |
| 2015 | 1 |