Questions: Moral Non-Naturalism: Special Moral Properties

Question 1

A utilitarian argues that 'good' simply means 'maximizes happiness.' A moral non-naturalist responds with Moore's open question argument. What is the key move in this response?

• A. The utilitarian theory produces counterintuitive verdicts in cases like torture for aggregate benefit
• B. The statement 'what maximizes happiness is good' remains a substantive, non-trivial question — showing 'good' and 'maximizes happiness' are not identical in meaning
• C. Happiness is a subjective feeling and too imprecise to serve as the foundation of morality
• D. The utilitarian definition places too much demanding on ordinary people to calculate consequences

Answer: (B)

Moore's open question argument works by substitution: if 'good' were identical in meaning to 'maximizes happiness,' then 'Is what maximizes happiness actually good?' would be as empty as asking 'Is a bachelor unmarried?' But the question feels genuinely open and substantive — not trivially answered by definition. That genuine openness reveals the concepts are distinct. Crucially, this argument works for any proposed natural property, not just happiness — it's a general challenge to naturalist definitions.

Question 2

What is the defining difference between moral naturalism and moral non-naturalism?

• A. Naturalists believe morality is subjective; non-naturalists believe it is objective
• B. Naturalists hold that moral properties are reducible to natural properties; non-naturalists hold that moral properties are sui generis and irreducible
• C. Naturalists use empirical evidence; non-naturalists reject all evidence and rely only on authority
• D. Non-naturalists derive morality from God; naturalists derive it from evolutionary biology

Answer: (B)

The defining question is whether moral properties can be reduced to or identified with natural properties (describable in scientific or empirical terms). Naturalists say yes — 'good' might mean something like 'conducive to flourishing' or 'maximizes welfare.' Non-naturalists say no — moral properties are their own kind of thing (sui generis), not analyzable in natural terms. Both positions are compatible with moral realism and with believing in objective moral facts. The naturalism/non-naturalism distinction is orthogonal to the objectivity/subjectivity distinction.

Question 3

The open question argument attempts to show that for any natural property N, the question 'But is N actually good?' remains substantive and non-trivially answerable.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is precisely what the argument does. Moore's move is to substitute any candidate natural property into the question 'Is N good?' and observe that the question never becomes analytically empty (the way 'Is a bachelor unmarried?' is empty). If goodness were identical to happiness-maximization, then 'Is happiness-maximization good?' should feel like a tautology. Since it doesn't — since it feels like a real moral question — goodness cannot be identical to happiness-maximization, or any other natural property.

Question 4

Moral non-naturalism implies that moral claims are subjective because moral properties can seldom be observed or measured empirically.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Non-naturalism is typically combined with moral realism — the view that moral facts are objective and mind-independent. Non-naturalists argue that moral properties are accessed through rational intuition, analogously to how we access mathematical truths. Mathematical facts are not empirically observed, but nearly no one concludes that mathematics is merely subjective. The inference from 'not empirically observable' to 'therefore subjective' is a mistake that the common misconception section of this topic explicitly flags.

Question 5

How does Moore's open question argument challenge any proposed naturalist definition of goodness? Walk through the argument structure and explain why it generalizes beyond any single example.

Model answer: Moore's argument proceeds in three steps. First, assume a naturalist proposes: 'Good means N' (for some natural property N). Second, observe that the question 'But is N actually good?' remains substantive and non-trivial — it does not feel like asking 'Is a bachelor unmarried?' Third, conclude that if 'good' and 'N' were identical in meaning, this question would be trivially answered by definition — its genuine openness shows they are not identical. The argument generalizes because the openness test can be applied to any candidate N whatsoever: pleasure, evolutionary fitness, social approval, rational agency. Every substitution leaves the question feeling genuinely open, blocking every naturalist definition of the same form.

The force of the argument is its universality. It does not require finding a specific counterexample to any particular naturalist proposal — it claims to show in principle that no natural property can exhaust the meaning of 'good.' Critics dispute whether the 'open question' feeling is reliable evidence of conceptual distinctness (perhaps we just haven't fully understood the natural property yet), but this is the debate non-naturalism enters and why Moore's argument remains foundational in metaethics.