G.E. Moore was a philosopher and logician who taught at Cambridge University. He was known for his honesty, with only one reported instance of lying. The document discusses different theories about the objectivity of moral judgements. Moore analyzes the ideas that ethics are based on feelings, on what society thinks, or on what individuals think. He argues that each of these theories would mean that the same action could be both right and wrong, which is a contradiction. The document also notes that different societies have approved of different actions at different times.

1. THE OBJECTIVITY OF MORAL
JUDGEMENTS BY G. E. MOORE
NAME:RICKY GADMAN
NIM:191000045

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About the author...
G. E. Moore was a Fellow of the British Academy, Professor of Mental
Philosophy and Logic at Trinity College, Cambridge, and editor of the
philosophy and psychology journal Mind. Bertrand Russell, a colleague, wrote
about Moore’s reputation for honesty, “I have never but once succeeded in
making him tell a lie, and that was by a subterfuge. ‘Moore,’ I said, ‘do you
always speak the truth?’ ‘No,’ he replied. I believe this to be the only lie he
ever told.”

3. Is Ethics Based on Feelings?
Now this question as to whether one and the same action can ever be both
right and wrong at the same time, or can ever be right at one time and wrong
at another, is, I think, obviously, an extremely fundamental one. If we decide it
in the affirmative, then a great many of the questions which have been most
discussed by ethical writers are at once put out of court. It must, for instance,
be idle to discuss what characteristic there is, which universally distinguishes
right actions from wrong ones, if this view be true. If one and the same action
can be both right and wrong then obviously there can be no such
characteristic—there can be no characteristic which always belongs to right
actions, and never to wrong ones

4. Is Ethics Based on Feelings?
Action or class of actions is right or wrong must be making an
assertion about somebody’s feelings.
This is a view which seems to be very commonly held in some
form or other; and one chief reason why it is held is many people
seem to find an extreme difficulty in seeing what else we possibly
can mean by the words “right” and “wrong,” except that some
mind or set of minds have some feeling, or some other mental
attitude, towards the actions to which we apply these predicates

5. Is Ethics Based on Feelings?
The argument showing that such a view must lead to the conclusion that one
and the same action is often right and wrong, consists of two steps, each
worthy of being separately emphasized.

6. Is Ethics Based on Feelings?
What we suspect the feeling is, it must be true that there is someone who has
actually taken any action, the feeling in question, the act in question is true.
Because theory presupposes that someone values an action as right, he only
judges that he has feelings for it; and therefore, whenever he really has it, his
judgment must be right, and his actions must be right.
Therefore, he follows closely from this theory that whenever anyone who
really has a certain feeling of doing an action, the action is really true; and
whenever any man really has a certain feeling about an action, that action is
completely wrong.

7. Is Ethics Based on Feelings?
This second fact is just an observed fact, which seems hard to deny, that,
whatever partner we feel or the single feeling we take, a case does occur
where two different men have opposite feelings towards the same thing.
Actions, and where , while one has a certain feeling about an action, another
does not yet get it.

8. Is Ethics Based on What Society
Thinks?
Many people have such a strong disposition to believe that
when we judge an action to be right or wrong we must be
merely making an assertion about the feelings of some man of
set of men, that each man, when he asserts an action to be right
or wrong, is merely asserting that a certain feeling is generally
felt towards actions of that class by most of the members of the
society to which he belongs.

9. Is Ethics Based on What Society Thinks?
From either of these two views, it will, of course, follow that one and the
same action is often both right and wrong, for the same reasons as were
given in the last case.
But, it seems undeniable, that some actions which are generally approved in
my society, will have been disapproved or will still be disapproved in other
societies.

10. Is Ethics Based on What People
Think?
second theory is one which is often confused with the one just considered. It
consists in asserting that when we judge an action to be right or wrong what
we are asserting is merely that somebody or other thinks it to be right or
wrong. That is to say, just as the last theory asserted that our moral
judgements are merely judgements about somebody’s feelings, this one
asserts that they are merely judgments about somebody’s thoughts or
opinions.

11. Is Ethics Based on What People
Think?
The first form, it will involve the absurdity that no two men ever differ in
opinion as to whether an action is right or wrong, and will thus contradict a
plain fact. While in the other two forms, it will involve the conclusions that no
man ever thinks a action to be right,
Unless he thinks that his society thinks it to be right, and that no man ever
doubts whether an action is right, unless he doubts whether any man at all
thinks it right—two conclusions which are both of them certainly untrue.
These objections are, I think, sufficient by themselves to dispose of this theory
as of the last.