## 1. The Open Question Argument and its Aftermath: Moore's Influence on Russell



Russell's destiny as an ethical thinker was dominated by one
book--G.E. Moore's *Principia Ethica* (1903). Before 1903,
Russell devoted some of the energy that he could spare from German
Social Democracy, the foundations of mathematics and the philosophy of
Leibniz to working out a meta-ethic of his own. After 1903, he became
an enthusiastic but critical convert to the doctrines of *Principia
Ethica* (though there is some evidence that the conversion process
may have begun as early as 1897). Moore is famous for the claim, which
he professes to prove by means of what has come to be known as the
Open Question Argument, that there is a "non-natural"
property of *goodness*, not identical with or reducible to any
other property or assemblage of properties, and that what we ought to
do is to maximize the good and minimize the bad. Russell subscribed to
this thesis--with certain important reservations--until
1913. Thereafter he continued to believe that *if judgments about
good and bad are to be objectively true*, non-natural properties
of goodness and badness are required to make them true. It is just
that he ceased to believe that there are any such properties. Does
this mean that judgments about good and evil are all *false*?
Not necessarily (though Russell did subscribe to that view for a brief
period during 1922). An alternative theory is that moral judgments are
*neither* true *nor* false, since their role is not to
state facts or to describe the way the world is, but to express
emotions, desires or even commands. This (despite some waverings) was
Russell's dominant view for the rest of his life, though it took him
twenty-two years to develop a well worked-out version of the theory.
He tended to call it subjectivism or "the subjectivity of moral
values" though it is nowadays known as non-cognitivism,
expressivism or emotivism. He came to think that, despite their
indicative appearance, moral judgments--at least judgments about
what is good or bad in itself--are really in the optative mood.
(A sentence is in the optative mood if it expresses a wish or a
desire.) What "*X* is good" means is "Would
that everyone desired *X*!". It therefore expresses, but
does not describe, the speaker's state of mind, specifically his or
her desires, and as such can be neither truth nor false, anymore than
"Oh to be in England now that April's here!". If I say
"Oh to be in England now that April's here!", you can
infer that I desire to be in England now that April's here (since
absent an intention to mislead, it is not the sort of thing I would
say *unless* I desired to be in England and *thought*
that April was here). But I am not *stating* that I desire to
be in England, since I am not stating anything at all (except perhaps
that April is here). (See *RoE*: 131-144/*Religion and
Science*: ch. 9.) Although this was Russell's dominant view from
1913 until his death, he did not care for it very much.



> 
> 
> I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of
> ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that
> is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it. (*RoE*:
> 165/*Papers* 11: 310-11)
> 
> 
> 



It is not entirely clear what Russell took these overwhelming
arguments to be. But one of them seems to have proceeded from a
Moorean premise. Russell took Moore to have refuted
*naturalism*, the view that although there are moral truths,
nothing metaphysically out of the ordinary is required to
*make* them true. Conversely Russell took Moore to have proved
that *if* there were to be moral truths about which things were
good or bad as ends rather than means, the truths in question would
require spooky non-natural properties of goodness, badness
etc--quite unlike the "natural" properties posited by
science and commonsense--to *make* them true. In the
supposed absence of such properties, he was driven to the conclusion
that moral judgments (at least judgments about goodness and badness)
were either *all* false or *neither* true *nor*
false. Thus Russell remained a renegade Moorean even after he had
ceased to believe in the Moorean good. But if Moore was a decisive
influence on Russell, it seems that Russell was an important influence
on Moore. For Moore may have been driven to invent his most famous
*argument* for a non-natural property of goodness--the
Open Question Argument--by the need to deal with a naturalistic
theory of Russell's.


## 2. Desire, Motivation and the Open Question Argument: Did Russell Influence Moore?


### 2.1. The Open Question Argument versus the Barren Tautology Argument



"I certainly have been more influenced by [Russell] than any
other single philosopher" wrote Moore in his intellectual
autobiography (Schilpp (ed.) 1942: 16). But Moore's
"Autobiography" suggests (without actually saying so) that
this influence was mostly metaphysical. I shall argue that Russell had
a considerable influence on Moore's *ethical* doctrines and
that some of Moore's key ideas were developed in the course of ongoing
debates with Russell.



Moore's *Principia Ethica* took a long time to finish. He had a
pretty good draft in 1898, but he did not publish it until 1903. Why
the long delay? One reason, I suspect, was that he had to deal with a
problem posed (perhaps unwittingly) by Russell.



It is not generally recognized that *Principia Ethica* contains
*two* distinct arguments against the "Naturalistic
Fallacy", the supposed intellectual error of identifying
goodness with some other property (usually, though not necessarily, a
*naturalistic* property). The first, which is derived from
Sidgwick, and has a long philosophical pedigree, goes something like
this:



(1.1)
For any naturalistic or metaphysical "*X*", if
"good" meant "*X*", then (i)
"*X* things are good" would be a barren tautology,
equivalent to (ii) "*X* things are *X*" or (iii)
"Good things are good".
(1.2)
For any naturalistic or metaphysical "*X*", if
(i) "*X* things are good" were a barren tautology, it
would not provide a reason for action (i.e., a reason to promote
*X*-ness).
(1.3)
So for any naturalistic or metaphysical "*X*",
*either* (i) "*X* things are good" does
*not* provide a reason for action (i.e., a reason to promote
*X*-ness), *or* "good" does not mean
"*X*".


To put the point another way:



(1.3')
For any naturalistic or metaphysical "*X*",
*if* (i) "*X* things are good" provides a
reason for action (that is, a reason to promote *X*-ness),
*then* "good" does not mean
"*X*".


Following Russell, I call this the *Barren Tautology Argument*
or BTA (*RoE*: 100/*Papers* 4: 572). The idea is that
"good" cannot be synonymous with any naturalistic
"*X*", if "*X* things are good" is
supposed to be a reason for action rather than a "barren
tautology". So for example, if "good" just
*means* "pleasant" then "Pleasant things are
good" is a barren tautology (equivalent to "Pleasant
things are pleasant" or "Good things are good") and
cannot provide us with a reason for the pursuit of pleasure. Only if
"goodness" and "pleasure" are *not*
synonymous, can "Pleasant things are good" provide an
intellectual incentive for the pursuit of pleasant things. This
argument crops up at *PE*: SS11 (though variants of it
recur throughout the first four chapters (*PE*: SSSS14,
24 & 26):



> 
> 
> When *A* says "Good means pleasant" and *B* says
> "Good means desired," they may merely wish to assert that
> most people have used the word for what is pleasant and for what is
> desired respectively. [But I do not think] that any exponent of
> naturalistic Ethics would be willing to allow that this was all he
> meant. They are all so anxious to persuade us that what they call the
> good is what we really ought to do. "Do, pray, act so, because
> the word 'good' is generally used to denote actions of
> this nature": such, on this view, would be the substance of
> their teaching ... But how perfectly absurd is the reason they
> would give for it! "You are to do this, because most people use
> a certain word to denote conduct such as this." "You are
> to say the thing which is not, because most people call it
> lying." That is an argument just as good! .... When they
> say "Pleasure is good," we cannot believe that they merely
> mean "Pleasure is pleasure" and nothing more than
> that.
> 
> 
> 



However Moore did not invent this argument. A.N. Prior, in his
*Logic and the Basis of Ethics* (1949: ch. IX), traces it back
to Cudworth in the 17th Century, though it doubtful whether
Moore was aware of this. (He does not seem to have been particularly
well read.) But it certainly occurs in Sidgwick, which is presumably
where Moore got it from. The Barren Tautology Argument is to be
distinguished from the Open Question Argument proper (the OQA), which
Moore *did* invent, at least in its modern form. This occurs at
*PE*: SS13, a section that does not appear in the 1898
draft. It can be stated thus:



(1.4)
"Are *X* things good?" is a significant or open
question for any naturalistic or metaphysical predicate
"*X*" (whether simple or complex). [A question is
significant or open if an understanding of the language does not
suffice for an answer. Thus "Are bachelors unmarried?" is
*not* an Open Question.]
(1.5)
If two expressions (whether simple or complex) are synonymous this
is evident on reflection to every competent speaker.
(1.6)
The meaning of a predicate or property word is the property for
which it stands. Thus if two predicates or property words have
distinct meanings, they name distinct properties.


From (1.4) and (1.5) it follows that



(1.7)
"Good" is not synonymous with any naturalistic or
metaphysical predicate "*X*" (or
"goodness" with any corresponding noun or noun-phrase
"*X*-ness").


If "good" *were* synonymous with some naturalistic
predicate "*X*", then this would be obvious on
reflection to every competent speaker. Hence there would be
*some* question of the form "Are *X* things
good?" which would *not* appear to be open to competent
speakers, since an understanding of the words involved would suffice
for an affirmative answer. Given (1.4), there is no such question;
hence "good" is not synonymous with any naturalistic
predicate "*X*".



From (1.6) and (1.7) it follows that



(1.8)
Goodness is not identical with any natural or metaphysical
property of *X*-ness.


This argument is wheeled on to discredit a particular naturalistic
analysis of "good"--"one of the more plausible,
because one of the more complicated of such
definitions"--that " good mean[s] ... that which
we desire to desire". Where did Moore get this definition? He
does not say, crediting it, in effect, to Mr Nobody. But in fact the
inventor of this plausible but fallacious definition was none other
than the Hon. Bertrand Russell.


### 2.2. Wrestling With Desire: the Young Russell's Adventures in Meta-Ethics



The desire-to-desire theory is the last in a sequence of three
attempts to provide a foundation for ethics by defining
"good" in terms of desire. In the first, "*X*
is good" means "*X* will satisfy my desires";
in the second, it means "I want *X* for its own
sake"; and in the third it means "*X* is what I
desire to desire" (*RoE*: chs. 7, 9 &
10/*Papers* 1: nos. 36, 39 & 15).



"Ethical Axioms" (1894) was the last piece that Russell
wrote for Sidgwick's course on ethics (*RoE*:
53-56/*Papers* 1: 226-228). Russell takes it as a
datum that "we do make moral judgments" and that "we
regard these, like judgments as to what is, as liable to truth and
falsehood". We are "precluded from skepticism"
(presumably the view that moral judgments are all false) "by the
mere fact we will and act". (This is not a very convincing
argument since I can desire something--and hence
act--without thinking it good, as non-human animals presumably
do. The precondition of action is *desire*, not desire tricked
out in the vocabulary of good and evil.) Hence "some basis must
be found for ethical judgments", but "it is sufficiently
obvious that such a basis cannot be sought in any proposition about
what is or has been". Thus Russell has set himself a rather
difficult problem, since it is not at all clear that there
*can* be any true propositions that are not, in some sense,
propositions about what is, has been or will be. Perhaps what he has
in mind is a set of self-evident axioms about what ought to be or what
we ought to do which do not admit of any further analysis. But he
rejects this option because "the Kantian maxim" (whatever
that is) is purely formal and because no "material
precept" "has obtained the universal consent of
moralists". (It seems that a maxim cannot count as self-evident
unless it is evident to every qualified self.) Russell also rejects
the view that moral judgments are "merely statements of a
psychological state" (as, for example, that the speaker desires
this or that) on the grounds that in that case "they could not
err (except by the speaker's mistaking his own feelings)". He
seems to think that it is a conceptual truth that moral judgments are
liable to error. Finally he plumps for the view that "we may
define the good as that which satisfies desire" (that is, that
what is good for each person is what will satisfy that person's
desires). This allows for the possibility of error, for though we
usually know what we want, we can be wrong about whether we will like
it when we get it. Russell hastens to explain that this definition is
not as sordid as it sounds. "Our duty will consist in
self-realization, but self-realization may of course be best attained
by what is commonly called self-sacrifice."



It is nice to know that no sordid or selfish consequences flow from
defining the goodness in terms of the satisfaction of desire, but it
is not at all clear that Russell has solved the problem that he had
set himself. For propositions about what will satisfy desire are
propositions about what *will* satisfy desire--that is,
propositions about what *will be*. Underlying Russell's
argument is his evident desire to forge a conceptual connection
between moral belief and action. The theory must (help) explain the
fact that we *often* do what we believe to be our duty and
*usually* pursue and promote what we believe to be good. This,
not the thesis that we are *necessarily* motivated by our moral
beliefs, is the premise of Hume's famous Motivation Argument at
*Treatise*, 3.1.1:



> 
> 
> And this is confirmed by common experience, which informs us that men
> are *often* governed by their duties, and are deterred from
> *some* actions by the opinion of injustice, and impelled to
> others by that of obligation [my italics].
> 
> 
> 



(See D.D. Raphael (ed.) 1991 *The British Moralists*
[henceforward *BM*: SS489].) Russell appears to have
thought that a theory that left "good" and
"ought" undefined would not meet this constraint. But if
"good" means *what procures satisfaction*, then we
have the beginnings of such an explanation. For we usually desire that
our desires be satisfied, and hence we have a reason to pursue and
promote the good.



This theory soon ceased to satisfy, and Russell reverted to the
problem in "Are All Desires Equally Moral?", a paper he
composed in about 1896 (*RoE*: 68-70/*Papers* 1:
242-44). "The Good, for me, at any moment", he
declares, "is what I want" not what will satisfy my wants,
since we desire the objects that will satisfy desire and not,
"except derivatively", that those desires should be
satisfied. (This last point is distinctly dubious. Isn't Reid's desire
for our good-on-the-whole in part a second order desire that at least
*some* of our first-order desires should be satisfied? [See
Thomas Reid, 1788, *Essays on the Active Powers of Man*,
excerpted in *BM*: SSSS 861-865.] And did not
Russell himself believe that this desire was not only real but often
unduly predominant in civilized persons, so much so that most of what
we do is done for the sake of something else not because we have a
spontaneous, first-order desire to do it? See for instance his 1894
paper "Cleopatra or Maggie Tulliver" [*RoE*:
57-67, *Papers* 1: 92-98] though the theme is
repeated in subsequent writings such as *The Principles of Social
Reconstruction*, first published in 1916.) Thus "*X* is
good", means "I want *X*", a particularly crude
kind of subjectivism that goes back to Hobbes ("whatsoever is
the object of any man's appetite or desire; that is it which he for
his part calleth *good*", *BM*: SS25). This
theory maintains the link between moral belief and action (naturally
we pursue and promote the things that we want!) though it a) reduces
moral judgments to "statements of a psychological state"
and b) violates the requirement that statements about what ought to be
should have nothing to do with what is, since, on this theory, my
moral judgments reduce to statements about what *is* going on
inside my head. The theory as stated is a little *too* crude
for Russell however, since it precludes the possibility of moral
error. After all, it is difficult to be wrong about what we want. The
theory has the further unhappy consequence that we cannot desire what
we believe to be bad, let alone what *is* bad, since from the
very fact that I desire something, it follows that for me, at least,
it is good. All desires are equally moral since they are all desires
for the good.



Russell tries to sidestep these problems by distinguishing between
"*primary* desires, for ends, and *secondary*
desires, for means". The good for each person is what he desires
for its own sake and generally speaking he cannot be mistaken about
*this*. But he *can* be mistaken about whether a given
object is the *means* to what he ultimately desires.
Furthermore, if he *is* mistaken, his secondary desires may be
immoral. As Russell realizes, this leads to the "Socratic maxim
that no man sins wittingly" since nobody can desire what he
believes to be bad. But an agent can both desire the bad and have bad
desires, since his secondary desires may be inimical to his ultimate
ends. Unfortunately this amendment cannot save the theory. According
to Russell's theory, in *some* cases at any rate
"*X* is good", means "I want *X* for its
own sake", and such judgments are relatively immune from error.
Furthermore, people do seem to desire what they believe to be bad (the
"Socratic maxim" is not known as the "Socratic
Paradox" for nothing!) and we commonly think that desires for
ends, as well as desires for means, can be bad. Finally, the theory,
even in its amended form, reduces moral judgments to statements of a
psychological state. Thus the theory violates Russell's theoretical
constraints and is inconsistent with the way we usually talk.



What about the desire-to-desire theory? If "*X* is
good" means "I desire to desire *X*" then there
is a conceptual connection, though, as Lewis notes, an
"iffy" one, between moral belief and action (Lewis 1989:
116/72). I will pursue and promote what I believe to be good in so far
as I desire what I desire to desire. Moral judgments "like
judgments as to what is, [are] liable to truth and falsehood",
though not *very* liable to falsehood, since it is difficult,
but not impossible, to be mistaken about what we desire to desire. (I
might be persuaded, especially under moral pressure, that I desire to
desire something when in fact I do not.) But it is possible both to
desire the bad (to desire what I desire *not* to desire) and to
have bad desires (to have desires which I desire to desire not to
desire). Self-conscious depravity is thus a real possibility and the
Socratic paradox is dismissed. For like an unhappy junkie, I can act
on desires which I desire not to desire. But it is not possible to
desire to desire the bad since what we desire to desire is
automatically good. Furthermore, moral judgments are reduced to
statements of a psychological state, so much so that ethics becomes a
branch of empirical psychology. The axioms of ethics, in so far as
there are such things, are concerned with what is, since our desires,
including our second-order desires are original existents.



Thus Russell was trying in the 1890s to devise a theory that would
meet six constraints:



(2.1)
Moral judgments, "like judgments as to what is", must
have a truth-value.
(2.2)
Moral judgments must be liable to error (two constraints that
Russell tends to confuse).
(2.3)
There must be a conceptual connection (possibly an iffy one)
between moral belief and motivation [a rather weak form of
motivational internalism].
(2.4)
It must be possible to desire the bad and to have bad
desires.
(2.5)
Moral judgments must not reduce to "statements of a
psychological state".
(2.6)
The basis for moral judgments cannot be sought in any proposition
about what is, has been or will be.


The last condition, which amounts to the denial of naturalism, goes
back to a paper that Russell wrote for Sidgwick in 1893, "The
Relation of What Ought to be to What Is, Has Been or Will Be"
(*RoE*: 37-40/*Papers* 1: 213-214). Russell
observes that "from the point of view of formal logic" it
is impossible to derive an Ought from an Is. This leads him to the
conclusion that "some one or more propositions ethical in form
must be regarded as axiomatic unless [and this is a big
'unless'] such propositions are materially equivalent to
some assertion about what is, has been or will be". By
"materially equivalent" he seems to mean "mean the
same as". Thus morality might not hang from the skyhook of
intuited axioms if moral judgments meant the same as natural judgments
of some kind. But he goes on to argue against this possibility, that
is, to argue that what Moore was to call naturalism is *false*.
Nor is it odd that he should have anticipated Moore, since Sidgwick,
who was their teacher, anticipated them both.



However this provides Russell with a sextet of constraints that cannot
be jointly met. For example, it is hard to see how conditions (2.1)
and (2.3) can be realized without analyzing "good" or
"ought" in terms of desire or some such psychological
state. Yet to do so violates conditions (2.5) and (2.6). Thus it comes
as no surprise that the theories which Russell managed to come up with
all fail to meet his constraints. The first ("*X* is
good" means "*X* will satisfy my desires")
meets conditions (2.1) (since what we want may not satisfy us once we
get it). It also meets condition (2.4) (just about) since it is
possible to want things that will not, in fact, satisfy us. But it
doesn't meet (2.5), since "*X* is good" reduces to a
statement about a *future* psychological state; and *a
fortiori* it fails to meet condition (2.6). The second theory
("*X* is good" means "I want *X* for its
own sake") fares far worse. It meets condition (2.1) but not
(2.2), (2.3) but not (2.4), and fails (2.5) and (2.6) altogether. As
for the third ("*X* is good" means "*X* is
what I desire to desire"), it meets (2.1), struggles to meet
(2.2), meets (2.3) and (2.4) but fails both (2.5) and (2.6).



Interestingly if Russell abandoned (2.1) and (2.2) and adopted a
non-cognitive theory he would have been able to arrive at a theory
which would have satisfied the last four constraints. Take Russell's
own brand of emotivism ("*X* is good" means
"Would that everyone desired *X*!"), which he did not
develop until 1935 (*RoE*: 131-144/*Religion and
Science*, ch. IX). This meets condition (2.3), since if I say that
*X* is good, and if am sincere in my ethical pronouncements, then
I desire that everyone (including myself) should desire
*X*--a second order desire that is usually (but not always)
accompanied by a first-order desire for *X* itself. Thus if I
"believe" (note the scare quotes!) that *X* is good,
I am likely to pursue or promote it. The theory meets condition (2.4)
too, since I can desire things, from chocolate to crack, that I desire
nobody (including myself) to desire. It meets condition (2.5) as well,
since good-judgments, so far from being statements of a psychological
state, are not statements at all but optatives. For much the same
reason it meets condition (2.6): "*X* is good", is
not equivalent to a proposition about what is, has been or will be,
because it is not equivalent to any proposition whatsoever. But of
course the standard objection to non-cognitivist theories is precisely
that they violate conditions (2.1) and (2.2). They treat utterances
which are commonly regarded as true or false as lacking in truth-value
(at least with respect to their primary meanings) and they immunize
moral judgments from error by depriving them of the possibility of
falsehood.



Now I don't say that Russell's six constraints are correct (they can't
be since they are inconsistent), nor that Russell's meta-ethical
theories are right (which at most one of them can be since they, too,
are inconsistent). But I do say that the constraints are
*plausible* and that it is a desideratum in a meta-ethical
theory that it meet as many as possible. Russell demonstrates his
philosophical acumen by making the attempt.



In 1897, Russell decided in effect, to sacrifice conditions (2.5)
(2.6), and perhaps (2.2) to conditions (2.1), (2.3) and (2.4). In that
year he read a paper to the Cambridge Apostles "Is Ethics a
Branch of Empirical Psychology" in which he defined goodness as
that which we desire to desire. (*RoE*:
71-78/*Papers* I: 100-104). Moral judgments (at
least judgments about goodness) reduce to "statements of a
psychological state" since to say something is good is to say
that "we" desire to desire it, a statement well within the
frontiers of psychology (whether "we" refers to the
community at large or to the speaker whoever he or she may be). And of
course, if judgments about goodness reduce to "statements of a
psychological state", they clearly reduce to statements about
"what is, has been or will be", since whether
"we" desire to desire something is determined by whatever
*is* the case in "our" minds. Are moral judgments
liable to error? Only in so far as we can be mistaken about what we
desire to desire, which is, perhaps, not very far. On the plus side,
moral judgments will be true or false, and will have a conceptual
connection (albeit an iffy one) to our actions and passions. Assuming
that (at least sometimes) I actually desire what I desire to desire,
the fact that (for me) *X* is good means that (at least
sometimes) I will have a desire to pursue or promote *X*.
Finally, it is perfectly possible to have bad or even evil desires,
namely the desires I desire *not* to desire, thus solving a
problem with Russell's previous attempts at a desire-based ethic (see
*RoE*: ch. 9/*Papers* I: ch. 39). Thus the answer
Russell provides to his own question ("Is Ethics a Branch of
Empirical Psychology?") is a clear, but reluctant,
*yes*.


### 2.3. Why the Open Question Argument?



Now why should this theory pose a problem for Moore? Because the
time-honored Barren Tautology argument does not work against it.
Remember, the conclusion of the Barren Tautology Argument is this:



(1.3')
For any naturalistic or metaphysical "*X*",
*if* (i) "*X* things are good", provides a
reason for action (that is, a reason to promote *X*-ness),
*then* "good" does not mean
"*X*".


By substitution this gives us:



(1.3'')
*If* (i') "Things which we desire to desire are
good", provides a reason for action (that is, a reason to
promote what we desire to desire), *then* "good"
does not mean "what we desire to desire".


But the point of defining goodness in terms of what we desire to
desire is *not* to give us a reason to pursue or promote what
we desire to desire--rather, it is supposed to *explain*
why something's being good *gives* us a reason (or at least, a
motive), to pursue or promote it. Russell is not *advocating*
the pursuit of what we desire to desire: he is trying to provide an
analysis of "good" which helps to make sense of the fact
that we tend to pursue and promote (what we believe to be) good
things. (We do it because to be good just *is* to be something
which we desire to desire, and hence something which, sometimes at any
rate, we will actually desire.) In other words, (i')
"Things which we desire to desire are good" is
*meant* to be a barren tautology--barren in terms of
practical consequences, that is, though, hopefully, philosophically
illuminating. It does *not* provide (and is not intended to
provide) a reason for action. But in that case, the antecedent of
(1.3'')--that the belief that "Things which we desire
to desire are good", provides a reason for action--is
false, so far as Russell's analysis is concerned. Thus even if the
conditional (1.3'') is true, it does not support the
consequent--that "good" does not mean "what we
desire to desire". The Barren Tautology Argument is therefore
impotent against the desire-to-desire theory.



Nor is this all. The Barren Tautology Argument fails against other
theories whose aim is to explicate the appeal of goodness rather than
to advocate the pursuit of some alleged good thing. For instance, if
"good" means "what we are ideally inclined to
approve of", then "What we are ideally inclined to approve
of is good" will be a barren tautology. But since people like
Hume, who propound such definitions, don't intend them to be anything
else, they are not compelled to the conclusion that such definitions
are false. Thus *if naturalism was to be defeated* (which was
clearly Moore's project) a *new* argument had to be invented.
And it is significant, I think, that Moore did not publish
*Principia Ethica* until he had invented just such an
argument.



The Open Question Argument proper does not terminate in a conditional
but a categorical. It starts with the assumption that "Are
*X* things good?" is a significant or open question for any
naturalistic or metaphysical predicate "*X*". It is
not a tautology, barren or otherwise, that *what we desire to
desire is good*, and the proof of this is that competent speakers
can sensibly wonder whether or not it is true. Indeed, according to
Moore, "any one can easily convince himself by inspection"
that the predicate "good" "is positively different
from the notion of 'desiring to desire'". If we
grant Moore's first implicit assumption--that if two expressions
are synonymous this is evident on reflection to every competent
speaker--we can derive the consequence that "good"
does not *mean* "what we desire to desire". And if
we grant his second implicit assumption--that if two predicates
or property words have distinct meanings they name distinct
properties--then we can derive the conclusion that he really
wants, namely that goodness is not *identical* with what we
desire to desire. And by parity or reasoning we can do the same for
any naturalistic property whatsoever.



Now Moore's twin assumptions have subsequently fallen upon hard times.
The first leads straight to the Paradox of Analysis (see Langford
1942), whilst the second would exclude synthetic identities such as
*water is H2O*. But *if* they were correct,
the OQA would indeed dispose of the desire-to-desire theory along with
kindred theories such as Hume's. It is notable that David Lewis, who
revived Russell's theory in 1989 (without realizing it was Russell's),
explicitly affirms what Moore implicitly denies--that there can
be *unobvious* analytic truths; that is, truths *not*
evident to every competent speaker (see Lewis 1989 and Pigden 2007).
But if Moore were correct and there were no such things, then
naturalistic analyses of the moral concepts such as Russell's would be
in big trouble. The BTA only works against *some* naturalistic
analyses of "good", namely those that define
"good" in terms of some property that the theorist wishes
to promote. The OQA, if it works at all, works against them all. It
seems very likely that what prompted Moore to invent his philosophical
weapon of mass destruction was the desire-to-desire theory of Bertrand
Russell.



Then why didn't Moore say so--or at least, why didn't he
attribute the desire-to-desire definition to its original inventor?
Because Russell propounded his definition at a meeting of the
Apostles, a supposedly secret society. The rather priggish Moore took
the code of secrecy very seriously and used to fuss about discussing
the doings of the Apostles by postcard in case they were read in
transit. (The slightly less priggish Russell had to reassure him that
only college porters were likely to read them and only initiates would
understand.) To have attributed the desire-to-desire theory to an
Apostolic paper of Russell's would have broken the code of silence (a
code designed to promote the unfettered exchange of honest
opinion).



There is an irony in this episode. The last page of the paper,
"Is Ethics a Branch of Empirical Psychology?" is marked
with a query in Russell's hand "Shall we spell {Good/good}
with", to which Moore replies "Good =
good"--which looks like a succinct formulation of his
famous no-definition definition of "good" ("If I am
asked 'How is good to be defined?' my answer is that it
cannot be defined and that is all I have to say about it."
*PE*: 58). If I am right, Russell's desire-to-desire theory
posed a problem for Moore which it took him five years to solve. But,
given the annotation, it seems that the debate on Russell's paper
began a process of conversion that led Russell himself to accept the
doctrines of Moore's *Principia Ethica*.


## 3. Sidgwick's Problem and the Rejection of Idealism



"We called him 'old Sidg' and regarded him as merely
out of date" (*My Philosophical Development*: 30). So
said Russell of his teacher, the great Victorian moral philosopher,
Henry Sidgwick (though he later thought that he and his contemporaries
"did not give [Sidgwick] nearly as much respect as he
deserved"). But though Russell may have regarded Sidgwick as an
old fogey, he set the agenda for a lot of Russell's work on ethics in
the 1890s. For Russell was much exercised by a problem that also
bothered Sidgwick: the Dualism of Practical Reason. (See Sidgwick
1907: 496-516; see also Schulz 2004: ch. 4, in which it becomes
abundantly clear how very preoccupied Sidgwick was with this problem.)
According to Sidgwick, it is rational to do what is morally right (by
maximizing pleasurable consciousness on the part of all sentient
beings) and rational to do what is prudentially right (by maximizing
pleasurable consciousness on the part of oneself), but, when the two
come into conflict, the one does not seem to be any more rational than
the other. If God exists, then He can ensure that it will pay in the
long term to promote the public interest, by rewarding the righteous
in the life to come. What is morally right will coincide with what is
prudentially right, and that, consequently, is what Practical Reason
will command. But if, as Sidgwick was reluctantly inclined to think,
there is no God, what is morally right and what is prudentially right
will sometimes come apart, and Practical Reason will speak with a
divided voice. If it does not always pay to be good, then it is not
clear that is more rational to be good than to be bad, a conclusion
that Sidgwick found deeply disturbing. The rather priggish young
Russell was bothered by the problem too (a solution, he said, would be
"a real solid addition to my happiness") because, like
Sidgwick, he did not believe in God. But as a fashionable young
philosopher of the 1890s he did believe in something that he thought
would do nearly as well, namely, the Absolute. For at this time,
Russell, like most of his philosophical contemporaries in the
English-speaking world, was a neo-Hegelian or Absolute Idealist.
Though we may *seem* to be living in a material world and to be
material boys and girls, this is an Appearance only. Reality, the
Absolute, is basically mental, a sort of timeless and harmonious group
mind of which our separate selves are (perhaps delusory) aspects. As
Bradley put it,



> 
> 
> the Absolute is one system, and ... its contents are nothing but
> sentient experience. It will hence be a single and all-inclusive
> experience, which embraces every partial diversity in concord. For it
> cannot be less than appearance, and hence no feeling or thought, of
> any kind, can fall outside its limits. (1930 [1893]: 129)
> 
> 
> 



(We stress that it is hard to present this doctrine concisely without
gross caricature.) But there was a crucial difference between
McTaggart and Bradley, the two leading idealists of Russell's day.
McTaggart believed in personal immortality and claimed the harmony
that already exists timelessly (so to speak) "must some day
become explicit" (McTaggart 1996 [1893]: 210-211). Bradley
did not.



At first Russell was an adherent of McTaggart. This afforded him a
neat solution to Sidgwick's problem. The happy day when the harmony
becomes explicit can be promoted or retarded by human action. If I
benefit myself at your expense not only am I doing down a self with
whom I am, in Reality, intimately linked--I am putting off the
day when the harmony that Really Is becomes apparent. And since this
harmony will be supremely pleasurable I am harming myself into the
bargain. Hence morality and self-interest coincide and Practical
Reason is reunited with itself (Russell, 1893, "On the
Foundations of Ethics", *RoE*:
37-40/*Papers* 1: 206-211). This illustrates the
point made by a number of unkind critics, that in the late
19th century Absolute Idealism functioned as a sort of
methadone program for high-minded Victorian intellectuals, providing
them with moral uplift as they struggled to get off the hard stuff of
official Christianity. (See Stove 1991: chs. 5 & 6; Allard 2003
and, in more restrained language, Griffin 2003b: pp. 85-88.)
Before long however, Russell moved over to Bradley's camp and ceased
to believe that the timelessly existing harmony would become manifest
in time. Nevertheless, since we are all aspects of the Absolute, a
sort of timeless super-self, there is essentially the same objection
to indulging my desires at your expense as there is to indulging one
of my own passions at the expense of others which are inconsistent
with it. I am hurting, if not myself, at least a larger whole of which
we are both parts (Russell, 1894, "Cleopatra or Maggie
Tulliver", *RoE*: 57-67/*Papers* I:
92-8). But before long even this solution ceased to satisfy. In
a paper not published until 1957, "Seems Madam? Nay It
Is", Russell argued (as he put it to Moore) that "for all
purposes that are not *purely* intellectual, the world of
Appearance is the real world". In particular, the hypothesis
that there is a timeless and harmonious Reality provides no
consolation for our present pains since it is a Reality that we never
get to experience. If "the world of daily life remains wholly
unaffected by [Reality], and goes on its way just as if there were no
world of Reality at all", and if this world of Reality is a
world that we not only *do not* but *cannot* experience
(since experience is necessarily temporal), how can its alleged
existence afford us any consolation for what seems to be (and
therefore *is*) evil in the world of Appearance? (Russell,
1897, "Seems, Madam? Nay, It Is", *RoE*:
79-86/*Papers* 1: 105-111/*Why I am Not a
Christian*: 75-82).



Now this argument has an interesting corollary which Russell does not
explicitly draw. It may be that in Reality the pains I inflict on you
affect me--or at least a larger mind-like thing in which we both
participate--but if I never *experience* those effects,
how can this give me a motive to do or forbear if my interests
conflict with yours? How can the fact that you and I are in Reality
one (or at least part of one) give me a reason to look out for you, if
this oneness is something I never experience? If Absolute Idealism can
provide no consolation for life's disasters--which is what
Russell is explicitly arguing--then it seems that it cannot
supply me with a reason not to visit those disasters on you, if doing
so is likely to benefit me. It may be that I suffer in a metaphysical
sort of way when I profit at your expence, but if this suffering is
something I never *feel* (since I am effectively confined to
the world of Appearance) why should this bother me? Thus the Dualism
of Practical Reason reasserts itself. Sometimes what is morally right
is at odds with what is prudentially right and when it is, there seems
no reason to prefer the one to the other.



Whether Russell realized this is not entirely clear. What is clear is
that "Seems, Madam? Nay, It Is" marks the beginning of the
end for Russell's Absolute Idealism. Once he realized that



> 
> 
> for all purposes that are not *purely* intellectual [including
> perhaps the purpose of providing moral uplift] the world of Appearance
> is the real world,
> 
> 
> 



Russell came to feel that the world of Reality was no use for purely
intellectual purposes either and soon resolved to do without it. A big
"R" Reality, that could neither console us for life's
troubles nor reconcile Duty and Interest, was a big "R"
Reality that might as well not exist. The methadone of Absolute
Idealism having failed, Russell was forced to accept appearances at
face value.



But what about the problem of the Dualism of Practical Reason? In
later life, Russell ceased to worry about it perhaps because he
realized that it is a problem that cannot be resolved. The Cosmos of
Duty really is a Chaos (as Sidgwick rather colorfully put it). Duty
and Interest *can* come into conflict, and when they do, there
is no decisive reason for preferring the one to the other. All you can
do is to try to instill moral and altruistic motivations, which is
what Russell tried to do with his children. But when they asked
*why* they should care about other people (as his daughter Kate
defiantly did) his response was rather lame.



> 
> 
> Kate:
> "I don't want to! Why should I?"
> Russell:
> "Because more people will be happier if you do than if you
> don't."
> Kate:
> "So what? I don't care about other people."
> Russell:
> "You should."
> Kate:
> "But why?"
> Russell:
> "Because more people will be happier if you do than if you
> don't." (*RoE*: 16; Tait 1975: 185)
> 
> 



This isn't much of an answer, but since the Cosmos of Duty really is a
Chaos, it was perhaps the best that Russell could do.


## 4. Russell versus Moore: Two Kinds of Consequentialism



Although Russell became a convert to the doctrines of *Principia
Ethica*, he disagreed with Moore on two important points. Russell,
like Moore was what is nowadays known as a consequentialist. He
believed that the rightness or otherwise of an act is "in some
way, dependent on consequences". But for the young Moore, it is
"demonstrably certain" (!) that "I am morally bound
to perform this action" is *identical* [that is
synonymous] with the assertion "This action will produce the
greatest amount of possible good in the Universe" (*PE*:
ch. 5, SS89). Thus it is *analytic* that the right thing to
do is the action that will, *actually* produce the best
consequences. But in Russell's view this claim is neither analytic nor
true. Moore's own Open Question Argument can be deployed to prove that
it is not analytic, and a little critical reflection reveals that it
is not true.



> 
> 
> It is held [by Moore] that what we ought to do is that action, among
> all that are possible, which will produce the best results on the
> whole; and this is regarded as constituting a definition of
> *ought*. I hold that this is not a definition, but a
> significant proposition, and in fact a false one. (*RoE*:
> 101/*Papers* 4: 573)
> 
> 
> 



It is a "significant" or non-analytic proposition because
a competent speaker can believe that *X* is the act that will
produce the best consequences without believing that she ought to do
it. If the two propositions "*X* is the act available to me
that will produce the best consequences" and "I ought to
do *X*" were *really* synonymous, then a competent
speaker could not believe the one whilst remaining in doubt about the
other. Since this is perfectly possible (as is shown by the fact that
"Ought I to do what will have the best results?" is an
obstinately open question for competent speakers of English) the two
claims are not synonymous. (W.D. Ross developed a similar line of
argument in *The Right and the Good* (1930) but it was Russell
who convinced Moore that he was wrong. See Moore 1942: 558).



But the fact that these claims are not synonymous does not show that
it is *false* that *I ought to do that act which will, in
fact, produce the best consequences*. The latter claim could be
synthetic (or, as Russell would have it, "significant")
but true. Why does Russell think it false? Russell raises the *ad
hominem* objection that Moore's thesis is flatly inconsistent with
the moral conservatism that he goes on to embrace. According to Moore,
although "there are cases where [an established moral] rule
should be broken", since "in some cases the neglect of an
established moral rule will be the best course of action
possible", nevertheless, "we can never know what those
cases are, and ought, therefore, never to break it"
(*PE*: SS99). "The individual, therefore, can be
confidently recommended *always* to conform to rules which are
generally useful and generally practiced." But if we ought to
perform the best action possible, what this implies is that there are
some cases (though we can never know which) where we ought to do what
it is not the case that we ought to do. Moore could avoid this
contradiction by adopting the view that what we ought to do is that
action which *we have reason to believe* will produce the best
consequences. As Russell himself put it, Moore's moral conservatism
"implies that we ought to do what we have reason to
*think* will have the best results, rather than what really
*will* have the best results" [my italics]--since,
in any given instance, we may have reason to *think* that the
conventionally right act will have the best consequences even though
we know that this won't always be the case.



But Russell did not reject Moore's brand of consequentialism because
it was inconsistent with his moral conservatism, since he
*also* rejected Moore's moral conservatism. As he informed
Moore by letter, he regarded his views on Practical Ethics as
"unduly Conservative and anti-reforming". However, anybody
who thinks that there are *some* actions which we ought to do
even though, as a matter of fact they won't have the best consequences
must, reject Moore's view. And it is precisely because he believes
this that Russell rejects Moore's brand of consequentialism.
"Some people", says Russell, "whom I refrain from
naming, might with advantage to the world have been strangled in
infancy; but we cannot blame the good women who brought them up for
having omitted this precaution." So if Stalin's mother (say) did
the right thing in *not* strangling him at birth, then it
follows that the right thing to do is not always the act with the best
actual consequences. Russell admits that his view is not without
paradox, since if it sometimes right to do what is actually
disastrous, it follows that it can sometimes be "a pity [that] a
man did his duty", a thesis which Moore regards as "a
contradiction in terms". But paradoxical as this may seem, it is
only a contradiction on the assumption that "the right
action" simply *means* "the action with the best
actual consequences", an assumption which Moore's own Open
Question Argument proves to be false. Moore's view, by contrast, is
contradictory however "right" and "ought" are
to be defined, since it implies that we sometimes ought to perform
acts which (since they are not optimific) it is not the case that we
ought to perform.



Russell's criticisms can be summed up as follows:


1. It is false that "I am morally bound/I ought/it is right for
me to perform this action" is *synonymous* with the
assertion "This action will produce the greatest amount of
possible good in the Universe", since the Open Question Argument
can be deployed *mutatis mutandis* to prove otherwise.
2. Moore subscribes to three theses that are flat-out contradictory:
	1. We ought to perform those acts that will in fact produce the best
	consequences.
	2. Following established rules does not always result in acts that
	produce the best consequences.
	3. We ought to follow the established rules.
These three theses jointly imply that we sometimes ought to do things
that it is not the case that we ought to do. Russell gently points out
this contradiction and suggests, in effect, that Moore could resolve
it by modifying (1) to (1').



1'.
We ought to perform those acts which it is reasonable to
*believe* will produce the best consequences.
3. The "good women" who brought up the likes of Hitler
and Stalin cannot be blamed for not strangling them in infancy. This
suggests that it was right of them to refrain even though the actual
consequences of their acts of forbearance turned out to be horrendous.
Thus the right thing to do is not that act which will
*actually* produce the best consequences but that act which it
is *reasonable to believe* will produce the best
consequences.



Moore accepted argument A (see his "Reply to My Critics":
558), and in his later book *Ethics* (1912) he treats
consequentialism as a synthetic thesis.



> 
> 
> It is, I think, quite plain that the meaning of the two words
> ["expedience" and "duty"] is *not* the
> same; for if it were, then it would be a mere tautology to say that it
> is always our duty to do what will have the best possible
> consequences. Our theory does not, therefore, do away with the
> distinction between the *meaning* of the two words
> "duty" and "expediency"; it only implies that
> both will always apply to the same actions. (*Ethics*: 89)
> 
> 
> 



He also seems to have accepted Russell's *ad hominem* argument
B--that, given the fairly obvious fact that doing the done thing
does not always produce the best results, his actualist brand of
consequentialism is inconsistent with his moral conservatism. However,
he did not resolve the problem by modifying thesis (1) as Russell, in
effect, recommended--instead he resolved it by dropping thesis
(3). In *Principia*, moral conservatism had been
"confidently recommended" to the conscientious
"individual". By the time Moore came to write
*Ethics* in 1912 it had simply disappeared, leaving the puzzled
"individual" bereft of practical guidance. What ought the
individual to do, when, as is usually the case, she cannot determine,
which of the available acts will have the best total consequences?
Moore does not say, thereby sacrificing helpfulness to theoretical
consistency.


## 5. Politics, Consequentialism and the Need for Skepticism



Dry and abstract as these disputes may seem, they are not devoid of
practical import. A common complaint against consequentialism is that
it encourages the consequentialist to do evil that good may come. If
the goods to be achieved or the evils to be averted are sufficiently
large, it may be not only permissible but *obligatory* to
torture prisoners, execute hostages or to massacre civilians--so
long as there is no other, less costly, way to achieve the goods or
avert the evils. This is not only objectionable in itself--it
encourages ruthless types to commit horrors in the here and now for
the sake of some imagined utopia, whilst pretending to themselves and
others that they are actuated by the highest motives. Because *in
principle* consequentialism licenses doing evil that good may
come, *in practice* it encourages fanatics to do evil even when
the good to come is highly unlikely. In his "Newly Discovered
Maxims of la Rochefoucauld", Russell remarks that "the
purpose of morality is to allow people to inflict suffering without
compunction" (*Fact and Fiction*: 184). And
consequentialist moralities have enabled some of their devotees to
inflict a great deal of suffering, not only without compunction, but
often with an insufferable air of moral smugness.



By adopting *expected* utility as the criterion of right action
Russell goes some way towards meeting these objections. In practice
when people propose to perpetrate horrors for the sake of some greater
good, the horrors are usually certain and the greater good is highly
speculative. In weighing up the options, the good to be achieved by
some tough course of action must be multiplied by the probability of
achieving it, which is always a fraction of one, and often a rather
small fraction at that. So although doing evil that good may come is
not excluded *in principle*, the expected utility theorist is
far less likely to do it in practice--at least if he or she is
intellectually honest. The classless society (let us suppose) would be
a very good thing, but I am probably not justified in shooting the
hostages to bring it about. For I can be certain that if I shoot them,
the hostages will be dead, whereas the probability that shooting them
will bring about the classless society is very low. Moreover there is
likely to be an as-good-or-better chance that I can bring about the
classless society *without* shooting the hostages. Thus even if
the classless society would be supremely good, the expected utility
theorist will not be justified in shooting the hostages to bring it
about. The expected utility theorist may be obliged to do evil that
good may come, but only if the good is large, highly likely given the
evil, and most unlikely *without* the evil. These conditions
are seldom met.



Thus Russell could use the criterion of *expected* utility
against warmongers and enthusiasts for revolutionary violence who
employed utilitarian patterns of reasoning to inflict suffering
without compunction. It was (for example) one of his chief weapons in
his polemics against the Bolsheviks during the 1920s. As he wrote in a
review of Bukharin's *Historical Materialism*,



> 
> 
> we do not know enough about the laws of social phenomena to be able to
> predict the future with any certainty, even in its broadest outlines
> ... For this reason, it is unwise to adopt any policy involving
> great immediate suffering for the sake of even a great gain in the
> distant future, because the gain may never be realized (*RoE*:
> 203/*Papers* 9: 371).
> 
> 
> 



Thus despite the desirability of socialism (in Russell's eyes at any
rate) the Bolshevik program had to be rejected *for utilitarian or
consequentialist reasons.* (See also *The Practice and Theory
of Bolshevism*, particularly Part II. ch.iv.) The Bolshevik
"habit of militant certainty about doubtful matters"
(*Practice and Theory*: xi) was not only irrational, but
*dangerous*, since it led to pointless suffering. Hence
"The Need for Political Skepticism", the title of one of
Russell's essays, and a major theme in his moral and political writing
(*Sceptical Essays*: ch. 11). Dogmatism leads to cruelty since
it encourages people to overestimate the likelihood that their
objectives will be realized and hence to exaggerate the expected
utility of persecuting policies. Scepticism (or
"fallibilism" as we would nowadays tend to say) is the
antidote. Hence the maxim that Russell puts into the mouth of la
Rochefoucauld: "It does not matter what you believe, so long as
you don't altogether believe it" (*Fact and Fiction*:
185).


## 6. Consequentialism, Emotivism and Moral Reform



The criterion of expected utility had another advantage for Russell.
It allowed him to recommend a less "conservative and
anti-reforming" version of Moore's principle that "the
individual can be confidently recommended ... to conform to rules
which are generally useful and generally practiced." Russell was
an act-consequentialist rather than a rule-consequentialist. An act is
right if the expected consequences of performing it are as good or
better than any other. It is not right because it conforms to some
rule, even a rule that it is generally useful to obey. Nevertheless,
rules are necessary because we do not have world enough and time to
calculate the consequences of every act.



> 
> 
> I think that, speaking philosophically, all acts ought to be judged by
> their effects; but as this is difficult and uncertain and takes time,
> it is desirable, in practice, that some kinds of acts should be
> condemned and others praised without waiting to investigate
> consequences. I should say, therefore, with the utilitarians, that the
> right act, in any given circumstances, is that which, on the data,
> will probably produce the greatest balance of good over evil of all
> the acts that are possible; but that the performance of such acts may
> be promoted by the existence of a moral code. (*RoE*:
> 216/*Power*: 168)
> 
> 
> 



Thus Russell believed that it is generally right to obey
"generally useful" rules, though these are "rules of
thumb" and there may be circumstances in which it is right (that
is *obligatory*) to break them.



> 
> 
> Even the best moral rules, however, will have *some*
> exceptions, since no class of actions *always* has bad [or
> good!] results. (*RoE*: 137/*Religion and Science*:
> 227-8)
> 
> 
> 



But though Russell thought it is generally right to obey generally
useful rules, he also thought that many of the rules that are
"generally practiced" are *not* "generally
useful". Sometimes they derive from bygone superstitions and
sometimes they foster the interests of the powerful at other peoples
expense.



> 
> 
> Primitive ethics ...select certain modes of behavior for censure
> [or praise] for reasons which are lost in anthropological obscurity.
> (*Education and the Social Order*: 23)
> 
> 
> 



However,



> 
> 
> one of the purposes--usually in large part unconscious--of a
> traditional morality is to make the existing social system work. It
> achieves this purpose, when it is successful, both more cheaply and
> more effectively than a police force does ... The most obvious
> example ... is the inculcation of obedience. It is (or rather
> was) the duty of children to submit to parents, wives to husbands,
> servants to masters, subjects to princes, and (in religious matters)
> laymen to priests. (*RoE*: 207/*Power*: 157)
> 
> 
> 



Thus Russell was inclined to agree with Plato's Thrasymachus, at least
to the extent that what *passes* for justice is *often*
[to] the advantage of the stronger [that is the ruling caste, class or
gender]. Russell was opposed both to power-moralities (codes designed
to bolster the interests of exploitative elites) and to the senseless
and often pernicious remnants of defunct superstitions.



> 
> 
> An ethic not derived from superstition must decide first upon the kind
> of social effects which it desires to achieve and the social effects
> which it desires to avoid. It must then decide, as far as knowledge
> permits, what acts will promote the desired consequences: these acts
> it will praise, while those acts having a contrary tendency it will
> condemn. (*Education and the Social Order*: 73)
> 
> 
> 



It was Russell's mission as a practical moralist, a social reformer
and a popular sage to promote a humane and non-superstitious ethic.
This was partly a matter of preaching and partly a matter of argument:
preaching as regards ends and argument as regards means.



In the latter, and more preachy, part of his career, it was Russell's
dominant view that judgments about what things are good or bad as ends
do not have a truth-value. To say that it is a good thing "that
the individual, like Leibniz's monads should mirror the world"
(*Education and the Social Order*: 10) is to say something like
"Would that everyone desired that the individual, like one of
Leibniz's monads, should mirror the world!" Since this is
neither true nor false, it cannot be rationally argued for. The best
we can do is to remove objections and present the end in a favorable
light. Russell was perfectly clear about this.



> 
> 
> Why [should the individual mirror the world]? I cannot say why, except
> that knowledge and comprehensiveness appear to me glorious attributes
> in virtue of which I prefer Newton to an oyster. The man who holds
> concentrated within his own mind, as within a *camera obscura*,
> the depths of space, the evolution of the sun and its planets, the
> geological ages of the earth, and the brief history of humanity,
> appears to me to be doing what is distinctively human and what adds
> most to the diversified spectacle of nature.
> 
> 
> 



This is eloquent stuff (and too me, at least, convincing) but it
hardly constitutes an argument. And this Russell freely admitted.



> 
> 
> Ultimate values are not matters as to which argument is possible. If a
> man maintains that misery is desirable and that it would be a good
> thing if everybody always had a violent toothache, we may disagree
> with him, and we may laugh at him if we catch him going to the
> dentist, but we cannot prove that he is mistaken as we could if he
> said that iron is lighter than water ... As to ultimate values,
> men may agree or disagree, they may fight with guns or with ballot
> papers but they cannot reason logically. (*Education and the Social
> Order*: 136)
> 
> 
> 



This is rather disconcerting, especially if we replace the comic
examples that Russell employs in *Education and the Social
Order* (he imagines a prophet "who advance[s] the theory
that happiness should be confined to those whose first names begin
with Z") with the real-life moral elitists and chauvinists that
he discusses in other works of the 1930s and 1940s. Nietzsche and the
Nazis really did believe that the sufferings of some people were not
significant evils (herd-men in the case of Nietzsche, Jews, Slavs and
Gypsies in the case of the Nazis) and it was Russell's thesis that no
rational argument could be advanced against them.



> 
> 
> Let us consider two theories as to the good. One says, like
> Christianity, Kant, and democracy: whatever the good may be, any one
> man's enjoyment of it has the same value as any other man's. The other
> says: there is a certain sub-class of mankind--white men,
> Germans, gentiles, or what not--whose good or evil alone counts
> in an estimation of ends; other men are only to be considered as means
> ... When [irrelevant] arguments are swept away, there remains, so
> far as I can see, nothing to be said except for each party to express
> moral disapproval of the other. Those who reject this conclusion
> advance no argument against it except that it is unpleasant.
> ("Reply to Criticisms" *RoE*: 146-147/Papers
> 11: 48-49)
> 
> 
> 



But unpleasant as this conclusion may be, it does not imply that those
with a humane and egalitarian conception of the good should give up
preaching on its behalf. On the contrary, such preaching becomes
imperative, especially for those with rhetorical gifts. Which is why
Russell devoted so much time and effort to this activity.



> 
> 
> According to me, the person who judges that *A* is good is
> wishing others to feel certain desires. He will therefore, if not
> hindered by other activities, try to rouse these desires in other
> people if he thinks he knows how to do so. This is the purpose of
> preaching, and it was my purpose in the various books in which I have
> expressed ethical opinions. The art of presenting one's desires
> persuasively is totally different from that of logical demonstration,
> but it is equally legitimate. ("Reply to Criticisms"
> *RoE*: 149/*Papers* 11: 51)
> 
> 
> 



Persuasion as regards ends may be a non-rational process, but that
does not mean that it is irrational, let alone *wrong*, to
engage in it.



When it comes to means however, rational argument becomes a genuine
possibility. It might seem otherwise since judgments about what is
right or what ought to be done--which for Russell are essentially
concerned with means--would appear to be as incapable of truth as
judgments about what is good and bad. In Russell's view, "the
right *act*, in any given circumstances, is that which, on the
data, will probably produce the greatest balance of good over
evil" and the right *rule* or *policy* is likewise
the one that can be expected to produce the best effects. That is,
"*X* is right" is *assertible* (roughly, a
sensible thing to say) when *X* can be expected to lead to the
best results. But if "*Y* is good", is really in the
optative mood, amounting to the exclamation "Would that everyone
desired *Y*!", then "*X* is right" would
appear to be optative too, since it comes down to something like
"*X* leads to more of what [would that everyone
desired!]". Here, the clause in square brackets, which is
obviously in the optative mood, infects the entire sentence with its
optative character. "*X* leads to more of what [would that
everyone desired!]", in so far as it can be made sense of, does
not seem to be the kind of thing that could be true or false.



However, Russell believed that judgments about what is right or what
ought to be done *can* be given an analysis which gives them a
sort of ersatz objectivity and hence the possibility of truth. If
Dmitri has a reasonably determinate conception of the good, that is, a
coherent set of opinions about which things are good and which bad,
then although Dmitri's opinions *themselves* are neither true
nor false--since, despite appearances they are not really
opinions at all but optative expressions of Dmitri's desires--it
can nevertheless be true or false that *X* is good in Dmitri's
opinion, that is, good-according-to-Dmitri. "Oh to be in
England, now that April's here!" is neither true nor false, but
if I say it sincerely, it will in fact be true that I desire to be in
England. Similarly, if Dmitri says that "Bungy-jumping is
good" what he says won't be true, since really it is in the
optative mood, but if he says it sincerely, it will be true that
Bungy-jumping is good-in-Dmitri's-opinion, or
good-according-to-Dmitri. Thus although there are no facts of the
matter about which things are good or bad, there *are* facts of
the matter about which things are *believed* by this or that
person to be good or bad. Furthermore--and this is the crucial
point--there are facts of the matter about whether a given action
or a given policy is likely to promote what somebody-or-other
*believes* to be good. Since Hitler believed that victory over
Britain would be good, there was a fact of the matter about whether
bombing London as opposed to bombing the RAF's airfields would be
likely bring about the states of affairs that he desired. As it turned
out, the policy he pursued did not produce results that were
best-according-to-Hitler. Hence if Hitler had adopted a
consequentialist reading of "ought", and had indexed it to
his own requirements, "I ought to bomb London" (as said by
Hitler) would have been *false*. And its truth or its falsehood
would have been a factually arguable question.



Now, suppose we *define* the right act with respect to
*B*, not as "that which, on the data, will probably produce
the greatest balance of good over evil" but as "that
which, on the data, will probably produce the greatest balance of what
*B believes* to be good over what *B believes* to be
evil". The right rule of policy with respect to *B* will
correspondingly be defined as the rule or policy that will probably,
in the appropriate circumstances, produce the greatest balance of what
*B believes* to be good over what *B believes* to be
evil. Then, so long as *B* has a reasonably coherent set of
ideals, the claim that a given act or policy is right or wrong with
respect to *B* will usually have a determinate truth-value.
Claims of the form "*X* is right wrt to *B*"
will be either true or false, so long as the person (or group of
persons) designated by *B* has a clear and consistent set of
values. There will thus be a fact of the matter about whether *X*
is right wrt to *B* which can be the subject of rational enquiry.
And if "*B*" stands in for *us* (whoever
"we" may be) and if *we* share a reasonably
coherent set of ideals, then there will be a fact of the matter about
whether *X* is right or wrong with respect to our ideals. Thus if
there is agreement with respect to ideals and if we adopt a
consequentialist conception of rightness, indexed, not to what
*is* good, but to what we *believe* to be good, then we
can have a rational debate--maybe even a scientific
enquiry--about the rights and wrongs of actions, rules or
policies, or at least about their rightness or wrongness with respect
to us.



> 
> 
> The framing of moral rules, so long as the ultimate Good is supposed
> known, [Russell should have said 'supposed agreed'] is a
> matter for science. For example: should capital punishment be
> inflicted for theft, or only for murder, or not at all? Jeremy
> Bentham, who considered pleasure to be the Good, devoted himself to
> working out what criminal code would most promote pleasure, and
> concluded that it ought to be much less severe than that prevailing in
> his day. All this, except the proposition that pleasure is the Good,
> comes within the sphere of science. (*RoE*:
> 137-138/*Religion and Science*: 228-229)
> 
> 
> 



Once the ends have been agreed, we can have a rational debate about
the code most likely to promote those ends. In some cases, such
questions can be resolved by scientific enquiry, or at any rate by
statistics. But (with one or two exceptions) rational argument is only
really possible when we take the ends as read and confine our
attention to the means.



We are now in a position to understand Russell's general strategy as a
polemicist for moral reform and its relation to his emotivist
meta-ethic.


1. He dismisses supposed duties that cannot be given a
consequentialist justification as the products of bygone superstitions
or, in some cases, the ideological props to predatory elites.
2. He uses non-rational methods to preach the goodness of some
ends--a life inspired by love and guided by knowledge, mirroring
the cosmos like one of Leibniz's monads etc.--and the evil of
others. This is essentially a process of getting his readers to share
his desires.
3. He then argues for his revised code of conduct as likely to
promote those ends. Here there can be truth and falsehood and
consequently rational argument, but only because "ought"
and "right" have been given a consequentialist reading and
indexed to the ends that Russell desires to promote.


## 7. Russell's Ideal: the Influence of Spinoza



Before going on to discuss Russell's meta-ethic in more detail, it is
worth pausing for a moment to consider his ideal. For although Russell
claimed to make his "practical moral judgments" on a
"roughly hedonistic basis" (*RoE*:
165-6/*Papers* 11: 311), he was far from being an out-and
out hedonist. He was, as we have seen, a utilitarian of sorts, who
believed that the right thing to do is the action that, on the
available evidence, seems likely to produce the best balance of good
over evil consequences. Since we cannot perform the requisite
calculations in every case, we need codes of conduct, though these
should be taken with a pinch of salt and reassessed from time to time
in the light of new information. This is sensible and humane, but
perhaps a little pedestrian. However Russell's conception of the
good--the end to be promoted--is a bit more interesting. To
begin with, although he valued human happiness, he did not see this in
crudely hedonistic terms. However pleasurable the life of a pig may
be, Russell would not have preferred the life of a pig to that of a
human being. Russell also valued *passion* and a life which
allowed for spontaneous (but "creative") impulses. These
views distinguish him from the classical utilitarians who he otherwise
admired. However, the really distinctive features of Russell's ethic
were derived from Spinoza (1632-1677), who remained a
philosophical hero even though Russell rejected most of his
metaphysics as set out (rather confusingly) in his *Ethics* of
1677. There was something about Spinoza's attitude to life that
Russell regarded as profoundly right. Kenneth Blackwell calls this
"the ethic of impersonal self-enlargement" (Blackwell
1985: 17). According to this ideal, the best life is lived in
awareness of the Other. This includes other selves (since Russell
considered a purely selfish life unfulfilling, and a life without
history--which involves *knowledge* of other
selves--drab) but also the *wholly* other--the
non-human universe of large impersonal forces, the wind, the sea, the
mountains and the stars and even (if they exist) the entities of
mathematics. He felt that the self is enlarged by the contemplation of
the not-self and that the person whose concerns are limited to their
own states of mind has confined themself within a spiritual prison. By
the same token, a philosophy that reduces reality to an emanation
either of the self or of the collective reduces the self by denying it
access to the Other. All this may sound unduly elevated, but in
practice what this means is that the good person takes an interest in
other people (including people who may not be connected with them) and
in the world at large. Russell sometimes talks about contemplation in
this connection, but this should not be understood as a purely passive
process. The contemplative person does not just sit and stare (though
Russell was not averse to this kind of contemplation) but actively
seeks to know the Other through science, history and other forms of
enquiry. Thus Russell's distaste for idealism and for anti-realist and
instrumentalist philosophies of science is connected with his ideal of
impersonal self-enlargement. Of course Russell does not attempt to
derive an Is (such as the claim that idealism or pragmatism
*is* false) from an Ought (such as the claim that we
*ought* to enlarge the Self through contemplation of the Other,
something that would be difficult if either of these philosophies were
correct). But he does suggest that there is something morally suspect,
as well as wrong-headed, about attempts to reduce the vast forces of
nature to human experience or to useful predictive devices enabling
human beings to achieve their puny ends. For Russell the good life is
a life that looks outward, which is one reason for his dislike of
philosophies that diminish what is outside ourselves into something
not worth looking at. (See *RoE*: 223-235 and, more
generally, *The Conquest of Happiness*, 1930.)


## 8. Objections to Emotivism and Relativism



A we have seen, Russell's meta-ethic was closely connected to his
program of moral reform. The idea was to advocate a set of humane and
egalitarian ends, using non-rational methods of persuasion, and then
to argue on the basis of psychology, social science, history and
common sense that that these ends would be best achieved if, on the
whole, people obeyed a reformed moral code. Judgments that this or
that is good or bad were to be construed as disguised optatives
("Would that everyone desired *X*!" and "Would
that everyone desired not *Y*!" respectively).
"Ought" and "right" were to be given a
consequentialist reading and indexed to the ends that Russell hoped
his audience could be persuaded to share. Thus Russell combined an
emotivist analysis of "good" and "bad" with a
consequentialist/relativist reading of "ought" and
"right". But was he right to do so?



Although Russell and Santayana were toying with emotivism in the
1910s, it was not until the 1930s that the theory really hit the
philosophical headlines. Since then it has taken a beating, and
although it still finds favor with the semi-philosophical public, it
is no longer widely believed by professional philosophers. Relativism
likewise is generally regarded as a down-list option, though, as with
emotivism, there are one or two distinguished philosophers who are
prepared to stick up for it. Does Russell's meta-ethic stand up
against the objections that have laid emotivism and relativism
low?


### 8.1 The Vicious Circle Problem



According to Stevenson and Ayer the function of moral judgments is to
express approval and disapproval. But to approve of *X* is to
think or feel that *X* is good or right: to disapprove is to
think or feel that it is bad or wrong. Thus the emotivist analysis of
the moral terms is viciously circular. (Russell himself had developed
a similar line of argument against theories which identify rightness
with a tendency to arouse approval in his "The Elements of
Ethics" (1912).)



This objection leaves Russell untouched. To approve of *X* may be
to think or feel that *X* is good, but for Russell to think
*X* good is not to approve of it, but to desire that everyone
should desire *X*. Implausible as this may be, there is no
circle, vicious or otherwise.


### 8.2 The Problem of the Disappearing Dispute



If judgments about what is good or bad in itself merely express
approval and disapproval, then "*X* is good" said by
me and "*X* is bad" said by you do not contradict
one another. After all, I am merely expressing my feelings whilst you
are expressing yours, and there is nothing remotely inconsistent about
the supposition that *X* arouses approval in me and disapproval
in you. But plainly when I call *X* good and you call it bad we
*are* contradicting one other. Hence emotivism, which seems to
imply otherwise, is false.



Again, Russell's brand of emotivism is immune to this objection.
According to Russell, "*X* is good" and
"*X* is bad" are really in the optative mood despite
their indicative appearances. As such, they express desires or wishes,
and desires and wishes can, in a sense, be inconsistent with one
other, namely when they are not (in Russell's phrase)
"compossible", that is, when they cannot both be realized.
"Would that I had all the ice-cream!" said by me and
"Would that *I* had all the ice-cream!" said by you
express contradictory desires since we cannot both have all the
ice-cream. As such, the two optatives contradict each other, not
because they *describe* incompatible *facts* but because
they *prescribe* incompatible *states of affairs*.
Similarly "*X* is good" said by me and
"*X* is bad" said by you express contradictory
desires and hence contradict each other. For "*X* is
good" means "Would that everybody desired *X*!"
and "*X* is bad" means "Would that everybody
desired that not-*X*!", and the desires expressed by these
two optatives are not compossible, or at least, are only compossible
on the condition that we all have inconsistent desires (both for
*X* and for not-*X*).



But the situation is a little different when we come to judgments
about what is *right* or what *ought to be done*. As we
have seen, Russell is inclined to give such judgments a
consequentialist reading and then to index them to some presumed set
of projects. It is therefore *true* with respect to, say,
Russell and myself that we ought to abolish the Death Penalty, since
abolishing the Death Penalty is conducive to the ends that we happen
to favor. But it is equally true with respect to some hardcore
retributivist that we *ought not* to abolish the Death penalty,
since it is *not* conducive to the eye-for-an-eye ends that
*she* considers good. And this seems to be a problem. For when
Russell and I say we *ought* to abolish the Death Penalty and
the retributivist says we that we *ought not*, it seems that we
are contradicting each other. Yet if the two "oughts" are
indexed to different visions of the good, it seems they are quite
compatible. What Russell and I are saying is that abolishing the Death
Penalty can be rationally expected to maximize the things *we*
consider good and to minimize the things that *we* consider
evil. What the retributivist is saying (if she is a consequentialist)
is that *not* abolishing the Death Penalty can be rationally
expected to maximize the things *she* considers good (which
include retributive punishment) and to minimize the things
*she* considers evil (such as murderers not getting their just
deserts). And these claims can both be true. Hence Russell's theory
brings about a spurious appearance of semantic harmony where in fact
there is conflict and contradiction. His theory suggests that the
friends and foes of the Death Penalty are *not* contradicting
each other, when in fact it is evident that they are. Genuine
disagreement would only be possible between those who agreed about the
ends but disagreed about the means. Thus if (in 1940) Hitler claimed
that the Luftwaffe ought to bomb London rather than the RAF airfields
whilst Goering claimed that the Luftwaffe ought to bomb the RAF
airfields rather than bombing London, the two would be in
contradiction since their ends were presumably the same. But their
views would be quite compatible with those of a pacifist who claimed
that nobody ought ever to bomb anything!



Russell himself had raised much the same objection against relativist
definitions of "good" and "bad" in 1912:



> 
> 
> If in asserting that *A* is good, *X* meant merely to assert
> that *A* had a certain relation to himself such as pleasing his
> taste in some way [or being conducive his ends] and *Y*, in
> saying that *A* is not good, meant merely to deny that *A*
> had a like relation to himself; then there would be no subject of
> debate between them. (*Philosophical Essays*:
> 20-21/*Papers* 6: 222)
> 
> 
> 



But, as Russell plainly believes, *there is* a subject of
debate between them, which means that relativistic readings of
"good" and "bad" must (at least sometimes) be
wrong. A similar problem afflicts his own subsequent analyses of
"ought" and "right". Since their
"oughts" are indexed to different ends, it seems that when
the Nazi says "We ought to bomb London" and the pacifist
says "Nobody ever ought to bomb anything" they are not
contradicting one another, though it is as clear as daylight that they
are.



Russell might reply that his suggestion is not intended as an
*account* of what "right", "wrong" and
"ought" *actually* mean, but as *proposal*
about what they *ought* to mean. His theory is not intended as
a *description* of our current semantic slum, but as a scheme
for linguistic *reform*. It may be that *at present* we
take those whose "oughts" are indexed to different ends to
be contradicting one other but Russell is hoping to change all that.
Given current usage, when Hitler says "We ought to bomb
London" and the pacifist says "Nobody ever ought to bomb
anything", the two claims contradict each other, but once
Russell's reform is has been implemented this disagreeable dispute
will be smoothed into non-existence.



The problem with this is that Russell's "proposal" is not
a very attractive one. One of the things we *want* to do with
moral language is express our disagreements. Russell's new-fangled
"ought" would be unable fulfill one of the most important
linguistic functions of the old-fashioned "ought", namely
to express that fact that people with different ends disagree (as we
would now put it) on *what ought to be done*. In depriving
people with different ends of the means to contradict each other
Russell would be doing them a disservice. Moreover, Russell would be
left with a peculiarly ramshackle meta-ethic. He would have a
descriptive account of what "good" and "bad"
*do* mean and a prescriptive *suggestion* about the
about what "right", "wrong" and
"ought" *ought* to mean. There is no actual
inconsistency in this but it does seem to be a bit anomalous. If the
name of the game is to *analyze* the moral concepts, then it
seems Russell's analysis of "right" and
"ought" is wrong. But if the name of the game is to
*reform* the moral concepts, then why not subject
"good" and "bad" to the same treatment, giving
them the kind objectivity that Russell would evidently have preferred
them to have?


### 8.3 "Ought" and the Open Question Argument



Another problem is that the later Russell's account of
"ought"-judgments runs foul of Moore's Open Question
Argument (as his earlier self could have told him). To say that
*A* ought to do *X* (with respect to *B*) is to say
that on the available evidence *A*'s doing *X* would be most
likely to maximize what some contextually specified person or group
*B takes* to be good and to minimize what *B takes* to
be evil. But, construed as an account of what we actually mean, this
is obviously incorrect. As Russell himself had nearly put it thirty
years earlier:



> 
> 
> It is held that what we ought to do is that action, among all that are
> possible, which [is likely on the available evidence] to produce the
> best results on the whole [according to some contextually specified
> standard of goodness]; and this is regarded as constituting a
> definition of *ought*. I hold that this is not a definition,
> but a significant proposition ... It might be proved, in the
> course of moral exhortation, that such and such an action [is likely
> on the available evidence to] have the best results [according to some
> contextually specified standard of goodness]; and yet the person
> exhorted might inquire why he should perform the action. The exhorter
> would have to reply: "Because you ought to do what [is likely
> to] have the best results [according to some contextually specified
> standard of goodness]." And this reply distinctly adds
> something. The same arguments by which good was shown to be
> indefinable can be repeated here, *mutatis mutandis*, to show
> the indefinability of ought. (*RoE*: 101/*Papers* 4:
> 573, somewhat modified)
> 
> 
> 



Thus Russell is making exactly the same mistake that he accused Moore
of making in 1904!
 (See above, SS4).



Again Russell might reply that he is not attempting to describe how we
*actually* use "ought" but making a suggestion
about "ought" should be used. But if we are to ring out
the old "ought" and ring in the new, we need to be assured
that this would be a good idea. And that requires something rather
more solid in the way of a cost/benefit analysis than Russell manages
to supply.


### 8.4 The Problem of Validity



It is a common complaint against emotivism that it precludes the
possibility of moral arguments that are valid in a non-trivial sense.
An argument is formally valid if and only if, no matter how the
non-logical vocabulary is interpreted, the premises cannot be true and
the conclusion false. But if the premises of a moral argument are not
truth-apt--if they are semantically *incapable* of truth
or falsity--then all moral arguments, no matter how obviously
"illogical" they may appear, will be trivially valid,
since the premises cannot be true! We can avoid this absurdity by
making explicit what the standard definition of validity
presupposes--that an argument cannot be a *candidate* for
validity unless the premises and the conclusions are both truth-apt.
But if we do that, moral arguments cease to be candidates for
validity, no matter how logically impeccable they may appear to be.
Stevenson (1944: 154-159) accepts this conclusion as a
consequence of his theory, but to the rest of us it seems a very large
dead rat to swallow.



Russell is immune to this argument as regards "ought",
"right" and "wrong" since in his view
ought-judgments are susceptible to truth and falsity. "It is
wrong (wrt to *B*) to kill the innocent" is a truth-apt
expression. Hence the argument "It is wrong (wrt to *B*) to
kill the innocent; to bomb the village would be to kill the innocent:
therefore it is wrong (wrt to *B*) to bomb the village", is
a candidate for validity, and is in fact, valid. To argue from the
same premises that it would be *right* (wrt *B*) to bomb
the village would be obviously fallacious.



But what about this argument?


1. It is good to contemplate whatever is beautiful;
2. Michelangelo's David is beautiful;



Therefore


3. It is good to contemplate Michelangelo's David.



Isn't it obviously valid? And wouldn't it be obviously
*in*valid to conclude from the same premises that contemplating
Michelangelo's David would be *bad*? Yet if arguments involving
"good" are not even candidates for validity, it appears
that the two arguments are on a par!



This is a telling objection against *some* forms of emotivism
which portray moral judgments as mere expressions of raw feeling,
analogous to cries of ecstasy or groans of pain. But Russell is better
placed to meet this difficulty, since in his view judgments about what
is ultimately good and bad are disguised optatives, designed to
express desires or wishes of a certain kind. And it is possible to
construct a rudimentary concept of logical consequence (and hence of
validity) that applies to arguments in the optative mood. Sentences in
the optative have fulfillment conditions just as sentences in the
indicative have truth-conditions. To understand an optative sentence
is a) to understand that it *is* in the optative and b) to
understand what the world would have to be like to satisfy the desires
or the wishes expressed. Just as indicative validity can be defined in
terms of truth, optative validity can be defined in terms of
fulfillment. (It would be nice to talk of "satisfaction"
rather than "fulfillment" here, but the word
"satisfaction" has been preempted to stand for a different
but related notion.) An optative sentence *Q* is the logical
consequence of a set of optative sentences *P* and a (possibly
empty) set of factual sentences *C*, if and only if, however the
non-logical vocabulary is interpreted, the desires expressed in
*P* cannot be fulfilled under the circumstances described in
*C* unless the desire expressed by *Q* is fulfilled too. An
optative argument is valid if the conclusion is an optative
consequence of the premises; invalid otherwise. Hence there can be
valid (and invalid!) arguments about goodness as well as logical
relations between the relevant sentences. Thus our argument
becomes:



1'.
Would that everyone desired to contemplate whatever is
beautiful!
2'.
Michelangelo's David is beautiful.
3'.
Would that everyone desired to contemplate Michelangelo's
David!


This is not perhaps a very plausible reconstruction of the original
argument, but it *is* logically valid in the sense defined. For
the wish expressed at premise 1') cannot be fulfilled under the
factual conditions specified at premise 2') without fulfilling
the wish expressed at the conclusion 3').


### 8.5 Geach's Problem



But there is another broadly logical objection to emotivism that is
much more difficult for Russell to meet. The objection was first
mooted by W.D. Ross (1939) but it was reinvented and refined by P.T.
Geach (1960, 1965), who modestly attributes it to Frege. Consider the
following obviously valid argument:



(1)
It is always good to contemplate beautiful works of art.
(2)
If it is always good to contemplate beautiful works of art, then
it is good to contemplate Michelangelo's David.


Therefore



(3)
It is good to contemplate Michelangelo's David.


In this argument, the sentence "It is always good to contemplate
beautiful works of art", occurs twice. In (1) it occurs by
itself as an assertion; in (2) it occurs unasserted as part of a
larger sentence. We know what the sentence is supposed to mean at its
first occurrence--despite its indicative appearance it is really
in the optative mood and expresses a wish: "Would that everyone
always desired to desire to contemplate beautiful works of
art!". But what about its *second* occurrence where it
appears as the antecedent to a conditional? Is it expressing that wish
there? Surely not. For someone can subscribe to the conditional (2)
whilst rejecting the relevant wish. For example, we can imagine
somebody reasoning like this:



(1')
It is not good to contemplate Michelangelo's David [perhaps
because it arouses unhealthy sexual appetites for strapping
fifteen-year-olds].
(2)
If it is always good to contemplate beautiful works of art, then
it is good to contemplate Michelangelo's David.


Therefore



(3')
It is not always good to contemplate beautiful works of art.


The person who accepts this argument clearly does *not* wish
that everyone should always desire to contemplate beautiful works of
art. But she subscribes to premise (2) nonetheless. Thus the sentence
"it is always good to contemplate beautiful works of art",
cannot generally be construed as an optative when it occurs in an
embedded context (that is when it occurs as a sub-sentence within a
larger, more complex sentence). This is already a very damaging
objection to Russell's theory of how "good" functions,
since it shows that the theory is radically incomplete. Russell can
only account for a very restricted class of cases, namely those in
which sentences of the form "*X* is good" are used by
themselves to make an assertion, not the numerous cases in which such
sentences occur, unasserted, as components of larger sentences. (It
is, so to speak, a theory of the semantic atoms that cannot account
for their role within semantic molecules.) But there is worse to come.
Suppose Russell added one or more epicycles to his theory to explain
how "*X* is good" manages to be meaningful in
unasserted contexts. The revised theory would have to distinguish
between different uses of "good", giving one account for
asserted contexts and a different account (or set of accounts) for the
unasserted contexts. Thus "*X* is good" would
sometimes be a disguised optative and sometimes something else. (Never
mind what--it does not really matter.) Now, consider the
following argument schema:


1. **X* is good*.
2. If ***X* is good** then *Q*.



Therefore


3. *Q*



In this argument "*X* is good" would have one meaning
in premise (i)--in which it would be an optative--and
another in premise (ii)--in which it would be a creature of some
other semantic kind. (I have emphasized the point by putting the first
occurrence in italics and the second in bold.) But an argument is only
valid if the words involved retain the same meanings throughout the
inference. If not, we have an instance of the fallacy of equivocation.
So it looks as if any attempt to deal with Geach's *first*
problem by explaining how "good" works in unasserted
contexts would have the unintended side-effect of converting obviously
valid arguments such as the above into instances of equivocation. Not
only is the theory radically incomplete--if it *were*
completed, it would reduce a huge number of obviously valid arguments
to invalidity by construing them as equivocal.



This is, perhaps, the leading problem for non-cognitivist or
expressivist theories of value and a vast amount of ink has been spilt
trying to solve it. (See, for instance, A. Miller, 2013,
*Contemporary Metaethics: an Introduction*, 2nd edn:
6, 37-9, 53-67, 68, 70-1, 73, 79n23, 89-102,
118, 127-32 & 245 and Schroeder, 2010, *Non-Cognitivism
in Ethics*: chs. 3, 4 & 7.) It would take me too far afield to
discuss the matter in detail. Suffice to say that Russell's theory
faces ship-wreck unless this problem can be solved and, in my opinion,
the problem is insoluble.


### 8.6 Commitment and Inconsistency



> 
> 
> I am accused of inconsistency, perhaps justly, because, although I
> hold ultimate ethical valuations to be subjective, I nevertheless
> allow myself emphatic opinions on ethical questions.
> 
> 
> 



Thus wrote Russell in reply to critics who thought that his emotivism
precluded him from being so relentlessly preachy. There was, they
thought, some kind of pragmatic inconsistency between vehement moral
opinions (frequently voiced) and meta-ethical emotivism (*RoE*:
145-150/*Papers* 11: 48-52). Russell makes short
work of this. In his view the function of the words "good"
and "bad" is to express certain kinds of desires. Since he
*had* the relevant desires there was no inconsistency in his
using "good" and "bad" to express the desires
that they were designed to express. There is nothing inconsistent
about using a piece of verbal machinery to do what you think it is
designed to do.



> 
> 
> I am quite at a loss to understand why any one should be surprised at
> my expressing vehement ethical judgments. By my own theory, I am, in
> doing so, expressing vehement desires as to the desires of mankind; I
> feel such desires, so why not express them?
> 
> 
> 



Nor (as he might have added) is there any inconsistency between
Russell's meta-ethical emotivism and his moral and political activism.
To think, for example, that nuclear war would be bad is to desire that
everyone not desire it, a desire that presumably springs from a
first-order desire that there should be no such thing. In trying to
avert nuclear war, therefore, Russell was acting on a desire that for
him had a high priority. Which looks like an eminently rational thing
to do.


### 8.7 Russell's Feelings and the Duck Argument



But in defending himself against the charge of inconsistency, Russell
makes a crucial concession.



> 
> 
> But what are "good" desires? Are they anything more than
> desires that you share? Certainly there *seems* to be something
> more ... In opposing the proposal [to introduce bull-fighting
> into America], I should *feel*, not only that I was expressing
> my desires, but that my desires in the matter are *right*,
> whatever that may mean.
> 
> 
> 



What exactly is it that Russell feels? That those who think
bull-fighting is good (and therefore desire it) are making some kind
of *mistake* and conversely that those think that bull-fighting
is bad (and are therefore opposed to it) are in some sense *getting
it right*. Thus the "something more" that Russell
could not help feeling was that his views about the badness of
bullfighting were *true* and the views of the imaginary
bull-fighting aficionados *false.* But how can that be if
"bull-fighting is bad," really is in the optative? For a
sentence to be true or false it must be semantically capable of truth
and falsity or, as the current jargon has it, *truth-apt*. Thus
in admitting that he could not help feeling that he would be right
(that is, correct) to oppose bull-fighting in America, Russell, was
admitting to feelings which suggest that his meta-ethic is false.
Moreover the very fact that he *had* these feelings provides
evidence for his theory's falsehood. Consider "Oh to be in
England, now that April's here!", a sentence that is clearly in
the optative (except for the bit about April's being here). It is hard
to see how anybody who understood this sentence could coherently feel
or think it to be true or false. Its optative character is obvious (to
those who understand English) and the fact that it is in the optative
excludes the possibility of truth and falsehood. Since Russell
*was* inclined to feel that "Bull-fighting is bad"
is true, and since this is not an incoherent thing to feel or think,
this strongly suggests that "bull-fighting is bad", unlike
"Oh to be in England!", is not in the optative mood.



Indeed there is something odd about the very idea of a disguised
optative. Of course, it is possible to give orders or express wishes
by means of sentences that are grammatically in the indicative mood.
Henry IV's "You have good leave to leave us", is
grammatically in the indicative but it is merely a slightly less curt
variant of the obviously imperative "Worcester, get thee
gone" (Shakespeare, *Henry IV*, 1.3). But when we use
indicatives to express wishes or convey commands we are engaging in
communicative acts which would misfire badly if the people we were
talking to failed to get the point. Even if King Henry had confined
himself to "You have good leave to leave us", omitting the
explicitly imperative "Worcester, get thee gone",
Worcester would have had to be singularly obtuse not to realize that
he was being ordered to leave. Competent speakers are usually well
aware when a grammatically indicative sentence is being used to give a
command or express a desire (indeed, this is one of the
*criteria* of linguistic competence!). But it is Russell's
hypothesis that, despite appearances, "*X* is good"
(in the sense of good as an end) is exclusively in the optative mood
even though, for most people, it is neither intended nor interpreted
as such. We have been good-ing and bad-ing things up and down for
hundreds of years whilst radically misunderstanding the meanings of
our own utterances. To suppose this is to suppose that meaning is
independent of our collective intentions, which is a very large dead
rat to swallow. Russell might reply that our usage belies our stated
intentions, that we use "*X* is good" *as if*
it were in the optative, and that despite our protestations to the
contrary, *his* theory provides the best explanation of our
actual use. The problem with this reply is that it is based on an
obviously false premise. We don't in fact use "*X* is
good" as if it were in the optative mood--we treat as if it
were truth-apt. This brings me to the most obvious and perhaps the
most compelling objection to emotivism--what I like to call the
Duck Argument.



The main problem for most forms of non-cognitivism is that moral
judgments look and behave like propositions--that is, in this
connection, the kinds of things that can be true or false. They have,
as the jargon has it, a "propositional surface". We claim
that such sentences are true or false, we speak of *knowing*
the difference between good and bad, right and wrong (where knowledge
would appear to entail truth), we *wonder* whether our ethical
opinions are right or wrong (in the sense of correct or incorrect) and
*believe* that we or others are, or at least may be,
*mistaken* in our moral beliefs (in the sense that they may be
*false*). All this is difficult to make sense of except on the
assumption that moral judgments are what they appear to
be--statements which express beliefs, describe some purported
facts and are therefore capable of truth and falsity. The argument
does not show that there *are* such facts (after all, much the
same points could be made about theological discourse, and a set of
truth-apt sentences cannot conjure God into existence). It could be
that there are no moral facts corresponding to our opinions and thus
that they are predominately false, like the propositions of Greek
mythology. But the way we talk strongly suggests that our moral
pronouncements are in the true/false game, and thus that they are
truth-apt or truth-valued. If something looks like a duck, swims like
a duck and quacks like a duck, then the chances are that it is indeed
a duck! Likewise, if something *looks* like a truth-apt
expression (since on the surface it is in the indicative mood), if it
*behaves* logically like a truth-apt expression (which again is
what "*X* is good" undoubtedly does), if it is
*treated* by the people whose use sustains its meaning *as
if* it were truth-apt, then, absent compelling arguments to the
contrary, it probably is truth-apt.


### 8.8 Objections Concluded



Thus Russell's brand of emotivism is subject to devastating
objections, some of which he was aware of. Moreover he was not that
keen on it. Although he thought he could show that



> 
> 
> I am not guilty of any logical inconsistency in holding to [emotivism]
> and at the same time expressing strong ethical preferences ... in
> feeling I am not satisfied. (*RoE*: 149/*Papers* 11:
> 51)
> 
> 
> 



In particular, he found himself "incapable of believing that all
that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it". Why
then was he an emotivist? Because he could not "see how to
refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values"
(*RoE*: 165/*Papers* 11: 310-311). What were these
arguments and why did Russell find them so compelling?


## 9. Objections to Objectivism



"When I was young," writes Russell,



> 
> 
> I agreed with G.E. Moore in believing in the objectivity of good and
> evil. Santayana's criticism in a book called *Winds of
> Doctrine*, [which Russell read in 1913] caused me to abandon this
> view, though I have never been able to be as bland and comfortable
> about it as he was. (*Portraits from Memory*: 91)
> 
> 
> 



As a piece of intellectual autobiography this is not very
illuminating. Santayana's book abounds in mellifluous sneers, but
arguments are conspicuous by their absence. Russell's reasons for
rejecting a non-natural property of goodness have to be reconstructed
from literary asides, delivered in passing in the course of his
anti-War polemics.


### 9.1 Persecution, Punishment and the Subjectivity of Value



However, Santayana does give *one* reason, not for doubting the
existence of the Moorean Good, but for wishing that nobody believed in
it. The idea that there are objective moral facts breeds intolerance
and fanaticism. Accordingly, the rejection of this idea "would
tend to render people more truly social", specifically, more
tolerant. "Moral warfare would continue", he writes,
"but not with poisoned arrows." Russell came to agree,
especially after the outbreak of World War I.



> 
> 
> My H[erbert] S[pencer] lecture was partly inspired by disgust at the
> universal outburst of righteousness in all nations since the war
> began. It seems the essence of virtue is persecution, and it has given
> me a disgust of all ethical notions, which evidently are chiefly
> useful as an excuse for murder. (Letter to Samuel Alexander, 5/2/1915,
> *RoE*: 107/*Papers* 8: 56)
> 
> 
> 



There is something rather paradoxical about this, since Russell was
firmly convinced of the rightness of his own anti-War activities:
"When the War came, I felt as if I heard the voice of God. I
knew it was my business to protest, however futile protest might
be" (*Autobiography* II: 18). If there are no objective
moral properties, there is no such thing as moral knowledge, which
means that Russell cannot have literally *known* that he ought
to protest. At best he could have known that he ought to protest
*given his values*. But though he sometimes seems to talk as if
it is objectively wrong to believe in objective values, Russell's
position is (or can be made to be) coherent. It might just be a fact
that moral realists tend to be more intolerant and cruel than moral
relativists and anti-realists. Hence those who dislike intolerance and
cruelty have a reason for running down objectivity. As Russell himself
put it,



> 
> 
> for my part, I should wish to see in the world less cruelty,
> persecution, punishment, and moral reprobation than exists at present;
> to this end, I believe that a recognition of the subjectivity of
> ethics might conduce. (*RoE*: 117/*Papers* 13: 326)
> 
> 
> 



The word "recognition" suggests that the
"subjectivity of ethics" is true, and thus that there is
no such thing as a non-natural property of goodness. But setting the
success-word to one side, it *might* be the case that we would
be better off believing in the subjectivity of ethics since believing
in objective values leads to persecution, punishment, cruelty and
moral reprobation. It might pay in terms of peace, love and
understanding if people came to believe Russell's brand of emotivism.
But the fact that a belief *pays*, in some sense, does not make
it *true*, as Russell himself was at pains to point out (see
*Philosophical Essays*, chs. iv & v). So even if we
*would* be better off believing that there were no objective
values (a thesis Russell later came to doubt), this does not prove
that there are no such things.


### 9.2 Russell and the Argument from Relativity



So what were Russell's reasons for rejecting a non-natural property of
goodness? One argument, subsequently popularized by J.L. Mackie (1977)
as "the Argument from Relativity", starts with the
diversity of moral opinion and the supposed impossibility of proof
when it comes to ultimate values.



> 
> 
> If our views as to what ought to be done were to be truly rational, we
> ought to have a rational way of ascertaining what things are such as
> ought to exist on their own account [that is, what things are good]
> .... On [this] point, no argument is possible. There can be
> nothing beyond an appeal to individual tastes. If, for example, one
> man thinks vindictive punishment desirable in itself, apart from any
> reformatory or deterrent effects, while another man thinks it
> undesirable in itself, it is impossible to bring any arguments in
> support of either side. (*RoE*: 112/*Papers* 13:
> 186)
> 
> 
> 



Now it is, of course, a *consequence* of Russell's later view
both a) that it is impossible to have a rational argument about
"what things are such as ought to exist on their own
account" and b) that in such disputes there can be nothing
beyond "an appeal to individual tastes". But though you
can argue *from* emotivism and the non-existence of objective
goodness *to* the truth of a) and b), can you argue
*from* a) and b) *to* the non-existence of objective
goodness?



The argument, I suggest, is best construed as an inference to the best
explanation. The best explanation of a) that it is impossible to have
a rational argument about what is good or bad in itself and b) that in
such disputes there can be nothing beyond "an appeal to
individual tastes" is the hypothesis c) that there is nothing
objective to disagree about since there *is* no such thing as
goodness--rather our opinions on these topics are somehow
dependent on, or expressive of, our disparate desires and perhaps our
diverse upbringings.



Is this a good argument? Not by itself, no. For it is not clear that
theses a) and b) represent genuine facts. And even if a) and b)
*are* true and *do* represent genuine facts, is c) the
best explanation? Perhaps there is a property of goodness but it
happens to be a property that it is difficult to discern. Some people
are just better at seeing what is good or bad than others. As Russell
himself put it in 1909 "the difficulty of discovering the truth
does not prove that there is no truth to be discovered"
(*Philosophical Essays*: 20/*Papers* 6: 222).



However, the Argument From Relativity looks a little better if we
follow Russell's hints and combine it with the Argument from
Explanatory Impotence.


### 9.3 Russell and Explanatory Impotence



In his polemical article "North Staffs' Praise of War"
(1916) Russell suggests an argument which prefigures a famous argument
of Gilbert Harman's 1977. (It is typical of Russell, incidentally,
that he develops his meta-ethical position in the course of a
newspaper controversy about the rights and wrongs of World War I
rather than in an article in an academic journal.)



> 
> 
> I have been led to [the view that all ethics is subjective] by a
> number of reasons, some logical, some derived from observation.
> Occam's Razor ... leads me to discard the notion of absolute good
> if ethics can be accounted for without it. Observation of ethical
> valuations leads me to think that all ethical valuations can be so
> accounted for, and that the claim of universality which men associate
> with their ethical judgments embodies merely the impulse to
> persecution or tyranny. (*RoE*: 117/*Papers* 13:
> 325-6)
> 
> 
> 



The idea seems to be that our moral evaluations--our beliefs
about what is good or bad, wrong or right--can be explained
without supposing that they correspond to facts involving Moorean
properties of "absolute" goodness or badness. And since
our evaluations can be accounted for without supposing that there are
any such properties, and since the only reason for we believing in
them is the evidence of our evaluations, we have no reason to suppose
that such properties exist, and some reasons (of an Occamist sort) for
supposing that they do not.



As it stands, this argument is inconclusive. For a Moorean might
simply hang tough, insisting that his own views about goodness are
best explained by close encounters of the Platonic kind, involving an
intimate acquaintance with both goodness itself and the properties on
which it supervenes. Of course, it is difficult to make naturalistic
sense of such cognitions, but it is difficult to make naturalistic
sense of our knowledge of logic, mathematics and modality. This is the
"companions in guilt" strategy that is often deployed in
arguing for moral objectivity (for more on which, see Lillehammer
2007). However the Argument from Explanatory Impotence gets a little
stronger if we combine it with the Argument from Relativity. For the
fact is that people often disagree about what is intrinsically good or
bad, about *how* good or bad the good things and the bad things
really are, and about the *relations* between goodness and
badness and what we ought to do. We have already seen that Russell
disagreed with Moore about whether we ought to do that action that
will *actually* bring about the best consequences or the action
that it is *reasonable to believe* will bring about the best
consequences, which means that they had different intuitions about the
relations between goodness and obligation. Moore disagreed with
Sidgwick about whether anything besides pleasure is good as an
end:



> 
> 
> This proposition that "pleasure alone is good as an end,"
> the fundamental proposition of Ethical Hedonism [is] in Professor
> Sidgwick's language, ... an object of intuition. I shall try to
> shew you why my intuition denies it, just as his intuition affirms it.
> It *may* always be true notwithstanding; neither intuition can
> *prove* whether it is true or not; I am bound to be satisfied,
> if I can "present considerations capable of determining the
> intellect" to reject it. (*PE*: SS45)
> 
> 
> 



More comically, the Cambridge Apostles seem to have had a serious
disagreement in 1899 about whether "self-abuse" was bad in
itself, Moore intuiting that it was and his opponents arguing that it
was not (Levy 1981: 207-8). Now, how could Moore explain the
intuitions of his opponents? Not by an encounter with badness, since
anybody *fully* acquainted with badness and its relata would
have been forced to admit that self-abuse was bad. The non-natural
facts being impotent in this particular, he would have been driven
back on natural causes (such as a taste for self-abuse) to explain the
misperceptions of his degenerate opponents. Thus he would have been
forced to admit that *some* moral evaluations could be
explained without the aid of non-natural properties. But once this is
admitted, a "Why stop there?" problem opens up. For after
all, it would have been child's play for his opponents to return the
compliment, Moore's self-denying intuitions being the obvious products
of a Puritanical upbringing. Once we admit that *some* moral
intuitions can be explained by natural, as opposed to non-natural,
causes--which seems pretty obvious given the prevalence of moral
"error"--it is hard to hold the line and insist that
there are *any of them* that cannot be accounted for by
temperament, upbringing, desire and taste. It is *possible*, of
course, that some moral evaluations are due to natural, and some to
non-natural, causes, but given that everybody admits that
*many* of our intuitions can be given a naturalistic
explanation (namely, the mistaken ones), Occam's razor suggests that
there is no need for the non-natural to explain those moral intuitions
that we regard as correct. When supplemented by Relativity (which is
what Russell seems to be hinting at) Explanatory Impotence provides a
powerful argument against non-natural properties.


### 9.4 Emotivism or the Error Theory?



Thus Russell's explicit arguments for the "subjectivity of
value" are objections to objectivism rather than arguments for a
rival hypothesis. Moore's theory is wrong since it presupposes
non-existent non-natural properties of goodness and badness. But if
naturalism is not an option, that still leaves two
alternatives--some kind of non-cognitivism or an error-theory
 (see SS1).
 Russell's dominant view was to be a form of emotivism, and hence of
non-cognitivism. But although emotivism was Russell's dominant view
from 1913 onwards, there were two significant wobbles. In 1922 he
proposed a version of the error theory, anticipating J. L. Mackie by
over twenty years. And in 1954 in *Human Society in Ethics and
Politics*, he endeavored to inject a little objectivity into
ethics by developing a form of naturalism. The first wobble is more
interesting than the second, but neither should be neglected in an
account of Russell's ethics, even though Russell abandoned the theory
of *HSEP* within weeks of publication, reverting to the
emotivism of 1935.


## 10. Russell's Error-Theoretic Wobble: There Is No Absolute Good



"Is There an Absolute Good?" was apparently delivered on
the 14th of March 1922 at special meeting of the Apostles
(*RoE*: 122-124/*Papers* 9: 345-346).
Russell opens up in the fine, flippant style that the Apostles tended
to admire:



> 
> 
> When the generation to which I belong were young, Moore persuaded us
> all that there is an absolute good. Most of us drew the inference that
> *we* were absolutely good, but this is not an essential part of
> Moore's position, though it is one of its most attractive parts.
> 
> 
> 



But he soon gets down to philosophical business in what must be one of
the pithiest meta-ethical papers on record (it is a mere 809 words
long). Moore is right, he says, in thinking that "when we say a
thing is good we do not *merely* mean that we have towards it a
certain feeling, of liking or approval or what not." Indeed
"ethical judgments claim objectivity"; that is, they
purport to tell it like it is. However, this "claim [to]
objectivity ... makes them all false". Since there is no
property of goodness corresponding to the linguistic predicate
"good", nothing can ever possess it. Hence, any claim that
friendship or anything else is *good* will be false, since
there is no such thing as goodness for friendship or pleasure to be.
The same goes for badness. Moreover, if there is no such thing as
goodness or badness, there is no such thing as rightness either, since
for an action to be genuinely right it must be such that it can
reasonably be expected to produce more good and less bad than any
alternative. But if there is no such thing as goodness to be produced,
no action can be expected to produce more of it than any other. Of
course, an action can still be *relatively* right: more likely
to produce more of what somebody *believes* to be good and less
of what somebody *believes* to be bad than any alternative. But
no action can be *genuinely* right or *genuinely*
obligatory, since there are no such properties as goodness or badness
for conscientious agents to maximize or minimize.



Thus far this is very like the error theory of J.L. Mackie (Mackie
1946, 1977: ch. 1 and Joyce 2001). But there is a twist. For Mackie,
as for Russell, "good" is a meaningful predicate even
though there is no property corresponding to the word. But Mackie,
unlike Russell, is unfazed by this fact. So far as Mackie is
concerned, meaningful predicates that refer to non-existent properties
pose no particular problems. But for Russell, we can only talk
meaningfully about *non*-existent things if they are defined in
terms of things with which we are acquainted. This is a consequence of
his Fundamental Principle that



> 
> 
> every proposition that we can understand must be composed wholly of
> constituents with which we are acquainted (*Mysticism and
> Logic*: 209/*Papers* 6: 154)
> 
> 
> 



or, as he was later to put it,



> 
> 
> that sentences we can understand must be composed of words with whose
> meaning we are acquainted. (Schilpp (ed.) 1944: 692/*Papers*
> 11: 27)
> 
> 
> 



According to Russell, it



> 
> 
> seems natural to infer, as Moore did, that, since propositions in
> which the word "good" occurs have meaning, the word
> "good" [itself] has [a] meaning.
> 
> 
> 



This, however, is a "fallacy". Even though
"good" can appear in meaningful sentences it does not have
a meaning of its own. This is very puzzling. What does Russell mean
when he says that "good" has no meaning? And why is
Moore's view dependent on the thesis that it does?



Let us start with Moore. As stated above
 (SS2.1),
 Moore's Open Question Argument goes like this:


1. "Are *X* things good?" is a significant or open
question for any naturalistic or metaphysical predicate
"*X*"; (whether simple or complex).
2. If two expressions (whether simple or complex) are synonymous this
is evident on reflection to every competent speaker.
3. The meaning of a predicate or property word is the property for
which it stands. Thus if two predicates or property words have
distinct meanings they name distinct properties.



From (1) and (2) it follows that


4. "Good" is not synonymous with any naturalistic or
metaphysical predicate "*X*" (or
"goodness" with any corresponding noun or noun-phrase
"*X*-ness").



From (3) and (4) it follows that


5. Goodness is not identical with any natural or metaphysical
property of *X*-ness.



Premise (3) is crucial. Moore takes it for granted that the meaning of
a predicate is the property for which it stands. Hence, if there were
no property of goodness corresponding to the word "good",
"good" would be meaningless. Since "good" is
quite obviously *not* meaningless, the corresponding property
is guaranteed. Thus we move from an obvious semantic fact--that
"good" is plainly meaningful--to a much more
contentious metaphysical claim--that there is a corresponding
property of goodness. What greases the wheels of this transition is
the apparently innocuous assumption that if a word like
"good" is to mean something, there must be some
*thing* (or at least some property) that it means. If this
doctrine were true, then the objections to objectivism discussed in
the last section would fall to the ground. The very fact that we can
*talk* meaningfully about goodness would show that there must
indeed *be* such a property. It might be causally impotent and
metaphysically queer, but the fact that we can discuss it would entail
that we were stuck with it anyway.



To the end of his days Russell believed that



> 
> 
> there are words which are only significant because there is something
> that they mean, and if there were not this something, they would be
> empty noises not words. (Russell 1959: 177)
> 
> 
> 



But when he was young he thought that *most* words were like
this, which explains the swollen ontology of *The Principles of
Mathematics*:



> 
> 
> Homeric gods, relations, chimeras and four-dimensional spaces all have
> being, for if they were not entities of a kind, we could make no
> propositions about them. (Russell, *The Principles of
> Mathematics*: 449)
> 
> 
> 



The breakthrough came with his Theory of Definite Descriptions (1905).
Phrases such as "the present King of France" are
*incomplete symbols*, which can function meaningfully in the
context of a sentence even though there may be nothing that they mean.
They are incomplete because they have no meaning when taken in
isolation and in the context of a sentence can be analyzed away. When
"the King of France is bald" is analyzed in accordance
with Russell's formula--"There is something which is King
of France such that if anything is King of France, it is identical
with that thing, and that thing is bald"--the phrase
"the King of France" simply disappears, though we are left
with the predicate "is King of France". "The King of
France is bald", is false because there is no King of
France--nothing which satisfies the propositional function
*being king of France*--and there is no need to suppose
that the King of France must have some kind of being in order for this
proposition to make sense.



This brings us back to the Open Question Argument. So far as I can
see, Russell continued to accept premises (1) and (2) and
thus--with reservations--sub-conclusion (4).
"Good" does not mean that same as any naturalistic
predicate *X*--at least, it does not mean the same as any of
the naturalistic predicates that have been suggested so far. But he
also accepts something like premise (3), that the meaning of a
predicate is the property for which it stands. It was because he
believed that some predicates were among the words "which are
only significant because there is something that they mean", and
which would be "empty noises not words" in the absence of
this something, that he continued to believe in properties, right up
until 1959. How then can Russell fend off Moore's conclusion (5) that
there is a property of goodness that is not identical to any
naturalistic property of *X*-ness? By modifying premise (3):



3'.
The meaning of a predicate or property word is the property for
which it stands, *so long as that predicate is a complete
symbol*.


Some predicates are *not* complete symbols, and these can
function meaningfully in the absence of the properties that they might
denote. One of these predicates is the word "good".



> 
> 
> Without the theory of incomplete symbols, it seemed natural to infer,
> as Moore did, that, since propositions in which the word
> "good" occurs have meaning, therefore the word
> "good" has meaning [or as we might now say, a referent];
> but this was a fallacy.
> 
> 
> 
> My point is that the word "good" does not stand for a
> predicate [by which Russell means a property] at all, but has a
> meaning only in the sense in which descriptive phrases have meaning,
> i.e., in use, not in isolation.
> 
> 
> 



Thus "good" can be meaningful in the absence of a property
of goodness and the error theory is safe from semantic refutation.



But Russell is not quite out of the woods. He continued to believe in
his Fundamental Principle that to understand a proposition we must be
acquainted with the referents of the words that remain once the
proposition has been boiled down to its ultimate constituents. This
means, in effect, that things which don't exist have to be defined in
terms of things which do, indeed, that things which *don't*
exist have to be defined terms of things (including universals) with
which we are *acquainted*. How then is "good" to be
defined? More pedantically, how are sentences involving
"good" to be analyzed so that the word "good"
can be eliminated? According to Russell,



> 
> 
> when we judge "*M* is good", we mean: "*M*
> has that predicate [property] which is common to *A*, *B*,
> *C*, ...[the things we approve of] but is absent in
> *X*, *Y*, *Z*, ...[the things we disapprove
> of]."
> 
> 
> 



The emotions of approval and disapproval, Russell notes,



> 
> 
> do not enter into the meaning of the proposition "*M* is
> good", but only into its genesis.
> 
> 
> 



That is, "good" is defined in terms of the things that we
approve (and disapprove) of, even though the fact that we approve (or
disapprove) of them is not incorporated into the analysis. Now, in
Russell's opinion, the proposition



> 
> 
> *M* has that property which is common to *A*, *B*,
> *C*, ... [the things we approve of] but is absent in
> *X*, *Y*, *Z*, ... [the things we disapprove
> of],
> 
> 
> 



will be always be false since the things we approve of have nothing in
common apart from the fact that we approve of them. That is why
"*all* propositions in which the word 'good'
has a primary occurrence are false." But will such propositions
in fact be false? Surely *X*, *Y*, *Z*,
etc. *do* have a property in common, namely the property
of *being X or Y or Z or ...*! Perhaps Russell would reply
that disjunctive properties are not real properties. He took a dim
view of disjunctive facts in
*The Philosophy of Logical Atomism*, and if disjunctive
*facts* should be rejected, then disjunctive properties would
appear to be equally suspect (*Papers* 8: 185-6/*The
Philosophy of Logical Atomism*: 71-72). Even so, we cannot
be sure that in *every* case the things that we approve of
don't have something in common other than a) the fact that we approve
of them and b) that they satisfy a disjunctive predicate. Nor is this
the only problem. Though Russell defines "good" in terms
of the things that "*we*" approve (and disapprove)
of, what he seems to mean is that *each person* defines
"good" in terms of the things that *he or she*
approves (or disapproves) of. Thus if you and I approve of different
things, when *I* say "*M* is good" and you say
"*M* is not good" what I mean is that *M* has
the property shared by *X*, *Y*, *Z* ...
[the things that *I* approve of] whereas what *you* mean
is that is that it does *not* have the property shared by
*A*, *B*, *C* ... [the things that
*you* approve of]. But in that case the Problem of the
Disappearing Dispute rears its ugly head. On Russell's theory my
"*M* is good" and your "*M* is not
good" may be quite consistent. But since they are obviously
*not* consistent, there must be something wrong with Russell's
theory. We can put the point by paraphrasing Russell's own criticisms
of simple subjectivism:



> 
> 
> If in asserting that *A* is good, [a person] *X* meant
> merely to assert that *A* had a certain relation to himself such
> as pleasing his taste in some way [or that *A* had a
> characteristic shared by the things of which he approved] and
> *Y*, in saying that *A* is not good, meant merely to deny
> that *A* had a like relation to himself [or to deny that *A*
> had the characteristic shared by the things of which he, *Y*,
> approved]; then there would be no subject of debate between them.
> (*Philosophical Essays*: 20-21/*Papers* 6:
> 222)
> 
> 
> 



Nor is this all. As we saw in
 SS8.1,
 our moral sentiments are partly constituted by our moral beliefs.
What distinguishes approval from a warm feeling of liking is not some
difference in phenomenological flavor but the thought that the thing
we approve of is good or right. Our moral sentiments are feelings
*that*, where what follows the "that" is a moral
judgment. But if we can't have feelings of approval or disapproval
without the corresponding moral beliefs, we can't explain the
intellectual origins of the common conceptions of goodness and badness
in terms of pre-existing sentiments of approval or disapproval. For
prior to these conceptions there were no such sentiments. This is not
the criticism that sank the emotivist theories of Ayer and Stevenson.
The problem is not that Russell's *analysis* of
"good" is viciously circular because it presupposes the
very concept that it purports to *explicate*. The problem is
that his *genealogy* of "good" is viciously
circular (and therefore false) since it presupposes the concept it
purports to *explain*. For in his capacity as an error-theorist
Russell does not *define* "good" and
"bad" in terms of approval and disapproval. Rather he
gives a *genealogy* of these notions in which the feelings of
approval and disapproval play a crucial part. As he himself puts it:
"the emotions of approval and disapproval do not enter into the
meaning of the proposition '*M* is good', but only
into its genesis". But our concepts of "good" and
"bad" cannot be caused by prior feelings of approval and
disapproval if those feelings are partly constituted by the very
beliefs they are supposed to cause. My belief that *M* is good
cannot be caused by tendency to approve of *M*, if I cannot
approve of *M* without believing that *M* is good.



However, the real difficulty with Russell's error theory and the one
which probably weighed with Russell himself, seems to be this. Given
Russell's theory of meaning, he can make sense of non-existent
properties but not non-natural predicates. At least, he cannot make
sense of predicates that are not definable in terms of things with
which we are acquainted. Thus on the assumption that we are not
acquainted with goodness (which we obviously cannot be if there is
really no such thing), and on the assumption that "good"
cannot defined in terms of the things with which we *are*
acquainted (which seems pretty plausible if is not equivalent to any
naturalistic predicate) then we cannot even *understand* the
predicate "good". At least, we cannot understand it, if it
is construed as a descriptive predicate whose function it is to denote
a property (whether real or non-existent).



After 1922, Russell abandoned the error theory and reverted to the
emotivism that he had been flirting with since 1913. His reasons
remain obscure. But perhaps it had something to do with the fact that
his Fundamental Principle, when combined with the OQA, made it
difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of "good" as
standing for a property that is *both* non-existent
*and* non-natural. Since he retained his faith in the
Fundamental Principle he had to give up the error theory. And since he
had already rejected the objectivity of ethics--what we would
nowadays describe as moral realism--this left him no alternative
but some form of non-cognitivsm. In my opinion this was the wrong
choice. He would have done better to give up the Fundamental Principle
and stick with the error theory. But perhaps the thesis that moral
judgments are mostly false was a bit too much for a dedicated moralist
such as he. As he wrote to his brother, he would rather "be mad
with truth than sane with lies" and the idea that morality was
largely composed of lies--or a best useful fictions--would
have been too much to bear (see Pigden (ed.) 1999: 20, 121-122,
& 189-193).


## 11. Russell's Humean Wobble: Human Society in Ethics and Politics



Russell's *Human Society* is a fun book to read, but
meta-ethically it is a bit of a mess. There is much wit and some
wisdom, though both the wit and the wisdom are more conspicuous when
he is discussing human nature and human society than when he is
discussing the finer points of ethical theory. (I particularly like
his frequent complaints that human behavior seldom rises to the level
of enlightened self-interest. If only we could manage to be
intelligently selfish, the world would be a much better place.) The
drift of the argument is sometimes difficult to discern, partly
because of has frequent digressions to make *bon mots*, and
partly because of his dialectical method of presentation, which
approaches what he takes to be the truth via a series of successive
approximations. *Human Society in Ethics and Politics* was
published in 1954, but the meta-ethical bits were originally written
some years earlier and intended for inclusion in *Human Knowledge:
Its Scope and Limits* (1948). Russell held them back because he
was not sure whether ethical propositions rose to the dignity of
knowledge. He continued to be doubtful about this, but by the early
1950s his doubts had sufficiently dissipated for publication to become
a possibility. Nevertheless, there are marked analogies between the
two books. *Human Knowledge* attempts to establish the
existence of a mind-independent world on the basis of private
perceptions. *Human Society* attempts to establish an ethic
that is in some degree independent of *individual* minds on the
basis of subjective sentiments.



Hume looms large in Russell's *Human Knowledge*. Indeed the
whole book can be seen as an attempt to concede the premises of Hume's
skeptical argument--that the data we start with are private and
personal and that we cannot infer an external world from such data by
means of demonstrative inference--whilst resisting its
conclusion--that we can have no knowledge of an external world.
(Hence the need for non-demonstrative inference.) But although Hume
was Russell's chief opponent in *Human Knowledge*, he was
perhaps a meta-ethical ally in *Human Society*. In the
*Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Moral*, Hume sought to
base an inter-subjective ethic on human sentiments, specifically the
sentiments of approbation and disapprobation. Hume was much more at
ease in the world than Russell, and was only interested in moral
reform in so far as morals rested on the "delusive glosses of
superstition and false religion" (which in his opinion included
*all* religion) or the ideological delusions of factious
politicians and mercantile economists. But he did want a meta-ethic
that would enable him to transfer the monkish virtues (whose status
*as* virtues depended on the "delusive glosses")
from the catalogue of virtues to the catalogue of vices. Thus he
wanted to be able to show that those who approved of "celibacy,
fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence,
solitude" were making some kind of *mistake*. How did he
propose to do this? By combining a definition with an empirical
research program.



> 
> 
> The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality
> is determined by sentiment. It *defines* [my italics] virtue to
> be *whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the
> pleasing sentiment of approbation*; and vice the contrary. We then
> proceed to examine a plain matter of fact, to wit, what actions have
> this influence. (Hume 1975 [1748]: 289)
> 
> 
> 



The matter of fact is less plain than Hume suggests, since the
"spectator" is an *idealized* observer, whose moral
sense operates at optimum in part because (unlike the rest of us) he
is relevantly informed. This means that we cannot simply predict the
reactions of the spectator by observing the reactions of mankind,
since mankind is sometimes mistaken about the relevant facts. In
particular, since many people are subject to the delusive glosses of
superstition and false religion, their reactions are liable to be
distorted by false beliefs, leading them to approve of what is really
vicious (such as celibacy, fasting etc) and to disapprove of what is
really right (such as playing whist on Sundays with "modest
women"). Since a virtue is *whatever mental action or quality
gives to a* [suitably qualified] *spectator the pleasing
sentiment of approbation*, and since nobody would approve of
fasting, celibacy etc if they did not think they would be
*useful* in procuring an *agreeable* afterlife, no
suitably qualified person would approve of them, since being suitably
qualified involves *not* being subject to the delusive glosses
of superstition and false religion. However Hume's meta-ethic rests
partly on a *definition* (which Hume obviously conceives of as
reporting a truth of language) and partly on the thesis that people
share the same moral sensibility which can therefore be
"idealized" to serve as the criterion for virtue. In other
words Hume's theory rests on the presupposition that, given the same
information, we would approve or disapprove of much the same
things.



What about Russell? His theory, like Hume's rests on a set of
"fundamental propositions and definitions":


1. Surveying the acts which arouse emotions of approval or
disapproval, we find that, as a general rule, the acts which are
approved of are those believed likely to have, on the balance, effects
of certain kinds, while opposite effects are expected from acts that
are disapproved of.
2. Effects that lead to approval are defined as "good",
and those leading to disapproval as "bad".
3. An act of which, on the available evidence, the effects are likely
to be better than those of any other act that is possible in the
circumstances, is defined as "right"; any other act is
"wrong". What we "ought" to do is, by
definition, the act which is right.



> 
> 
> These definitions and propositions, if accepted provide a coherent
> body of propositions which are true (or false) in the same sense as if
> they were propositions of science. (*RoE*:
> 161-162/*Human Society in Ethics and Politics*: 116)
> 
> 
> 



Now (1) is a variant of Sidgwick's thesis that common-sense moralities
tend to solidify around rules which are believed to have generally
beneficial consequences, where the benefit is cashed out in terms of
human welfare. It is a dubious thesis, especially as Russell himself
had argued that many traditional moralities foster the interests of
the elite at the expense of other groups--foreigners, women,
slaves and serfs. Perhaps Russell wants to exclude such moralities, by
restricting his claim to civilized communities, where
"civilized" rules out societies with blatantly elitist
moral codes. Thesis (2) purports to define "good effects",
but it does not state *whose* approval is to determine
goodness--people in general, people at their impartial best, or
just the enlightened and well-informed? Without some clarity on this
point, too many things will wind up as good, since for any likely
effect there will be some weirdo somewhere who approves of it.
Conversely, if being *dis*approved of means that an effect is
*not* good, the class of good effects may vanish altogether,
since for any likely effect there will be some weirdo somewhere who
*dis*approves of it. Paradoxically given his long career as a
moral radical, Russell's meta-ethic seems to have less critical bite
than Hume's, at least as regards ends. Hume's theory allows him to
transfer a reputed virtue to the catalogue of vices if people approve
of it on the basis of false beliefs. Russell seems to be stuck with
whatever effects people happen to approve of even if their tendency to
approve is based on false beliefs and malodorous passions. But the
real problem lies with (3). It defines "right" and
"ought" in consequentialist terms and as we have seen (and
as Russell himself had argued many years before) such a definition is
clearly false, at least if it is construed as a report of current
usage. It is not a tautology to say that the right thing to do is the
action that seems likely to produce the best consequences, which it
would be if Russell's definition were correct.



The theory could be improved by retaining (1) and (2) with the class
of approvers more carefully specified, but replacing (3) with
something like:



3a.
The right thing to do is defined as the action which an impartial,
informed and non-superstitious spectator would approve of doing.


On the assumption that the impartial spectator would retain the
broadly consequentialist tendencies of our rude ancestors, (1) and
(3a) together would allow us to derive:



3b.
The right thing to do is that action which seems likely to produce
the best effects.


And this would be a moderately plausible synthetic claim rather than a
patently false definition. Moreover, it would provide the basis for
the right kind of utilitarian ethic--at least, it would do so if
the ethical jury in (2) is specified in such a way as to ensure that
they approve of the right effects.



But so far from being "true in the same sense as if they were
propositions of science", the definitions (2) and (3a) are
simply false, at least if they are construed as accounts of what the
words in question actually mean. Russell seems to have been aware of
this, as the tell-tale phrase "if they are accepted"
indicates. Perhaps these definitions should be understood not as
attempts to codify current usage but as proposals for linguistic
reform (which, was a common dodge on the part of mid-century
philosophers when their purported analyses proved false). But in that
case they can be rejected without making any kind of mistake, along
with Russell's entire ethic. And what can be rejected without
intellectual error can hardly qualify as knowledge.



Russell himself may have agreed. He was not at all sure that there
*was* such a thing as ethical knowledge and soon reverted to
his earlier emotivism. Within one month of the publication of
*Human Society* he was expressing "complete
agreement" with the emotivism of A.J. Ayer (*RoE*:
165/*Papers* 11: 175). The reason, I suspect, is that he came
to see that his definitions of 'right' and
'good' were intellectually optional. Some years later a Mr
Harold Osborn sent him a book which attempted to provide an objective
basis for a humanistic ethic. Russell's letter of thanks points out a
problem: "any system of ethics which claims objectivity can only
do so by means of a concealed ethical premise, which, if disputed,
cannot be demonstrated" (*Dear Bertrand Russell*: 98).
That is precisely what is wrong with *Human Society in Ethics and
Politics*.


## 12. Conclusion



We started out with Russell's adverse verdict on his own meta-ethics:
"I am not, myself, satisfied with what I have read or said on
the philosophical basis of ethics" (*RoE*:
165/*Papers* 11: 310-11). And we can see in a sense that
he was right. Every meta-ethic that he developed seems to be subject
to insuperable, objections. But although Russell's writings on ethics
are unsatisfactory, this does not mean that they are worthless.
Meta-ethics is a difficult subject and it is hard to get it right. And
if we ever *are* to get it right, we must learn from those,
like Russell, who got it interestingly and instructively wrong. In the
course of his long philosophical career, Russell canvassed most of the
meta-ethical options that have dominated debate in the Twentieth and
Twenty-First Centuries--naturalism, non-naturalism, emotivism and
the error-theory, and even, to some extent, subjectivism and
relativism. And though none of his theories quite worked out, there is
much to be learned from his mistakes. Nor is this all. His
*arguments* as well as his *theories* are often
interesting and instructive. As we have seen, the ethical corollary to
the argument of "Seems Madam? Nay, It Is," puts the kybosh
on any attempt to resolve Sidgwick's Dualism of Practical Reason by
arguing that although we are distinct beings with different interests
in the world of Appearance, we are, in Reality, all one
 (SS3).
 Russell's arguments against objectivism are often quite powerful, and
one anticipates Gilbert Harman's, influential argument that objective
values can be safely dismissed since they lack explanatory power
 (SS9.3-9.4).
 Russell's damning critique of Moore's analytic consequentialism led
Moore to abandon the view and perhaps to give up his "unduly
anti-reforming" moral conservatism. Moreover Russell's
*indirect* influence on meta-ethics may have been profound
since the Open Question Argument, was probably invented to deal with
Russell's ideas. Finally, in the realm of normative ethics, Russell
developed a sensible and humane version of consequentialism, which
(despite its shaky meta-ethical foundations) is resistant, if not
immune, to many of the standard criticisms, especially if
combined--as Russell thought it should be combined--with a
healthy dose of political skepticism. It provides a powerful tool for
social and political criticism, a tool which Russell vigorously
employed on a vast range of topics in his writings on practical
ethics.



Indeed, I should emphasize that, lengthy as this entry is, I have said
virtually nothing about the vast bulk of Russell's writings on moral
and political topics. If we are to judge by his literary output,
Russell was much more interested in social and political questions and
the rights and wrongs of war and peace than in abstract questions of
ethical theory. But, when it comes to Russell's popular writings,
there is no need for an intermediary. His books are easy to get hold
of, easy to read, often very funny, and, despite the now dated
allusions, easy to understand. Read them yourself and make up your own
mind.