The open-question argument is a philosophical argument put forward by British philosopher G. E. Moore in §13 of Principia Ethica (1903), [1] to refute the equating of the property of goodness with some …

Jan 26, 2005 · Just as “it is pleasant, but is it good?” is an open question, so is, for example, “it maximizes pleasure, but is it right?”. The open-question argument is Moore’s most famous …

Nov 21, 2015 · Open questions of the form “is X Y?” are questions whose answers are not settled by the meaning of X. If a question is open, we can ask “I agree this is X, but is it Y?” without seeming to be …

The Open Question Argument is most closely associated with G. E. Moore and is introduced in his 1903 work Principia Ethica. Moore is generally credited with both naming and systematically deploying the …

The open question argument is the heart of G.E. Moore’s case against ethical naturalism. Ethical naturalism is the view that goodness, rightness, etc. are natural properties; roughly, the sorts of …

Moore defends his non-naturalism by arguing that good couldn’t be identical to any natural property, because any such identity claim seems to invite an “open question.”

Moore’s Open Question Argument (or “OQA”). According to a standard view, this argument set the stage for the next hundred years of philosophical reflection on the meanings of the terms of moral …

”) The “open-question argument,” as it came to be known, was in fact used by Sidgwick and to some extent by the 18th-century intuitionists, but Moore’s statement of it somehow caught the imagination …

The phrase 'open question' does not appear in any of these passages, but it does appear a page later at the end of Section 14. Insofar as Principia Ethica is concerned, if there is anything that deserves to …

Jun 15, 2025 · The Open Question Argument (OQA) is a pivotal concept in Argumentation Theory that has far-reaching implications for critical thinking, ethics, and philosophy. Developed by philosophers …