Character guide

G. E. Moore

major

Also known as Unknown, me, myself, mine, ourselves, ours, Our, our

Moore is the book's author, narrator, and chief combatant — a Trinity College don who treats the entire history of moral philosophy as a crime scene of logical errors. He is disarmingly honest about his own work's defects, admitting in his preface that he could not stop correcting it without rewriting the whole book, yet he is ruthless toward the 'naturalistic fallacy' in others. His central obsession — that goodness is a simple, unanalyzable property, like yellow — drives the early chapters and sets the terms for every argument that follows.

J. S. Mill

supporting

Also known as Mill, himself

Mill is the first major opponent Moore examines, and the one he treats with the most respect, calling his book an admirably clear and fair discussion of ethical principles. The tension is sharp: Moore admires Mill's method and honesty while arguing that his hedonistic conclusions rest on a confusion between 'desirable' and 'desired.' Mill's presence in the early chapters establishes the pattern for the whole book — careful exposition, then surgical refutation — and makes him the benchmark against which Moore measures every subsequent error.

Herbert Spencer

supporting

Also known as Mr. Spencer, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Spencer, himself

Spencer represents the ambitious Victorian attempt to ground morality in evolutionary science, a project Moore finds both influential and fundamentally confused. Where Spencer sees progress from natural facts to ethical conclusions, Moore sees a category mistake — the assumption that 'good' can be defined by any natural property, whether pleasure, evolution, or desire. Spencer matters to the book's middle arc because his theory forces Moore to articulate, with maximum precision, why the naturalistic fallacy is not a minor slip but the central error of modern ethics.

Henry Sidgwick

supporting

Also known as Prof. Henry Sidgwick, Prof. Sidgwick, Sidgwick, Professor Sidgwick, himself

Sidgwick is Moore's most intimate intellectual interlocutor, cited in footnotes and argued with in the main text, and the one whose terminology Moore borrows even while rejecting the label 'Intuitionist.' Moore credits Sidgwick with recognizing that some ethical propositions are incapable of proof, but insists Sidgwick never grasped the full importance of distinguishing those from propositions about right action. This half-agreement, half-correction makes Sidgwick the book's most productive foil — a thinker close enough to Moore's position to sharpen it, and far enough to require the sharpening.

Jeremy Bentham

supporting

Also known as Bentham, himself

Bentham stands at the head of the hedonistic lineage Moore examines, the source of the idea that pleasure alone is good and pain alone evil. Moore does not engage Bentham as extensively as Mill, but Bentham's shadow falls across the entire hedonism chapter — his calculus is the crude original that later utilitarians refined but never, in Moore's view, escaped. Bentham matters to the early arc because he represents the purest form of the error Moore is hunting: the assumption that because pleasure is good, 'good' must mean pleasure.

Immanuel Kant

supporting

Also known as Kant, himself

Kant is the towering representative of metaphysical ethics, the tradition that tries to derive ethical truths from metaphysical ones — a move Moore considers as fallacious as deriving them from natural facts. Yet Moore's relationship to Kant is not simple dismissal: he explicitly models his project on Kant's 'Prolegomena,' writing a 'Prolegomena to any future Ethics that can possibly pretend to be scientific.' Kant matters to the middle chapters because his categorical imperative, with its implied heteronomy objection, forces Moore to clarify what he means by calling ethical propositions 'Intuitions' — and what he emphatically does not mean.

Socrates

minor

Also known as your

Classical philosopher invoked in dialogues about ethical inquiry and the good.

Jean-Marie Guyau

minor

Also known as Guyau, par M. Guyau

French philosopher whose hedonistic views are briefly examined.

T. H. Green

minor

Also known as Green

Idealist philosopher whose metaphysical ethics are critiqued.

Franz Brentano

minor

Also known as Brentano

Austrian philosopher whose concept of intentionality is referenced.

Protarchus

minor

Dialogue partner in Plato's Philebus, cited in discussions of pleasure.

Callicratidas

minor

Spartan commander mentioned as an example of ethical motivation.

Charicles

minor

Figure from ancient literature used as an ethical example.

The Egoist

minor

Also known as himself

Hypothetical character representing egoistic ethical theory.

Hedonists

minor

Also known as their

Generic proponents of hedonism, discussed as a philosophical group.

Aristotle

minor

Ancient philosopher whose ethical framework is referenced in discussions of the good.

Plato

minor

Ancient philosopher whose theory of Forms is discussed in relation to the ideal.

Charles Darwin

minor

Also known as Darwin

Naturalist whose evolutionary theory is mentioned in ethical contexts.

Jesus Christ

minor

Also known as Christ

Religious figure referenced in discussions of moral ideals.

Casuistry

minor

Also known as their, its, Its

Personified method of case-based ethical reasoning critiqued in the text.