# Principia Ethica — Character guide

> Key figures in Principia Ethica by G. E. Moore.

- [G. E. Moore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/george_edward_moore.md): 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 defect
- [J. S. Mill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/john_stuart_mill.md): 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 meth
- [Herbert Spencer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/herbert_spencer.md): 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 
- [Henry Sidgwick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/henry_sidgwick.md): 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 S
- [Jeremy Bentham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/jeremy_bentham.md): 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 fall
- [Immanuel Kant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/immanuel_kant.md): 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
- [Socrates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/socrates.md): Classical philosopher invoked in dialogues about ethical inquiry and the good.
- [Jean-Marie Guyau](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/jean_marie_guyau.md): French philosopher whose hedonistic views are briefly examined.
- [T. H. Green](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/thomas_hill_green.md): Idealist philosopher whose metaphysical ethics are critiqued.
- [Franz Brentano](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/franz_brentano.md): Austrian philosopher whose concept of intentionality is referenced.
- [Protarchus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/protarchus.md): Dialogue partner in Plato's Philebus, cited in discussions of pleasure.
- [Callicratidas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/callicratidas.md): Spartan commander mentioned as an example of ethical motivation.
- [Charicles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/charicles.md): Figure from ancient literature used as an ethical example.
- [The Egoist](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/the_egoist.md): Hypothetical character representing egoistic ethical theory.
- [Hedonists](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters/hedonists.md): Generic proponents of hedonism, discussed as a philosophical group.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/principia_ethica_se/characters