MacIntyre, Moore and the Fact-Value Distinction

I outline Moore’s view of the good, including his self-evident Intuitions and how they link to action. I then show that MacIntyre’s critique of Moore has several weaknesses. By examining MacIntyre’s arguments in Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, we see that, in fact, both MacIntyre and Moore rely on unproven evaluative propositions to make their arguments. However, Moore’s view has the advantage of being very explicit about which propositions are self-evident and how to justify them, whereas MacIntyre’s argument obfuscates the need for self-evident evaluative propositions.