Normativity in Contemporary (and the History of) Ethics

Abstract Henry Sidgwick and G. E. Moore’s claims about the irreducibility of ethical concepts to non-ethical ideas began analytical metaethics and the search for fundamental ethical concepts. Moore famously held that the basic ethical notion was that of intrinsic goodness. Subsequent research has revealed, however, that William Frankena was right when he pointed out that what drove Moore’s ‘open question argument’ was the idea of normativity and that this vindicated Sidgwick’s claim that ought rather than good is the fundamental ethical notion. This essay discusses the history of this and related debates between reasons, ought, and fittingness fundamentalists and how these figure in accounting for the difference between deontic moral concepts of right and wrong, on the one hand, and various ethical notions of goodness, on the other.