b) The Resurgence of the Concept of Value

1) Confusion Between Good and Value

If we read the Principia Ethica carefully, however, we find that there is one concept Moore constantly substitutes for 'good' as its absolute equivalent: value.
This is evident, first of all, in the preface to the book: I have tried to shew exactly what it is that we ask about a thing, when we ask whether it ought to exist for its own sake, is good in itself or has intrinsic value ¹.

Moore here identifies two concepts: 'good in itself' and 'intrinsic value'. Notably, he does not trouble to justify this identification. This is significant: why does Moore—so careful to justify each of his claims, so scrupulous in examining the meaning of the words he uses, producing incessant and sometimes laborious distinctions—make this identification without a single word of explanation, either here or in the other passages we are about to examine?

The only plausible explanation seems to be the following, which breaks down into two parts.

First, the good/value identity is not a synthetic identity, since any synthetic identity requires justification. If I establish a link between two distinct concepts (such as 'dwarf' and 'rich'), I must explain the origin of that link—a link that appears unexpectedly at the very point of their separation. But if the identity is analytic, purely tautological, if I am simply replacing a word with a synonym, the operation can be performed immediately, without ceremony.

Second, if Moore can afford such a swift substitution, it must be because it strikes him as self-evident. Where does this self-evidence come from?

Two explanations are possible, and both may be accepted simultaneously.

It may be that this identity is accepted by common sense and carried by ordinary English usage. In other words, everyday English at the beginning of the twentieth century used 'good' and 'value' interchangeably. Moore allows himself to be carried along by this tradition, rooted as it is in common language.
Indeed, he openly declares his interest in this language of common usage, taking care to specify that he will use the word 'good' in its ordinary sense: My business is solely with that object or idea, which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word [Good] is generally used to stand for. What I want to discover is the nature of that object or idea ².

The identification may also be explained by the fact that moral philosophy, throughout its history, has proceeded in just this way, claiming to address values through the concept of 'good'. From its very emergence, the problem of values becomes the question of the 'sovereign good', the summum bonum, the ariston agathon.

1. Ibid., preface
2. Ibid., chap. 1, §6