Moore's Open Question Argument

Moore’s Open Question Argument suggests that defining a good or right thing with a simple, non-natural property (like “pleasure” for happiness) isn’t enough to fully capture its meaning. Moore argued that, even if you say “good” means “pleasure,” you can still genuinely ask, “Is pleasure truly good?” This openness shows that moral properties aren’t reducible to natural properties; moral questions remain open and cannot be fully settled by definitions alone. Essentially, it highlights that moral facts are not straightforwardly reducible to natural, scientific facts, leaving morality an important and open question.