Principia Ethica

G.E. (George Edward) Moore is regarded, along with Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as a founder of 20th century analytic philosophy. Moore was appointed a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1898 and taught there on and off until 1939. A leading figure in the Bloomsbury group and the editor of the highly influential journal, Mind, Moore was a philosophical realist who advanced a "common sense" approach to philosophy. Moore's Principia Ethica, first published in 1903, is now regarded as a groundbreaking work of 20th century ethics. In this text, Moore advances an intuitivist approach to ethics that flatly rejects all forms of moral dogmatism. The term "good," he argues, cannot be defined, but can only be understood through direct experience. Among Moore's other notable works are Philosophical Studies (1922) and Some Main Problems in Philosophy (1953).