GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE SCOPE OF ETHICS 15!
that, when there is a discussion about ethics, both parties
to the discussion should be concerned to find answers to
the same questions. If they are not the same questions,
the fact that they are different should be recognized.
Members of opposed schools of ethical theory will, in other
words, do well to make certain that they are actually, as
they believe themselves to be, giving different answers
to the same questions and are not in fact answering dif-
ferent questions. I emphasize the point because ethical
controversialists have frequently been concerned with
different questions without being aware of the fact. To
take an example, the controversy between utilitarians and
intuitionists appears to be a controversy as to the answers
which ought to be given to such questions as "what is die
meaning ofought?", and "what is the criterion ofmorality?" In fact, however, it is not difficult to show that on a number
of matters at issue between the two schools, the questions
which the utilitarians were seeking to answer were different
from those which concerned the intuitionists. Thus the
controversy was one which could not, in the nature of
things, be settled, since the two parties were making
assertions and passing judgments about different things,
were, as a logician would say, applying predicates to
different subjects, without being aware of the fact.
Clear thinking further demands that the words which
the thinker uses to express his thought should be used
always in the same sense, and further that he who seeks
to understand the thought should know what that sense
is. The requirement seems obvious enough, yet there is
none in ethics with which it is more difficult to comply.
For this difficulty there is a good reason. The reader
will have noticed that I have frequently in the foregoing
discussion made use of such words as "good", "right"
and "moral obligation". These words are obviously of
fundamental importance, and it is obvious, too, that they
must continually recur in any discussion ofethical questions.
Nevertheless; I have made no attempt to define them.
Is not this, it may be asked, a culpable oversight on the