PSEB SS Philosophy study materials
PSEB SS Philosophy study resources

PSEB SS Philosophy practice questions

One question at a time. Build your PSEB SS Philosophy understanding.

First 50 of 200 questions. Each one lists the choices, the correct answer, and an explanation. The checker at the top of this page saves progress in this browser when it is available.

Continue in the practice tool above to load more questions, 50 at a time.

Question 1Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In the PSEB Senior Secondary Philosophy course, which branch of philosophy deals specifically with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge?

  1. Axiology
  2. Logic
  3. Epistemology Correct answer.
  4. Aesthetics

Explanation

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge, its sources such as perception and reason, and the criteria of justification. It is distinguished from value theory and from the study of correct inference.

Question 2Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Socrates' claim that 'the unexamined life is not worth living' is best understood as expressing which philosophical position?

  1. That obedience to tradition guarantees a good life
  2. That pleasure is the sole measure of a life well lived
  3. That material comfort is the highest human goal
  4. That critical self-reflection is essential to a genuinely human life Correct answer.

Explanation

Socrates holds that a life led without rational self-examination lacks the distinctive excellence of human existence. The statement is a moral and intellectual demand for reflective inquiry, not a rejection of life itself.

Question 3Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

According to Plato's theory of Forms, what status do particular sensible objects such as this particular table possess?

  1. They are the only realities that exist
  2. They are creations of the human mind with no independent basis
  3. They are dependent copies that participate imperfectly in a Form Correct answer.
  4. They are perfect and unchanging

Explanation

For Plato, sensible particulars are changeable and imperfect, and they derive whatever reality they have from participating in an eternal Form. The Form of the Table, not any physical table, is fully real.

Question 4Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Aristotle criticises Plato's separation of Forms from sensible things mainly because he holds that:

  1. Particulars are illusions with no real existence
  2. Knowledge is impossible without a separate world of Forms
  3. The essence of a thing is immanent in the thing itself Correct answer.
  4. Forms exist only in a separate intelligible realm

Explanation

Aristotle argues that separating essences from the things whose essences they are explains nothing about those things. For him form is present within the composite individual, which he analyses through matter and form.

Question 5Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Descartes reaches the certainty 'I think, therefore I am' by employing which procedure?

  1. Testing claims by their practical consequences
  2. Consulting the testimony of the senses as final
  3. Doubting everything that can possibly be doubted Correct answer.
  4. Accepting whatever is clearly taught by tradition

Explanation

Descartes applies methodical doubt to beliefs that could conceivably be false, including sensory reports and even mathematics under the evil-demon hypothesis. The one indubitable residue is the existence of the doubting thinker.

Question 6Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A philosopher argues that all our ideas originate in sensory experience and that the mind at birth is like a blank sheet. This position is known as:

  1. Empiricism Correct answer.
  2. Scepticism
  3. Idealism
  4. Rationalism

Explanation

Empiricism holds that experience is the source and test of knowledge, and the blank-slate image is its classic metaphor. Rationalists, by contrast, assign independent cognitive power to reason.

Question 7Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Hume's analysis of causation concludes that our belief that one event necessarily causes another rests on:

  1. Custom or habit arising from observed constant conjunction Correct answer.
  2. A demonstrable logical contradiction in denying it
  3. A direct perception of causal power in objects
  4. A rational intuition of necessary connection

Explanation

Hume argues that we never perceive necessary connection, only regular succession, and that expectation of the effect is produced by custom. The idea of causal necessity therefore lacks a rational foundation in his account.

Question 8Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Kant's 'Copernican revolution' in philosophy consists in the claim that:

  1. Space and time are objective features of reality independent of mind
  2. The thing-in-itself can be known through pure reason
  3. Objects must conform to the structure of our cognition rather than cognition to objects Correct answer.
  4. All knowledge is derived from the senses alone

Explanation

Kant reverses the traditional order of explanation: instead of the mind conforming to objects, objects of experience must conform to the a priori forms of sensibility and the categories of the understanding. This is what makes synthetic a priori knowledge of nature possible.

Question 9Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A statement is described as 'synthetic a priori' when it is:

  1. Meaningless because it cannot be verified
  2. Informative about reality yet known independently of experience Correct answer.
  3. True by definition and known through experience
  4. Derived from empirical observation and therefore revisable

Explanation

Synthetic statements add to our concepts, and a priori statements are justified without appeal to experience. Kant claims mathematics and the principles of natural science are both informative and independent of experience in this way.

Question 10Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Utilitarianism, as developed by Bentham and Mill, evaluates the rightness of an action by reference to:

  1. The agent's duty to obey absolute moral rules
  2. The virtue of the agent's character
  3. The intention of the agent regardless of results
  4. The overall balance of pleasure and pain produced Correct answer.

Explanation

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that judges actions by their tendency to maximise overall welfare, understood as pleasure or happiness. Motives and rules matter only insofar as they affect outcomes.

Question 11Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Kant's categorical imperative requires that we act only on maxims that:

  1. Could be willed as universal laws Correct answer.
  2. Serve the long-term interests of the agent
  3. Produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number
  4. Are approved by the majority of society

Explanation

The first formulation of the categorical imperative tests a maxim by asking whether willing it as a universal law is self-consistent. Morality thus rests on rational consistency rather than on consequences.

Question 12Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A student decides to return a found wallet because doing so is what a person of honesty and integrity would do. Which ethical framework best matches this reasoning?

  1. Kantian deontology
  2. Ethical egoism
  3. Virtue ethics Correct answer.
  4. Act utilitarianism

Explanation

Virtue ethics asks what a virtuous person would characteristically do and treats honesty as a stable trait of character. The reasoning appeals to character rather than to consequences or to a formal rule.

Question 13Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In Aristotle's ethics, eudaimonia is achieved through:

  1. A single act of moral heroism
  2. Withdrawal from all social relationships
  3. The accumulation of external goods alone
  4. Activity of the soul in accordance with virtue over a complete life Correct answer.

Explanation

Eudaimonia is flourishing, realised in excellent rational activity sustained across a whole life and supported by adequate external goods. It is an activity rather than a momentary state or a mere feeling.

Question 14Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

The logical problem of evil as presented by Mackie challenges the traditional theistic claim by arguing that:

  1. The existence of evil is logically incompatible with an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good God Correct answer.
  2. God's goodness cannot be understood by human reason
  3. Evil is an illusion produced by limited perspective
  4. Suffering is always deserved punishment for sin

Explanation

Mackie argues that the set of claims about God's power, knowledge, and goodness is inconsistent with the reality of evil unless a further limiting condition is added. The debate then turns on whether such a condition is coherent.

Question 15Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence proceeds from:

  1. The evidence of design in the natural world
  2. The moral law written in the human heart
  3. The idea of a being than which nothing greater can be conceived Correct answer.
  4. Religious experience reported by mystics

Explanation

Anselm begins with the concept of the greatest conceivable being and argues that such a being must exist in reality, since existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. The argument moves from concept to existence without empirical premises.

Question 16Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A cosmological argument of the kind Aquinas develops concludes that the observable series of moved things requires:

  1. An infinite regress that explains itself
  2. A contingent cause among other contingent causes
  3. A merely possible being with no necessity
  4. An unmoved first mover Correct answer.

Explanation

Aquinas argues that a series of things moved by others cannot be traced infinitely in the order of simultaneous dependence, so an unmoved mover is required. The conclusion identifies a first cause that is not itself moved.

Question 17Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

The principle of verification advanced by logical positivists holds that a statement is cognitively meaningful only if it is:

  1. Either analytic or empirically verifiable Correct answer.
  2. Capable of evoking an emotional response
  3. Logically consistent with religious doctrine
  4. Accepted by the majority of scientists

Explanation

Logical positivism divides meaningful discourse into tautologies of logic and mathematics and empirical claims testable by observation. Metaphysical and theological statements were held to fail this test and to express only attitude.

Question 18Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the view that:

  1. Only physical entities exist
  2. Mental terms are meaningless
  3. Mental states are identical with brain states
  4. Mind and body are distinct kinds of substance or property Correct answer.

Explanation

Dualism asserts a real distinction between mental and physical phenomena, whether as separate substances or as distinct properties. Its rivals identify the mental with the physical or eliminate mental talk altogether.

Question 19Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A critic objects that a philosophical theory of personal identity which counts psychological continuity as sufficient would have to accept that a perfect duplicate created by a teleporter is the same person. This objection is best described as:

  1. A circular definition
  2. A counterexample testing the sufficiency of the criterion Correct answer.
  3. A genetic fallacy
  4. An appeal to authority

Explanation

The objection constructs a case in which the proposed condition is satisfied while our ordinary judgement about identity diverges. Such counterexamples probe whether the criterion is sufficient, not merely necessary.

Question 20Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Sartre's claim that human beings are 'condemned to be free' implies that:

  1. We cannot escape responsibility for our choices, including our failures to choose Correct answer.
  2. Freedom is a gift that guarantees happiness
  3. Our choices are determined by human nature
  4. Freedom is an illusion produced by social conditioning

Explanation

For Sartre existence precedes essence, so no fixed nature determines our choices, and we remain answerable for what we make of ourselves. Even refusing to choose counts as a choice for which we are responsible.

Question 21Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In the Bhagavad Gita's account of nishkama karma, the moral agent is advised to:

  1. Perform actions solely for social recognition
  2. Act according to duty without attachment to the fruits of action Correct answer.
  3. Renounce all action and withdraw from society
  4. Pursue pleasure as the proper aim of human life

Explanation

Nishkama karma is disinterested action: one performs one's duty with equanimity and without clinging to success or failure. This integrates action with spiritual discipline rather than requiring passive withdrawal.

Question 22Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

The Buddhist doctrine of anatta (non-self) denies that:

  1. Actions have consequences
  2. Suffering exists in human experience
  3. There is a permanent, unchanging self or soul underlying experience Correct answer.
  4. The mind can be trained through meditation

Explanation

Anatta holds that what we call a person is a stream of conditioned and impermanent mental and physical elements, with no enduring essence behind them. This complements the teachings on impermanence and suffering.

Question 23Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Nyaya philosophy in the Indian tradition is chiefly concerned with:

  1. Valid means of knowledge and the structure of logical inference Correct answer.
  2. Ritual purification through sacrifice
  3. The exclusive authority of scriptural testimony
  4. The denial of all means of knowledge

Explanation

Nyaya develops a systematic account of pramanas, the valid sources of knowledge, and of inference with its five-membered syllogism. It provides the logical framework used across several Indian schools.

Question 24Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A syllogism with the form 'All M are P; all S are M; therefore all S are P' is valid because:

  1. It is accepted by a majority of logicians
  2. Its conclusion is more general than its premises
  3. The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises by its form Correct answer.
  4. Its premises are in fact true

Explanation

Validity concerns the form of the argument: if the premises were true, the conclusion could not be false. Truth of the premises is a separate matter of soundness, not of validity.

Question 25Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A student argues: 'Everyone in the class believes the theory is sound, so it must be true.' The student's reasoning is defective because it:

  1. Uses a valid deductive form with a false premise
  2. Relies on a definition that is circular
  3. Treats popularity of a belief as evidence of its truth Correct answer.
  4. Commits the fallacy of equivocation

Explanation

The argument appeals to widespread acceptance as though it established truth, which is the ad populum fallacy. Widespread belief can be explained by social factors and does not by itself track the facts.

Question 26Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In Plato's allegory of the cave, the shadows on the wall most directly represent which level of his divided line?

  1. Mathematical reasoning about abstract objects
  2. Images and illusions, the lowest grade of cognition Correct answer.
  3. Belief about ordinary physical things
  4. Dialectical knowledge of the Forms

Explanation

Plato's divided line ranks cognition from eikasia (imagination of images) through pistis (belief about sensible things), dianoia (mathematical reasoning) and noesis (dialectical grasp of Forms). The shadows are copies of copies, so they belong to the lowest segment, eikasia.

Question 27Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Descartes' method of doubt leads him to the cogito because he holds that even if an evil demon deceives him about everything, he cannot be deceived about:

  1. The fact that he is thinking Correct answer.
  2. The reliability of clear and distinct ideas
  3. The existence of a benevolent God
  4. The existence of a material world

Explanation

Descartes argues that doubt is itself a form of thinking, and whatever thinks must exist. Even a maximally deceptive demon cannot make him mistaken about the occurrence of his own thinking, so the cogito survives hyperbolic doubt.

Question 28Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A student claims that a moral judgement is true only relative to the standards of a particular culture, and that no culture's standards are objectively better than another's. This position is best classified as:

  1. Moral realism
  2. Emotivism
  3. Cultural relativism Correct answer.
  4. Ethical egoism

Explanation

Cultural relativism holds that moral truth is determined by the norms of a given society and that cross-cultural moral ranking is illegitimate. The student's claim matches both of these elements exactly.

Question 29Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

According to Locke, what makes a later person the same person as an earlier one is:

  1. The persistence of the same immaterial soul
  2. The continuity of consciousness and memory Correct answer.
  3. The continuity of the same living body
  4. The retention of the same substantial form

Explanation

Locke locates personal identity in sameness of consciousness: a person is the same person insofar as present consciousness can be extended back to past actions by memory. He explicitly separates this from sameness of soul or body.

Question 30Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A person who is colour-blind from birth can use the word 'red' correctly in every ordinary situation but has never had a red experience. What does this case most directly challenge?

  1. The claim that knowing a meaning is having the relevant verifying experience Correct answer.
  2. The claim that mental states can be reported to others
  3. The claim that words have public criteria of correct use
  4. The claim that colour terms are learnable at all

Explanation

The case is the inverted-spectrum/knowledge-argument style challenge to verificationist and experiential accounts of meaning. If the person knows the meaning without the experience, meaning cannot consist in possessing that experience.

Question 31Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In Descartes' substance dualism, the mind and the body are said to interact. Which objection is most commonly raised against this interaction?

  1. It denies that animals have feelings
  2. It makes the mind identical with the brain
  3. It cannot explain how an unextended substance can causally affect an extended one Correct answer.
  4. It leaves no room for an immaterial substance

Explanation

The standard interaction problem asks how an immaterial, unextended mind can produce changes in an extended body, since causal influence is normally understood in physical terms. Descartes' own speculation about the pineal gland did not resolve this conceptual difficulty.

Question 32Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A compatibilist about free will typically holds that an action is free when it:

  1. Occurs without any causal history at all
  2. Is uncaused by any prior event
  3. Is chosen by a faculty that could have acted otherwise in identical conditions
  4. Flows from the agent's own desires without external constraint Correct answer.

Explanation

Compatibilists such as Hume and Frankfurt identify freedom with voluntary action arising from the agent's own wants, even if those wants are causally determined. Freedom is contrasted with coercion, not with causation as such.

Question 33Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In Rawls' theory of justice, the 'veil of ignorance' is used to ensure that principles of justice are:

  1. Chosen by those who know their social position
  2. Imposed by the state to preserve existing inequalities
  3. Fair because chosen without knowledge of one's place in society Correct answer.
  4. Derived from the greatest happiness of the greatest number

Explanation

The veil of ignorance removes knowledge of one's talents, class and conception of the good, so the parties to the original position choose impartially. Rawls argues this procedure yields his two principles of justice.

Question 34Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Aristotle distinguishes 'intellectual virtues' from 'virtues of character' by saying that intellectual virtues are:

  1. Concerned only with bodily pleasures
  2. Acquired mainly through teaching and experience Correct answer.
  3. Inborn and require no cultivation
  4. Identical with the virtues of the soul's appetitive part

Explanation

Aristotle holds that intellectual virtues such as wisdom and understanding grow mostly from instruction and time, whereas character virtues arise from habituation in action. Both are excellences, but their origins differ.

Question 35Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A nurse tells a patient a comforting lie, reasoning that the lie produces more overall relief than the distress of the truth would. A Kantian would assess this action by asking whether:

  1. The action follows the customs of the hospital
  2. The nurse's character reflects a settled disposition to care
  3. The total happiness produced outweighs the total pain
  4. The maxim of the action could be willed as a universal law Correct answer.

Explanation

Kantian ethics evaluates maxims by the categorical imperative, specifically the formula of universal law. The question is whether a maxim of lying for comfort could consistently be willed as universal, not what consequences follow.

Question 36Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

The logical positivists' principle of verification was later criticised for being self-undermining because:

  1. The principle itself cannot be verified empirically Correct answer.
  2. It required all statements to be true
  3. It applied only to mathematical statements
  4. It was never stated clearly by any philosopher

Explanation

If a statement is meaningful only when empirically verifiable, then the verification principle itself, being a general claim about meaning, is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable. It thus fails its own criterion.

Question 37Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In Hume's fork, a statement such as 'the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides' is classified as:

  1. A matter of fact, known by experience
  2. A synthetic a priori truth
  3. A meaningless utterance
  4. A relation of ideas, knowable by reasoning alone Correct answer.

Explanation

Hume divides all objects of knowledge into relations of ideas and matters of fact. Geometry belongs to the former, since its truths depend on relations among ideas and are known independently of observation.

Question 38Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Berkeley's immaterialism holds that the existence of sensible objects consists in:

  1. Their being composed of imperceptible atoms
  2. Their being perceived by some mind Correct answer.
  3. Their being modes of an unthinking substance
  4. Their being copies of eternal Forms

Explanation

Berkeley's 'esse est percipi' asserts that sensible things exist only as ideas in a perceiving mind. Unperceived objects are sustained by God's eternal perception, not by matter.

Question 39Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A student argues that because a bridge has stood for a hundred years it will certainly stand another hundred. For Hume, the weakness of this reasoning is that it:

  1. Ignores the testimony of engineers
  2. Assumes that bridges are relations of ideas
  3. Relies on the assumption that the future will resemble the past, which itself cannot be proved Correct answer.
  4. Contradicts the laws of geometry

Explanation

Hume's problem of induction shows that any inference from past to future presupposes the uniformity of nature. That uniformity principle cannot be demonstrated a priori nor established by experience without circularity.

Question 40Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Spinoza's claim that 'God or Nature' is the one substance implies that particular things, including human beings, are:

  1. Modes or modifications of the single substance Correct answer.
  2. Independent substances created out of nothing
  3. Finite substances external to God
  4. Illusions with no reality whatsoever

Explanation

For Spinoza there is only one substance, Deus sive Natura, and everything else is a mode of it. Finite things are modifications expressing God's attributes under the aspects of thought and extension.

Question 41Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

According to the Nyaya school, a valid inference (anumana) requires which set of elements?

  1. Pratijna, hetu, udaharana, upanaya, nigamana Correct answer.
  2. Dukkha, samudaya, nirodha, marga
  3. Shabda, pratyaksha, upamana, arthapatti
  4. Purusha, prakriti, buddhi, ahamkara

Explanation

Nyaya analyses inference into five members: the thesis, the reason, the example, the application and the conclusion. This five-membered scheme is one of the school's distinctive contributions to Indian logic.

Question 42Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Shankara's Advaita Vedanta holds that the relation between Atman and Brahman is:

  1. One of two co-eternal independent substances
  2. Identity, since Atman is ultimately none other than Brahman Correct answer.
  3. One of part to whole, with Atman a real fragment of Brahman
  4. Complete separation, with Atman as a created servant

Explanation

Advaita means non-dualism: Shankara argues that the individual self, rightly understood, is identical with Brahman, and that apparent difference is due to beginningless ignorance (avidya).

Question 43Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

The Jaina doctrine of anekantavada is best understood as the claim that:

  1. Reality is many-sided, so no single description exhausts it Correct answer.
  2. Reality has a single, simple nature grasped by one standpoint
  3. All assertions are simply false
  4. Only the Jina's assertions are meaningful

Explanation

Anekantavada, the doctrine of many-sidedness, holds that reality admits of multiple partial descriptions, which grounds the Jaina theory of syadvada or conditional predication. It is a form of perspectival realism, not scepticism.

Question 44Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

The Charvaka (Lokayata) school is distinctive in classical Indian philosophy chiefly because it:

  1. Develops a detailed theory of karmic rebirth
  2. Accepts scriptural testimony as the highest authority
  3. Accepts only perception as a valid means of knowledge and rejects an afterlife Correct answer.
  4. Denies the existence of the physical world

Explanation

Charvaka is the materialist school that recognises pratyaksha (perception) alone as a pramana and denies inference as a reliable route to metaphysical truths. It rejects karma, rebirth and the authority of the Vedas.

Question 45Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna's advice to Arjuna about action is best summarised as:

  1. Act only when the expected reward is certain
  2. Perform actions solely to gain heavenly reward
  3. Act according to one's duty without attachment to the fruits of action Correct answer.
  4. Renounce all action and retire from the world

Explanation

Nishkama karma means performing one's svadharma without clinging to the outcomes, since attachment to results binds the self. The Gita thus reconciles action with inner renunciation.

Question 46Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

A philosopher argues that a scientific theory should be accepted if it best explains the available evidence, even though it posits unobservable entities. This position is most naturally described as:

  1. Instrumentalism about theories
  2. Phenomenalism
  3. Scientific realism Correct answer.
  4. Logical behaviourism

Explanation

Scientific realism treats successful theories as approximately true descriptions of an observer-independent world, including its unobservable parts. The appeal to inference to the best explanation is a hallmark realist argument.

Question 47Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Popper's criterion of demarcation between science and pseudo-science rests on whether a theory is:

  1. Mathematically formulated
  2. Confirmed by many observations
  3. Falsifiable by possible observation Correct answer.
  4. Accepted by the scientific community

Explanation

Popper proposes falsifiability rather than verifiability as the mark of empirical science: a scientific theory must forbid certain observable outcomes. Pseudo-sciences survive because they can accommodate any result.

Question 48Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Kuhn's notion of a 'paradigm shift' implies that the transition from one scientific framework to another is:

  1. A purely cumulative addition of new facts
  2. Governed entirely by a single shared algorithm of rationality
  3. A revolution involving revised standards, problems and concepts Correct answer.
  4. Independent of the scientific community's practices

Explanation

For Kuhn, normal science proceeds within a paradigm, and revolutions replace one paradigm with another, altering what counts as a problem, a method and an explanation. This is why he describes change as revolutionary rather than merely cumulative.

Question 49Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Ayer's emotivism analyses the statement 'Stealing is wrong' as:

  1. An expression of the speaker's moral disapproval Correct answer.
  2. A factual report about social disapproval
  3. A prediction about future punishment
  4. A synthetic a priori moral truth

Explanation

Ayer treats ethical statements as expressive rather than descriptive: they evince the speaker's feelings and aim to evoke similar feelings in others. On this view moral utterances are neither true nor false in the factual sense.

Question 50Philosophy (Senior Secondary / Class XII)

Moore's 'naturalistic fallacy' is the charge that defining 'good' in terms of natural properties such as pleasure is mistaken because:

  1. Natural properties do not exist
  2. Good is a simple, indefinable property, so any such definition is open to the open-question argument Correct answer.
  3. Definitions are always arbitrary
  4. Pleasure is not measurable

Explanation

Moore argues that for any proposed natural definition, it remains an open question whether the defined property is good, which shows 'good' is not identical with that property. He concludes that good is simple and indefinable.