Abstract

Metaethics in the twentieth century has been heavily influenced by G.E. Moore's "Principia Ethica", mainly as a reaction to his version of moral realism. The idea of unanalysable moral properties has been repeatedly criticized and yet a number of authors in the recent literature have proposed new versions of a kind of moral realism inspired by Moore's perspective. These ideas are discussed here, pointing out that they all share a return to realism but that they still offer a rather «passive» account of practical reason. The present resurgence of neo-intuitionism seems interesting as a development of Moore's ideas but still unable to face the challenge of moral realism.