In general we can be assured that we know what things are good in themselves, he submits, if what we think is in harmony with what 'other people think': "For what we think has...been determined by the course of evolution" But what we think, even if it is harmonious with the thoughts of others, does not by itself support the view that we think rationally or truly, or even that we probably do so; and appeals to "the course of evolution" in this quarter only thicken a philosophical plot already gone wrong. Unless we have independent reason to believe that what "the course of evolution" leads us to believe is, or is likely to be, correct or rational, the appeal to "evolution" is logically illicit. To suppose that some things are good because evolution leads most of us to believe that they are grievously flaunts Moore's stern requriements that we avoid naturalism in ethics.
From a biography of G. E. Moore
