March 24, 2004

Principia Ethica

Posted by Brian

Does anyone know if there’s a free electronic copy of Moore’s Principia Ethica online anywhere? It should be out of copyright, so there’d be no legal reason it wouldn’t be posted, but maybe no one thought it important enough to convert to electronic form. I wanted to cut and paste some long sections because I got interested in the role of necessity and a priority in Moore’s meta-ethical views, and it would be more convenient to (a) not have to transcribe things and (b) be able to refer readers immediately to the passages I’m talking about.

Posted on March 24, 2004 04:32 PM UTC
Comments

Project Gutenburg doesn’t seem to have it.

Posted by Barry · March 24, 2004 04:54 PM

You may try to find it at channel #bookz in irc.undernet.org

Posted by JR · March 24, 2004 05:01 PM

I looked on Past Masters, to no avail. Also, I did a quick google search and came upon a phil. teacher’s recent class website where he said there is almost no Moore on the web. You might be SOL here.

Posted by mark steen · March 24, 2004 05:35 PM

Online Books

is a source that includes Gutenberg and many other materials. For future reference, perhaps, because though I saw half a dozen books by G. Moore (different guy?) no Principia

Posted by bob mcmanus · March 24, 2004 07:33 PM

The latest version on Amazon.com (using Amazon’s look inside thebook feature) says copyright remains with Cambridge University Press.

One of the chapters is here http://www.ditext.com/online.html#m

otherwise I couldn’t find it.

Posted by Matthew · March 24, 2004 10:41 PM

there is an ebook edition (at a price) ; see http://www.ebook-download.net/ebooks/principia-ethica-world-digital-library-edition.php

Posted by David Mackinder · March 25, 2004 12:49 AM

It should be out of copyright, but don’t count on it if the MPAA gets to buy another extension of the copyright period from congress.

The CUP might hold a valid copyright on the typesetting, but even that expires after some time.

Posted by Phill · March 25, 2004 01:00 AM

How about this?

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=25050502

I haven’t checked all the conditions of use, but it seems to be available for all normal scholarly uses.

Posted by duncan · March 25, 2004 07:52 PM

Oops! You only get a limited free preview there. That could be enough to find one or two passages, but probably no more than that. And I don’t know where you would stand with regard to copyright.

Posted by duncan · March 25, 2004 07:59 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.