Abstract

Since G. E. Moore introduced his concept of organic unity there has been some discussion of how one should best understand this notion and whether there actually are any organic unities in the Moorean sense. Such discussions do however often put general questions about part-whole relations to the side and tend to focus on interpreting our intuitive responses to possible cases of organic unity. In this paper the focus lies on the part-whole relation in valuable wholes and it is suggested that we should distinguish between two kinds of wholes, collections and complex unities, where the latter can involve values that do not pass on their value to the greater whole in which they are included. Given this distinction we are then able to distinguish between two kinds of organic unity phenomena, the first involving a form of goodness that emerges on the level of the whole, the second involving a form of goodness that is embedded on the level of parts. In order to properly understand the latter form of goodness, there is also a need to distinguish final value from inherent value.