The paper suggests a re-reading of the origins of analytic ethics. A certain notion of moral language—which came to be established through the work of G.E. Moore and W.D. Ross—made it easy to undermine problems of normativity and motivation. But on the other hand recent debate on these problems shows a disappearance of the old notion of moral language. There is another line in analytic ethics explored, among others, by I. Murdoch, J. McDowell and C. Diamond which shows an interest both in the problems of the self (reasons and motivation) and in the language of morality.
