  Of course the concepts may be coextensive. For all the Open Question Argument shows, it may be the case, for instance, that a thing is good if and only if it conduces to welfare: utilitarianism of that kind might be a synthetic moral truth. But what the Open Question Argument is supposed to rule out is that “good” and “\(N\)” pick out, in virtue of semantic equivalence, not two distinct and coextensive properties, but rather one and the same property. As Moore emphasizes, we should distinguish the question, “What is goodness?” from the question “What things are good?” (1903, 5) The Open Question Argument is supposed to rule out certain answers to the first question, i.e., naturalistic answers such as “conduciveness to happiness.” But it is not meant to rule out our answering the second question by offering, e.g., “those things which conduce to happiness.”