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 CHAPTER IV

THE OBJECTIVITY OF MORAL JUDGMENTS (concluded)

was stated, at the beginning of the last chapter, that the ethical theory we are considering—the theory stated in the first two chapters—does not maintain with regard to any class of voluntary actions, that, if an action of the class in question is once right, any other action of the same class must always be right. And this is true, in the sense in which the statement would, I think, be naturally understood. But it is now important to emphasise that, in a certain sense, the statement is untrue. Our theory does assert that, if any voluntary action is once right, then any other voluntary action which resembled it in one particular respect (or rather in a combination of two respects) must always also be right; and since, if we 133