Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/135

 may then be stated as follows. Our theory implies, namely, that any action Y which resembled X in both the two respects (1) that its total effects were precisely similar to A and (2) that the total effects of all the possible alternatives were precisely similar to B, C, D and E, would necessarily also be right, if X was right, and would necessarily also be wrong, if X was wrong. It is important to emphasise the point that this will only be true of actions which resemble X in both these two respects at once. We cannot say that any action Y, whose total effects are precisely similar to those of X, will also be right if X is right. It is absolutely essential that the other condition should also be satisfied; namely, that the total effects of all the possible alternatives should also be precisely similar in both the two cases. For if they were not—if in the case of Y, some alternative was possible, which would have quite different effects, from any that would have been produced by any alternative that was possible in the case of X—then, according to our theory, it is possible that the total effects of this other alternative would be