Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/160

 pleasure, it would not really follow, as this argument assumes, that a whole which contains more pleasure must always be better than one which contains less. On the contrary, the very opposite would follow; since it would follow that if any beings did happen to desire something other than pleasure (and we can easily conceive that some might) then wholes which contained more pleasure might easily not always be better than those which contained less. But it is now generally recognised that it is a complete mistake to suppose even that men desire nothing but pleasure, or even that they desire nothing else for its own sake. And, whether it is so or not, the question is irrelevant to our present purpose, which is to find some quite general arguments to show that to call a thing “good” is, in any case, not the same thing as merely to say that it is desired or desired for its own sake, nor yet that any other mental attitude whatever is taken up towards it. What arguments can we find to show this?

One point should be carefully noticed to begin with; namely, that we have no need