Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/187

 reason which would justify us in regarding right actions done from a good motive differently from right actions done from a bad one. For though, in the case supposed, the bad motive would not actually have led to wrong action, yet, if it is true that motives of that kind do generally lead to wrong action, we should be right in passing this judgment upon it; and judgments to the effect that a motive is of a kind which generally leads to wrong action are undoubtedly moral judgments of a sort, and an important sort, though they do not prove that every action done from such a motive is wrong.

And finally motives seem also to be relevant to a third kind of moral judgment of great importance—namely, judgments as to whether, and in what degree, the agent deserves moral praise or blame for acting as he did. This question as to what is deserving of moral praise or blame is, I think, often confused with the question as to what is right or wrong. It is very natural, at first sight, to assume that to call an action morally praiseworthy is the same thing as to say that it is right, and to call it morally blameworthy the same thing as to say that it is