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 is that our blame may tend to prevent the agent from doing similar wrong actions in future; and obviously, if the agent only acted wrongly from a motive which is not likely to lead him wrong in the future, there is less need to try to deter him by blame than if he had acted from a motive which was likely to lead him to act wrongly again. This is, I think, a very real reason why we sometimes ought to blame a man less when he does wrong from a good motive. But I do not mean to say that the question whether a man deserves moral praise or blame, or the degree to which he deserves it, depends entirely or always upon his motive. I think it certainly does not. My point is only that this question does sometimes depend on the motive in some degree; whereas the question whether his action was right or wrong never depends upon it at all.

There are, therefore, at least three different kinds of moral judgments, in making which it is at least plausible to hold that we ought to take account of motives; and if all these judgments are carefully distinguished from that particular kind which is solely concerned with the question whether an action is right