Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/224

 intrinsically bad, or that one is intrinsically better than another, is also not the same thing as to say that any being or set of beings has towards it any mental attitude whatever—either an attitude of feeling, or of desiring, or of thinking something about it; and hence that here again no proof to the effect that any being or set of beings has some such mental attitude towards a given thing or state of things is ever sufficient to show that it is intrinsically good or bad. These two points are extremely important, because the contrary view is very commonly held, in some form or other, and because (though this is not always seen), whatever form it be held in, it is absolutely fatal to one or both of two very fundamental principles, which our theory implies. In many of their forms such views are fatal to the principle (1) that no action is ever both right and wrong; and hence also to the view that there is any characteristic whatever which always belongs to right actions and never to wrong ones; and in all their forms they are fatal to the principle, (2) that if it is once the duty of any being to do an