Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/226

 kinds of actions would be absolutely always right, and others absolutely always wrong, whatever their consequences might be, or (2) that it depends, partly or wholly, on the motive from which the action is done, or (3) that it depends on the question whether the agent had reason to expect that its consequences would be the best possible. I tried, accordingly, to show next that each of these three views is untrue.

But, finally, we raised, in the last chapter, a question as to the precise sense in which right and wrong do depend upon the actual consequences. And here for the first time we came upon a point as to which it seemed very doubtful whether our theory was right. All that could be agreed upon was that a voluntary action is right whenever and only when its total consequences are as good, intrinsically, as any that would have followed from any action which the agent could have done instead. But we were unable to arrive at any certain conclusion as to the precise sense in which the phrase “could have” must be understood if this proposition is to be true; and whether, therefore, it is true,