Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/48

 that actions are right, because they produce a maximum of pleasure, we imply that, provided they produced this result, they would be right, no matter what other effects they might produce as well. We imply, in short, that their rightness does not depend at all upon their other effects, but only on the quantity of pleasure that they produce. And this is a very different thing from merely saying that the producing a maximum of pleasure is always, as a matter of fact, a sign of rightness. It is quite obvious, that, in the Universe as it is actually constituted, pleasure and pain are by no means the only results of any of our actions: they all produce immense numbers of other results as well. And so long as we merely assert that the producing a maximum of pleasure is a sign of rightness, we leave open the possibility that it is so only because this result does always, as a matter of fact, happen to coincide with the production of other results; but that it is partly upon these other results that the rightness of the action depends. But so soon as we assert that actions are right, because they produce a maximum of pleasure, we cut