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 produced a maximum of pleasure would always be right, no matter what their effects, in other respects, might be. And hence that it would be right to create a world in which there was no intelligence and none of the higher emotions, rather than one in which these were present in the highest degree, provided only that the mere quantity of pleasure enjoyed in the former were ever so little greater than that enjoyed in the latter.

Our theory asserts, then, in its second part, that voluntary actions are right when they are right, because they produce a maximum of pleasure; and in asserting this it takes a great step beyond what it asserted in its first part, since it now implies that an action which produced a maximum of pleasure always would be right, no matter how its results, in other respects, might compare with those of the other possible alternatives.

But it might be held that, even so, it does not imply that this would be so absolutely unconditionally. It might be held that though, in the Universe as actually constituted, actions are right because they produce a maximum of pleasure, and hence their