DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS.

293

own, which is God. 9" In so far as we see things no longer

partially, but in the light of their relation to the whole,
so far we may be said to grasp the whole,-to possess the
obvoqic which is Intuition.
A. BARRATT BROWN.

THE DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS.

C. D. BROAD.

T HE opinion that the rightness of an act is in some

way connected with the goodness or badness of its
consequences is, I suppose, held by everyone in practice
and by most moralists in theory. If we only listen to
what people say instead of also noticing how they act
and judge, we might be inclined to underrate the amount
of agreement on this point. Nothing is commoner than
such phrases as 'you must never do evil that good may
come,' which, if they mean anything, imply that some
acts are wrong, however good their consequences. Yet,
in practice, people who quote this maxim and also be-
lieve that pain is an evil do not, as they ought to do,
shun their dentists as moral lepers. Again, there is no
doubt that commonsense thinks motives important as
well as consequences, but it would reject the Kantian
view that they are all-important, and that only one kind
of motive is morally valuable.
But at this point agreement ceases. Are consequences
the sole relevant factor in judging the rightness of an
act; or do other factors enter, and, in particular, are
some acts right and some wrong, whatever their conse-
quences? Again, is it the actual or the probable conse-
quences that are ethically relevant? And further, if you
decide to include motives in judging the rightness of an
act, is the question whether the act is the immediate re-
sponse of a good nature or results only as the conse-
quence of a moral struggle, of ethical importance? The
294 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

first two of these questions have been discussed with

considerable fulness in recent years by Mr. Russell in
his "Philosophical Essays," and by Mr. Moore in his
little book on "Ethics.'" The names of these two phi-
losophers are a sufficient guarantee for the ingenuity
and subtlety of their arguments; but, since they dis-
agree, one must be wrong, and of course both may be.
It will, therefore, be of some interest to take their views
as a text for the discussion of the subject of this paper.
I will begin with the points on which Moore and Russell
are at one. Both seem to hold that you can only talk
of right actions, and not of good ones. "What is called
good conduct,"'Mr. Russell says, "is conduct that is good
as a means to other things that are good on their own
account."" If this be the whole of what is meant by good
conduct, it is no doubt well to do as Mr. Russell proposes
and call it 'right' and its consequences alone 'good,' be-
cause otherwise 'good" is used in two different senses
when we speak of 'good conduct" and of 'good conse-
quences.' Now I cannot help thinking that neither of our
authors has given enough attention to the possibility
that there may be good conduct in their sense of good,
as well as right conduct in their sense of right, and that
the two need not coincide. This possibility arises in two
different ways. In the first place, if other states of mind
be intrinsically good or bad, I do not see why volitions
should not have intrinsic goodness or badness. I should
suppose that most people think that they have, and the
question is at least worth discussion. Moore and Rus-
sell scarcely touch on this point, but I conclude that their
opinion is that they are intrinsically indifferent. Mr.
Moore says ("Ethics,"" p. 185): "It is contrary to our
view that motives can be intrinsically good or bad. But,
if it is true, it makes no difference to the rightness or
wrongness of an action, but only to the goodness of a
total state of affairs. " The latter part of the state-
ment is unquestionably true on Mr. Moore's definition
of rightness, because that explicitly only refers to con-
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 295

sequences and therefore does not include the motive or

volition that precedes them, so that the intrinsic value
of the latter does not enter into consideration. But this
only shows that Moore is consistent with his own defini-
tion, not that he means by rightness what other people
mean when they understand themselves. But this, I sup-
pose, is what he is trying to show.
We have seen then that it is at least possible that some
volition may be intrinsically good, and therefore, since
an act is certainly not identical with its own consequences,
there may be good acts as well as right ones. But even
if Moore be right in thinking that no motive is intrin-
sically good, it will not by any means follow that the in-
trinsic value of the consequences X + the volition A will
be the same as that of the consequences X + the voli-
tion B. For to assert that because A and B are intrin-
sically indifferent, therefore A X and B X must neces-
sarily have the same intrinsic value would be to forget
the Principle of Organic Unities. I do not suppose that
Moore or Russell would really deny anything that I have
been saying; all that I suggest is that it is of some im-
portance and seems to have been overlooked by them.
I do not quite know whether Mr. Russell thinks that any-
thing but consequencesare good, for he makes the curious
statement ("Philosophical Essays," p. 31): "I do not
wish to deny that right conduct is among the things that
are good on their own account, but, if so, it depends for
its intrinsic goodness upon the goodness of those other
things which it aims at producing." As it stands, this
is surely contradictory; a thing cannot depend for its
intrinsic goodness on anything else. What I suppose
Russell must mean is that it is not intrinsically good,
but, when added to its consequences, may produce a whole
whose intrinsic value differs from that of the whole
formed by the consequences only.
So much then for the agreement between Moore and
Russell. As some good consequences are certainly states
of mind, we shall be inclined to suppose that the states
296 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

of mind that result in consequences may also have in-

trinsic value; and, even if they have not, the Principle
of Organic Unities forbids us to deny the possibility of
good conduct differing from right conduct in Moore's
sense of the word. I shall return to this question at a
much later stage of the paper.
Let us now consider the differences between the two
writers. They differ about rightness. Russell has a
complicated theory which introduces the probable con-
sequences of actions. Moore's theory is simpler, and, at
first sight, much more paradoxical since it makes right-
ness depend wholly on the actual results of our actions.
It further makes much use of the notions of justifiable
praise and blame. As a matter of fact, we shall see that
really both theories have to introduce probability, and
that Russell's view when worked out is much less plausi-
ble than it seems at first sight. I will begin by sketching
and criticising Russell's theory.
That act which has as good consequences1 as any that
is open to the agent is called by Russell 'a most fortunate
act,' and by Moore a 'right act. ' But Russell will not ad-
mit that a most fortunate act is necessarily a right one.
He grants that there is an objective and a subjective
sense of right, but holds that even the objective sense is
partly subjective, whilst what is most fortunate is quite
independent of our knowledge and belief. If the evi-
deuce be against an actually most fortunate act being
most fortunate, it is objectively wrong to go against the
evidence. An objectively right act is what he calls a
'wisest act,' i. e., one which is probably a most fortunate
act. This theory, he says, has the advantage that it
makes unforeseen factors irrelevant to rightness and
wrongness. Now objectively, of course, a man ought to
1
Russell says 'the best consequences,' and speaks of 'the most fortunate
act'; but Moore rightly points out that two possible acts may have equally
good consequences, and that they will then both be right if the consequences
are better than those of any possible alternative. I have altered Russell 's
language to meet this objection.
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 297

do what is objectively right; but there is another sense

of ought, Russell holds, in which we must say that he
sometimes ought to do what is objectively wrong. This
second sense of ought, of course, involves another sense
of right. A man acts rightly in this sense (or conscien-
tiously, as we may call it) if he does what he judges to
be objectively right, after he has. reflected with a view to
finding out the truth on this point, and not merely
with a view to proving one course right. If the act be
unimportant, and if it would need much reflection to come
to any decision about its objective rightness, it is morally
indifferent.
We may admit that this is an ingenious and plausible
theory which seems to cover most of the obvious facts.
But I think we shall find that it is not nearly so simple
as it looks. It is not explicitly remarked by either Moore
or Russell that there is a very close analogy between the
three meanings of ought in ethics which between them
they use, and three meanings of ought in logic. I believe
it will be helpful to develop this analogy a little. When
I ask: 'What ought I to believe" one answer certainly
would seem to be: 'What is true.' Now, 'what is true'
corresponds here to a most fortunate act in ethics in its
complete independence of anyone's knowledge or belief.
So this answer corresponds to that which Moore makes
to the question: 'What ought I to dot' But there cer-
tainly seem to be plenty of cases where in a sense I ought
to believe what is actually false. If I believe that all. M
is P and that all S is M, there is certainly a sense in
which I ought to believe that all S is P (or, at any rate,
ought not to believe that, some S is not P). Yet if one
of the first two beliefs be false, it may very well be the
case that what I ought to believe about the relation of
S and P is false, and what I ought not to believe is true.
Nor is it relevant to answer: You ought not to have be-
lieved, e. g., that all M is P, since that is false. Even if
this be so (and to assert it is to beg the question as to
whether there are not several meanings.of ought in logic),
298 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

yet we must still ask: What ought I to believe, granted

that as a matter of fact I have this belief, which, of
course, I do not know to be false so long as I have it!
The answer: You ought to believe, or perhaps I should
rather say, you ought not to disbelieve what logically
follows from what you do believe, corresponds rather
closely with Russell's objective sense of ought and right.
Then, finally, it might be suggested that you ought to be-
lieve what you think logically follows from what you do
believe. If you really think that A propositions can be
simply converted and believe that all S is P, then you
ought not to believe that some P is not S. This seems to
correspond to subjective rightness in ethics.
I think, then, we may fairly suggest that Russell's
theory of the different meanings of right in ethics can
probably be reduced to considerations involving the dif-
ferent meanings of ought in logic + what seems to be a
purely ethical meaning of ought which appears equally
in both his senses. The ethical common meaning is in-
volved in the statement: I ought ethically always to do
that action which I ought logically to judge a most for-
tunate action of those possible to me. Russell's two
meanings of ought are syntheses of this common third
ethical meaning with the two logical senses of the word.
Russell's qualification about reflecting with a view to
finding out what is objectively right is involved in the
logical sense of ought; for you have no right in any
logical sense to believe what is not self-evident and what
you have not investigated with a desire to reach the truth,
whatever it may prove to be.
What is objectively right, then, on this theory is what,
on my information, has probably at least as good conse-
quences as any other action open to me. The mixture
of the objective and subjective here is nothing specially
ethical, but is what is involved in all applications of prob-
ability. The point is simply this. Any proposition,
whether about goodness or anything else, is either true
or false. But, relative to various selections of other
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 299

propositions, this proposition will have different degrees

of probability. So far, all is perfectly objective; the
probability of one proposition, relative to any definite
selection of others, is a-s independent of anyone's knowl-
edge or belief about it as its truth or falsehood. When
the individual mind enters, it is simply as a selective
agent. Any particular mind believes some proposition
and not others; and is acquainted with some and not
with others; and relative to those which it believes, any
given proposition has a certain probability, whether this
particular mind or any other knows its value or not. It
is necessary to add, however, that, whilst there is no
ambiguity, and nothing subjective, in the probability of
a proposition relative to any definite selection of others,
there is some vagueness as to what Russell supposes to
be included in the selection involved in his theory of
objective rightness. This is really an important matter.
Does objective rightness depend on the probability of
the consequences relative to all the propositions that the
agent believes; or to all those that he believes and the
contra~dictories of those that he disbelieves; or to all the
true propositions that he believes and, the contradictories
of all the false ones that he disbelieves; or what pre-
cisely is the principle of selection? It seems to me that
Russell has talked cheerfully about the probabilities of
propositions without remembering that all probabilities
are relative to selections of propositions, and that it is
vital to state what selection he considers relevant in de-
fining rightness. When this fact is taken into account,
the distinction between objective and subjective right-
ness on Russell's theory becomes a somewhat subtle one,
though I grant that it remains. My doubt is whether it
corresponds to any distinction involved in the various
ethical judgments of commonsense which led Russell to
his theory of objective rightness. Let me elaborate this
point a, little.
On Russell''s theory it is clear that of precisely similar
acts performed by A and B, under circumstances agree-
Vol. XXIV.-No. 3. 20
300 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

ing in all respects but, in the knowledge or beliefs of the

agents, one canny be objectively right and the other objec-
tively wrong. For, since the probability of the conse-
quences is relative to different selections of propositions
in the two cases, it will in general be different. Now, of
course, we all admit that difference of knowledge may
alter the subjective rightness of acts performed under
otherwise precisely similar circumstances; but I do very
much doubt whether any judgment of common sense im-
plies that what is objectively right for A can be objec-
tively wrong for B. Still I do not wish dogmatically to
assert that there is not an ethical sense of right and
ought different from what Russell calls subjectively right
and from what he calls most fortunate. My lingering
doubt in his favor is due to the fact that there does seem
to me to be such an intermediate. meaning of right
and ought in the logical sense, and that Russelly's'ob-
jective rightness seems, as I have said, to correspond
to this.
I said that the logical sense of ought that corresponds
to Russell's objective rightness is that you ought to be-
lieve or at, least not to disbelieve what logically follows
from what you do believe and from the contradictories
of what you disbelieve. It is clear that this does not
imply that what you believe is true, or what you disbe-
lieve false; for otherwise this kind of logical rightness
would not be (as it certainly is) compatible with its being
right to believe what is false, and to disbelieve what is
true. Now the probability of one proposition relative to
others seems to me to be as much a matter of pure logic
as its being implied by them. Hence, we must include
in this logical sense of right that it is right to attribute
to any proposition that degree of probability that it
actually has, relative to the propositions that you believe
and to the contradictories of those that you disbelieve.
If my analogy between this logical sense of ought and
Russell's objective rightness be accepted, we have now
made a beginning of answering the question,-which, as
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 301

we saw, he left unanswered,-as to what precisely is

supposed to be the selection of propositions; relative
to which the probability involved in objective rightness
is to be reckoned. The relevant propositions are roughly
those which the agent believes and the contradictories of
those which he disbelieves, irrespective of whether what
he believes is true or what he disbelieves is false. But
some modification must be made in this.
The distinction between the use of a proposition as a
premise and as a principle is familiar to logicians. When
I argue in accordance with Barbara and justify my pro-
cedure by pointing this out, I do not use Barbara as a
premise, but as a principle. Now, for logical rightness
we must qualify what I have already said by adding that
it is only the truth or falsity of a man's beliefs in prop-
ositions which he uses as premises, that, is. irrelevant to
his logical rightness; we must assume that his beliefs
in all propositions that he uses as principles are actually
true. This is, of course, simple enough when we are
dealing with, certain inference; but it is less easy to see
what is a premise and what a principle when we come to
deal with probability. In the first place, it is clear that
the purely formal laws connecting the probability of a
complex proposition, conjunctive or disjunctive, with
that, of its separate elements must be taken as principles
and not as premises. I must also never count among
the premises, relative to which I reckon the probability
of a proposition, propositions about its probability rela-
tive to the other premises. Such propositions are prin-
ciples not premises, and my belief in them must be true
if I am to be logically right. For, otherwise, the true
probability of anything relative to my state of informa-
tion, would depend on my belief about the true prob-
ability, and this would make the whole notion purely sub-
jective, which it is not. And this, is supported by the
analogy with certain inference, since to be logically right
there, I must not have false beliefs as to whether one
proposition implies another or not, and the case of im-
302 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

plication is one where the probability of what is implied

relative to what implies it is 1.
We now see what is the logical sense of rightness that
we take to correspond with Russell's objective ethical
rightness. Does his ethical objective rightness involve
anything further than that it is objectively right to do
what it is logically right to believe to be a most fortunate
action? There are great difficulties and ambiguities in
the notion of a probably most fortunate action which I
will deal with later, but at present the question is where
precisely the ethical element enters, and whether it in-
troduces any new question of principle. It is, of course,
clear that to reach judgments, about the probable good-
ness of anything, there must be some premises about
values believed, as well as premises about facts. Can
these ethical premises be treated as precisely on a level
with the factual ones or not; i. e., is it only the question
whether we believe or disbelieve the ethical premises that
is relevant to objective rightness, or is the truth or false-
hood o.f our beliefs and disbeliefs here. of importance?
I am inclined to think that there is a difference between
the two kinds of premises in this respect.
Suppose, for instance, that a person is an ethical
hedonist, i. e., that he believes as one of his ethical
premises that the goodness of any state of affairs is
directly proportional to the amount of pleasure in it
and to that alone. Relative to this proposition, an act
that will probably produce more pleasure on the whole
will probably have better consequences than one that
will probably produce less pleasure. But, supposing
that ethical hedonism is false, a-re we to say that the
man's act is objectively right, if he is right about the
probability of its pleasurable consequences?' If, for ex-
ample, one is logically justified by one's factual premises
in holding that pushpin will probably give more pleasure
on the whole than poetry, and if one is logically justified
on one's ethical premises in holding that more pleasur-
able states are always better than less pleasurable ones,
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 303

is it objectively right to prefer pushpin to poetry, even

though your ethical belief be false? I do not think this
can be maintained, and therefore there must be an impor-
tant distinction between the positions of ethical and of
factual beliefs in the matter of objective rightness. Let
us, then, sum up the results of our attempts to clarify
Russell's notion of objective rightness, as far as they
have yet appeared. An act is objectively right if it is
probably a most fortunate act relative to (a) the prop-
ositions about matters of fact which the agent believes,
and the contradictories of those which, he disbelieves, in-
dependently of whether they be true or false; (b) to
true ethical premises, whether he believes them or not;
and (e) to true principles of inference and probability,
whether he believes them or not. Subjective rightness
depends wholly on what people believe or disbelieve, and
not at all on what is true, while Russell's objective right-
ness depends, partly, on what people believe, whether it
be true or not, and, partly, on what is true, whether peo-
ple believe it or not.
But we are by no means at the end of our difficulties.
Russell does not seem to have remarked that the notion
of a probably most fortunate act remains ambiguous
even after you have defined the selection of propositions,
relative to which its probability and that of alternative
acts are to be reckoned. The fact is that the question of
probability enters twice, and Russell has not distinguished
its two appearances. It is not clear whether the objective
rightness of an act depends on the actual value of its
probable consequences, or the probable value of its actual
consequences, or the probable value of its probable con-
sequences. All that we are, told is that it does not de-
pend on the actual value of its actual consequences. I
submit that until the theory that objective rightness de-
pends on probable consequences decides between these
three alternatives, it cannot be satisfactory, and that
when it is faced by them, it loses some of its original
plausibility.
304 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

We must devote a, moment to the consideration of

these alternatives. So far as I can see, the most plau-
sible view for Russell to take would be that rightness
depends on the probable value of probable consequences.
PFor if either the actual goodness or the actual conse-
quences be relevant., it is difficult to see why both should
not be; and this he denies. If, however, we work out
the implications of this theory, we shall see that it is less
simple than it looks. Suppose that an agent has two ac-
tions, X and Y, open to him. Suppose, further, that
relative to the propositions that the agent believes and
disbelieves, the most probable consequences of X are A,
and that their probability is p. Let the most probable
consequences of Y be B, and let their probability be q.
Further, let the most probable measure of the goodness
-of A be x, and the most probable measure of the goodness
of B be y. Now suppose that p < q and x > y. What
then .is objectively right. Ought the man to choose the
act whose most probable consequences are less probable,
but most probably more good, or the one whose most
probable consequence is more probable, but most prob-
ably less good? It is useless to say that the question is
merely academic, since the calculations cannot be made,
for it is quite irrelevant to objective rightness whether
anyone actually makes the calculations or not. The diffi-
culty is one of principle, and, unless the theory can re-
move it, it has not produced an unambiguous definition
of what it means by obejctive rightness.
Of the two remaining alternatives, it seems to me that
it is more plausible to suggest that objective rightness
depends on the actual value of probable consequences
than on the probable value of actual consequences. It
is, in fact, clear that the latter is not what Russell means,
since he congratulates his theory on making objective
rightness independent of unforeseeable circumstances,
i. e., of true propositions about matters of fact which
are not included in the selection believed by the agent at
the time of decision. Let us, then, take the view that an
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 305

act is objectively right whose most probable consequences

would be actually at least as good as the most probable
consequences of any other act open to the agent. Un-
fortunately, there is much the same ambiguity here as
we noticed above. If I can perform either X or Y, and
the most probable consequence of X is A and of Y is B,
it will not, in general, be true that the probability of X
being followed by A is the same as that of Y being fol-
lowed by B. If the probability of the most probable con-
sequence of X be p, and that of the most probable con-
sequence of Y be q, when p > q, whilst the value A is x
and that of B is y where x < y, which act is objectively
right? We could only avoid this ambiguity by introduc-
ing the notion of expectation, i. e., the product of the
probability of an event by the actual or most probable
measure of its goodness if it takes place. We might then
say that an act is objectively right if the expectation of
goodness is, relative to the selection of propositions al-
ready defined, at least as great as the expectation of
goodness of any other act possible to the agent. But does
this really seem plausibleT I think it is open to two
objections: (1) I see no reason to think that the notion
of mathematical expectation is really a measure of any-
thing in the world. Suppose it is true that there is
something called 'logical expectation,' and that it is a
function of the probability of an event and of the most
probable measure of its goodness, is there the slightest
ground for thinking that this function is the product of
the two? Is it not merely another case of that unjusti-
fiable simplification which in the Hedonic Calculus as-
sumes: (a) that there is such a thing as quantity of
pleasure, and (b) that it must be measured by the time
integral of the intensity of a pleasure'! (2) Is the defini-
tion of objective rightness which we have reached as a
matter of fact what anyone means by rightness?; I quite
agree with Mr. Russell that all ethical phrases are used
ambiguously by common sense, and, therefore, whenever
we try to give a strict meaning to them, we shall meet
306 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

with verbal paradoxes. Still, we must not get entirely

away from common sense, but try to be clear as to the
various separate concepts which it verbally confuses.
It is because of certain judgments of common sense that
Russell introduced his theory of objective rightness, and
it is a real objection to it that it is not only infected with
all the doubt and vagueness that attach to the notion of
expectation, but also seems hardly to correspond to any
of the senses of rightness which common sense vaguely
recognizes. If, then, any plausible alternative can be
offered, I should be inclined to prefer it.
Let us then leave Russell's theory about objective
rightness and consider Moore's. This theory makes ob-
jective rightness turn solely on the actual goodness of
actual consequences, whether they are probable relative
to the agent's information or not. It has then to deal
with the apparent paradox that, whilst unforeseen cir-
cumstances may cause the actual consequences of an act
to be utterly different from what could have been ex-
pected, we do not blame a man because what he has
done, on the logically justifiable expectation of its hav-
ing good results, turns out to have bad ones. Moore's
answer is that the paradox arises from confusing what
is right to do with what is right to praise, or holding
that it is only right to praise right actions and only right
to blame wrong actions. This supposition is not neces-
sarily true. A's praise or blame of B's act is a second
act. and, like all others, its rightness or wrongness must
be judged by its own consequences and not by those of
B''s act. It will be right for A to praise B's act if the
consequences of doing so are at least as good as those
of blaming it or saying nothing, no matter what the con-
sequences of B's act may prove to be.
This theory seems to me very plausible, and I think
Moore is right in saying that much of the paradox is
merely apparent. It is, therefore, worth while to con-
sider the question of praise and blame more closely. The
words praise and blame are somewhat ambiguous, and
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 307

it is important to distinguish three elements: (1) the

judgment that an act is right or wrong, (2) certain
peculiar feelings of approbation and disapprobation, and
(3) the expression of such judgments and feelings. This
ambiguity leads to an ambiguity in the question: Am I
right in praising some acts that are really wrong, and
blaming some that are really right? This may mean:
(1) Ought I to believe that some wrong actions are right,
and that some right actions are wrong?' (2) Ought I ever
to have the feeling of approbation to a wrong action,
and that of disapprobation to a right oneO and (3) Ought
I to assert what. I believe, and state what I feel in such
cases? In my opinion, 'ought" has a different meaning
in each of these questions. The first means: Am I ever
logically justified in holding that an action is probably
wrong when it is actually right, or. probably right when
it is actually wrong? The answer is clearly in the affirm-
ative. I ought logically to believe probable on my in-
formation what actually is probable, but this may be the
opposite of what is actually true.
It is perfectly clear that in the second question 'ought'
cannot have this meaning. I am under no logical obliga-
tion to have any particular kind of feeling in given cir-
cumstances. But it is also clear that it cannot simply
have the meaning that it is right for me to have such
and such a. feeling in Moore 's sense of right. In the first
place, for an act to be right in Moore 's sense, it must be
voluntary, whilst, whether I have a certain feeling under
certain circumstances, is largely independent of my will.
Further, rightness for Moore depends on goodness of
consequences. Now my unexpressed feelings (using ex-
pression in a sense wide enough to include a frown and
a philippic) have few consequences outside myself. I
admit that they may be important; but what I want to
suggest is that there is undoubtedly a sense of rightness
in which it may be said that a certain feeling is the right
one to have, under certain circumstances, no matter what
the consequences may be. Take, for instance, the. emo-
308 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

tion of sorrow on the death of a friend. It is not a volun-

tary product, and therefore not right or wrong in Moore "s
sense. But if it could be right or wrong in this sense, it
would almost certainly be wrong, for it is difficult to see
what good consequences can come from sorrow at what
cannot be altered. Nevertheless, there is a perfectly defi-
nite sense in which we should say that sorrow is the right,
and hilarity the wrong emotion under the circumstances.
And this is a new use of right and wrong. Sorrow is
not good, nor are its consequences as a rule good, but it
may be right. There is, of course, a connection between
this sense of right and wrong and goodness and badness.
What is called right or wrong here is a feeling in connec-
tion with a situation. I think this sense of right might
be defined as follows: The feeling x is right in the situa-
tion y, when the complex xy is intrinsically better than x
alone, and at least as intrinsically good as the complex
formed by y and any other feeling that can be directed
toward it. Can is not used here in the sense of 'can if
one will.' In certain circumstances I ought to have cer-
tain feelings, whether I could have them by willing or not.
Our second question, then, comes to this: Is the feel-
ing of approbation ever the right feeling ( in this new
sense) to have toward acts that are wrong in Moore's
sense, and that of disapprobation the right feeling to
have toward one that is right in his sense. Here again
the answer is in the affirmative, but needs some qualifi-
cation. The sort of feelings that are right or wrong are
those directed to an object, as, for instance, sorrow is
always sorrow for something, and approbation appro-
bation of something. And feeling can only be directed
to objects as they are known or believed to be by the
person who has the feeling, not to aspects of the objects
about which he knows nothing or is misinformed. Thus,
the right feeling toward an act may very well alter as
time goes on and more is known about its consequences;
there is, of course, nothing paradoxical about this, be-
cause at each different stage of knowledge and belief the
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 309

feeling is really directed to something different. Fur-

ther, in practice, our feelings are never toward an act
alone, but we have a total feeling that depends on two
factors: (1) on our belief in its rightness in Moore's
sense, and (2) on the moral qualities of the agent which
we infer from the act. As far as I can see, the right
feeling toward any act that exhibits conscientiousness is
pro tanto approbation, though we may believe that the
results of the act will be so bad that our total feeling
ought to be condemnatory. The following, then, seems
to be the answer to our present question: An act which
is wrong in Mr. Moore.'s sense ought to meet with feel-
ings of approbation by anyone who believes that the in-
trinsic value of the whole, formed by the consequences
and the moral qualities which the choice of the act ex-
hibits in the agent, is at least as great as that of the whole
formed by any alternative act + the moral qualities that
it would have exhibited. It may thus be right for us to
feel approbation for an act that is not merely wrong in
Moore's sense, but is believed to be wrong by us. The
moral quality that seems most to add to the values of
such wholes is conscientiousness, so that it is often right
to approve an act that is wrong and is believed to be
wrong, because it has been conscientiously performed.
Of course, it is open to anyone to say that here we really
have two different feelings, one directed to what we be-
lieve to be the rightness or wrongness of the act, and the
other to what we believe to be the moral qualities that it
exhibits in the agent. I somewhat doubt personally
whether, when two objects are so closely connected as an
act and the volition that produces it, you can analyze the
total feeling directed toward them into two feelings, one
directed to each object; but the point is not of great
importance for the present purpose.
Finally, we come to the third meaning of 'ought' in-
volved in Moore's theory in the question: Ought I to
assert what I believe and state what I feel about the
rightness of acts? Here, of course, the meaning of ought
310 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

corresponds to Moore's general meaning of right. The

question is: Will the consequences of stating my belief
that an act is right, and showing my approbation of it,
have at least as good consequences as any alternative
action even when as a matter of fact my belief is false?
The answer, of course, is that it probably is sometimes
objectively right to praise an objectively wrong act, and
vice versa. But if Moore means to offer as a definition
of subjectively right acts that they are those which it is
objectively right to praise, the definition will hardly do.
In the first place, it will clearly follow that the. extreme
doubt that attaches, on his theory, to whether any par-
ticular act is objectively right will now equally infect the
question whether it is subjectively right, since the sub-
jective rightness of all acts will depend on the objective
rightness of a certain class of acts. Moreover, it is easy
to imagine acts which it is almost certainly objectively
right to praise, and almost certainly subjectively wrong
to do. If my friend and I were in the hands of a cruel
despot with a taste for flattery, it might very well be
objectively right for me to praise his wicked acts in order
to save myself and my friend from his cruelty; but this
would not make his wicked acts even subjectively right
if he believed he was doing wrong.
Let us, then, go a little further into the question of
praise and blame for ourselves, since neither Moore nor
Russell have descended to detail. Before we go any fur-
ther it will be well to compare Moore's and Russell's
views about probable goodness for a moment; for it is
becoming evident that Moore's view is going to introduce
probability as well as Russell's, though in a different
way. The difference is this: On Russell's view, a prob-
ably most fortunate act is an actually right one; on
Moore's view, a probably most fortunate act is a prob-
ably right one. And this, being quite general, applies, of
course, to acts of praise and blame. Now, I think there
is some risk of the inconsistency of using Russell's defini-
tion of rightness for acts of praise and blame, and
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 311

Moore's for other acts, and defining subjective rightness

by a mixture of the two. This inconsistency must, of
course, be avoided if we want to find the real conse-
quences of both views. The consequences of applying
Russell's definition are somewhat complicated. We will
consider them first.
It might seem at first sight that, on Russell's defini-
tion, it will always be right for me to praise what it is
right for me to do. For to say that the act X is right for
A to do is to say that it is a probably most fortunate
act on his information. Now, praise of such acts will
certainly tend to make other people perform them, and
it seems as if it must be right for A to make other peo-
ple cause results which it would be right for him to cause
himself. But this does not by any means follow. X may
be that action which, on A's information, is probably the
most fortunate of any that a-re open to him, but it does
not follow that it is probably the most fortunate of any
that are open to B; for B may have alternatives open
to him which A has not. Hence A's praise of what it
would be right for himself to do may cause B to choose
an alternative which, on A's information, is not the prob-
ably most fortunate one open to B. There is, too, an-
other consequence that is worth mentioning. Suppose
that B has only the same alternatives open to him a~sA,
but different information from A; then, on B's informa-
tion, X may not be the probably most fortunate act open
to him, though it is on A's information. Hence A's
praise of what it would be right for himself to do may
cause B to do what is wrong for him to do.
Let us now apply Moore's theory of rightness to the
question of praise and blame. I do not see how we can
dispense with the notion that there is a definite sense in
which it is right to do what we believe to be objectively
right, by means of any considerations about praise and
blame. I take it that Moore is trying to make us believe
that the notion of subjective rightness can be resolved
into that of objective praiseworthiness. This might
312 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

mean one of two things. It might mean that the two

notions are really identical, that the second is an analysis
of what people mean by the first; or that, whilst they are
genuinely different notions, they have precisely the same
extension. The first alternative, of course, implies the
latter part of the second. It seems to me that inspection
shows that the first alternative is false; if we can further
prove that the second is wrong, we shall have an addi-
tional refutation of the first. It seems to me that when
I have done my best to determine which alternatives open
to me are objectively right, I can well admit that I may
be mistaken, and yet be certain that it is right for me to
do one of these alternatives. And I certainly do not seem
to mean by this that it will always be objectively right
for me to praise myself or for other people to praise me.
For one thing, I do not generally think about praise or
blame at all when I think about rightness; and for an-
other, I can no more be certain about the effects of praise
and blame than about those of any other action. Further,
the sense of rightness which we are trying to analyze is,
I think, essentially connected with conscientiousness.
Now, I grant that on Moore's theory it is probably ob-
jectively right for me to praise what it is probably ob-
jectively right for me to do, because I shall thus tend
to cause actions that are probably right. But the prob-
able rightness of my praise is independent of the motives
of the actions praised, since it merely depends on the
probable goodness of their consequences, and this is un-
connected with their motives. Thus, the probable right-
ness of praising an action has no immediate connection
with its motive. On the other hand, whilst I should call
an action subjectively right that was done conscien-
tiously, it is not clear that it would ever be probably
right for me to praise it on this ground. By praising
it I might promote conscientiousness; but if it is prob-
ably an objectively wrong action, I should also probably
be praising objectively wrong acts. I could avoid this
difficulty, of course, by praising the motive and blaming
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 313

the action; but it is not at all clear to me that, on Mr.

Moore's theory, it is ever probably right to praise con-
scientiousness. If it be probably right to praise con-
scientiousness, it must be because that quality is either
good in itself, or adds to the goodness of other wholes, or
is likely to have good results. Now, I understand Moore
to hold that motives have no intrinsic value, which cuts
out the first alternative. As far as I know, he has not
expressed any opinion about the second alternative.
Finally, I do not see the least reason to suppose that
conscientiousness is more likely to produce objectively
right acts, on his theory, than any other motive. No
doubt, it involves that you have done your best to find
out what is right and are going to act on your conclu-
sions; but, since the rightness of your action is at the
mercy of all that is going to happen in the universe
throughout all future time, there is no reason to expect
better results from conscientious acts than from the most
stupid and biased ones. I conclude, then, that, since the
notion of subjective rightness is essentially bound up
with conscientiousness, whilst the rightness of praise
and blame is directly connected with consequences and
not with motives, and further since there is no ground for
supposing that it is ever probably right to praise con-
scientiousness rather than other motives, the notions of
subjective rightness and of objective praiseworthiness
cannot coincide either in meaning or in extension.
It remains for me, after these criticisms, to see whether
anything positive can be said. I agree. with, Russell that
it is neither important nor possible that the terms which
we use should always exactly coincide in extension with
those used by common sense. All that is important is to
recognize clearly every different notion that is involved
in the judgments of common sense; to give separate
names to them and use them consistently; and, where
possible, to analyze them and determine their mutual re-
lations. It may also be necessary for us to recognize
notions which common sense does not, and to determine
314 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

their relations to those which it does. Let us then con-

sider the notions with which we have to deal.
In the first place, Moore's notion of rightness, which
is the same as Russell's 'most fortunateness," is a per-
fectly definite concept which anyone is at liberty to use.
My only objection to it is that it involves a somewhat
arbitrary cut out of a wider notion, a cut which, I think,
is made at a different point from any at which common
sense makes one. What I mean by the wider notion is
the intrinsic value of the whole universe, past, present,
and future. Moore and' Russell cut this in two at a volun-
tary decision between alternatives, and consider that
rightness is only concerned with the states of the uni-
verse, after this decision. They then further cut the
total state of the universe, after the decision, into the
part that is and the part that is not a consequence of the
decision, and they connect rightness only with the former
of these two fractions. We are not told precisely how this
second decision is made; but I think the consequences
of an act are taken to be everything in the universe
that would not. be the same, whether the act had been
done or not. There is some ambiguity in this, however.
Do you mean the same in fact or in value? If you mean
in value, you cannot safely take in less than the total
future state of the universe as the consequence of any
act, because its value will be different according as the
act. is done or not, provided that the doing or withholding
of the act makes a difference to any part of it. This is
evidently not what is meant. What is involved is only
those facts that would have been different as facts if
the action had not been done, and the value of the whole
thus formed.
From each of these two ways of cutting up the universe
there follows a result that has not, I think, been noticed.
It is that a most fortunate act may make the total state
of the universe worse than a less fortunate one. If I do
x, I may make the total future state of the universe bet-
ter than if I do y; but the Principle of Organic Unities
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 315

precludes us from asserting that, because the state of

the universe, after a moment t, is intrinsically better if
I do x than if I do y, therefore its total state, before and
after t, is better. For, if two wholes consist of a common
part and two different parts, it does not follow that that
which has the better part is as good as that which has the
worse one. So much for the results of the cut in time.
But it follows for similar reasons that the cut in the
future states of the universe makes it possible that the
total future state itself may be worse through a right act
than through a wrong one. The consequences of x may
be better than those of y; but the whole made by the
consequences of x and the rest of the future states of the
universe may be worse than the whole made by the con-
sequences of y and the other future states of the universe.
These possibilities will equally arise wherever you make
the cut. Since it seems paradoxical to say that a most
fortunate act may make the total state of the universe
worse than a less fortunate one, I shall define a most for-'
tunate act as one such that, if it be performed, the total
state of the universe will be at least as good as if any
other act open to the agent were performed. It follows
that motives will be relevant to the question whether an
act is most fortunate, for they are parts of the universe
that precede the act and make their contribution to the
total value. I think, further, that it has considerably
more claim to be called a right act than what Moore calls
a right act. By this I simply mean that, whilst it shares
with Moore's meaning of right the objection (if it be an
objection) that rightness and wrongness then depend on
unforeseeable circumstances, yet it is closer to one part
of what common sense means by rightness than Moore's
definition. Suppose we put aside the question of unfore-
seeable circumstances by considering the acts of an om-
niscient God, a conception familiar enough to common
sense. Common sense would say that all God's acts are
right and that they all produce the greatest possible good
on the whole, and it would hold that the two statements
Vol. XXIV.-No. 3. 21
316 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

are necessarily connected. But with Moore's definition

we have seen that there is no necessary connection be-
tween them, and the question could arise whether God
ought to do what is right or what makes the total state
of the universe as good as possible. Since it seems clear
that he ought to do both, it looks as if the two notions
must coincide in the case of an omniscient God at any
rate, i. e., when we leave out of account the question of
intellectual limitations. I suggest, then, that the places
where Moore and Russell make cuts in the total state of
the universe are really arbitrary and do not correspond
to any distinction involved in the judgments of common
sense, nor, so far as I can see, to any that is of ethical
importance.
I shall, therefore, define an objectively right action as
one such that, if it be done, the total value of the universe
will be at least as great as if any other possible alterna-
tive had been done by the agent. I have now to consider
how far this agrees with, and how far it differs from, the
meaning of the word involved in the judgments of com-
mon sense. It agrees, as we have seen, entirely when in-
tellectual limitations are set aside. It also allows of
agreement in the matter of motives. Common sense at-
taches a very great weight to motives, though not, I think,
an exclusive one. This is quite in accordance with our
theory. The fact that an agent does a certain act from
a certain motive may be so valuable as to outweigh the
badness of its consequences in Moore's and Russell's more
restricted sense of that word. The total state of the uni-
verse may be much better if I do an action which will
have very bad effects from a sense of duty, than if I do
an alternative which will have much better effects from
a desire to give pain. On the other hand, it is always
possible to imagine consequences so bad that no good-
ness of motive will balance them. This seems to me in
complete accord with common sense. Torquemada's ac-
tions were almost certainly wrong, in spite of the good-
ness of his motives, because of the extreme badness of
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 317

their effects in Moore's and Russell's sense; Pitt's action

in financing the early stages of the revolutionary war by
loans may have been right because of the goodness of his
motives, in spite of the considerablebadness of the results.
Thus, motives actually enter into objective rightness
on our definition, as I think they do for common sense.
But I do not maintain that this sense of rightness com-
pletely agrees with all usages of the term by common
sense, or that it furnishes a complete account of the com-
mon-sense attitude toward motives. There may be mar-
ginal cases where common sense judges an action to be
right even though it thinks it probable that, when both
motive and consequencesare taken into consideration, the
total state of the universe is worse than if the agent had
chosen another alternative. In such cases, however, I
think it would tend to say, not that the action was right,
but that it was right of the agent to do the action. Thus,
common sense might well say that Torquemada's actions
were wrong in spite of the goodness of his motives, but
that it was right for Torquemada to do them. It is not
consistent in its use of the terms, but I think it is quite
clear what is meant. To say that Torquemada's actions
were wrong does not merely mean that the consequences
apart from the motive were bad, but that the bad conse-
quences plus the good motive were bad. To say that
Torquemada was right to do them is to pass a judgment
on Torquemada'smotives in abstraction from the total re-
sults of his act. As a matter of fact, the two judgments
are likely to be made together; they much more often
agree than conflict; and they both involve motives, the
one partially and the other exclusively. It is not, there-
fore, surprising that common sense is liable to confuse
them.
Common sense calls an action right for the person who
does it, when it approves of the motive; and it will be
well worth while to consider motives for a moment. In
the sense in which I am using the term, we cannot say
with Russell that a motive is simply the cause of a de-
318 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

vision. Probably all decisions have causes, but they have

not all motives. When I say that I do an action because
I judge it to be right, I do no doubt imply that my belief
is a part of the cause of the decision; but I am not clear
that this is all that I mean by the phrase 'because of ' here.
Anyhow, motives are a special class of causes of decisions
of which the following things can be said: (1) They in-
volve beliefs in the qualities or effects of the act which
they cause to be chosen, and (2) the belief has to be quite
explicit, and has to be explicitly recognized as in some
sense the last and completing factor in the cause of the
decision. Now, there is one kind of belief to which com-
mon sense attaches very great ethical importance as a mo-
tive, vtiz.,the belief in the objective rightness of the action.
Commonsense considers it a supreme excellence of char-
acter when beliefs in the rightness of acts are habitually
causes of deciding to do the acts. And it marks its ap-
proval by saying that it is always right for a man to act
from this motive even though the action be wrong. The
excellence of this motive will indeed often make actions
done from it objectively right, in spite of the badness of
their effects; but even when the effects are too bad for
the goodness of the motive to counterbalancethem, com-
mon sense will still say that it was right for the man to
have acted as he did. And this sense of rightness is pecu-
liarly connected with this kind of motive. Thus, common
sense, as distinct from Kant, recognizes that some actions
are better when they spring from other motives or from
no motive at all; it is better, for instance, other things
being equal, to be kind to people because you like to see
them happy than because you judge that it is right to
make them happy; but, if the act is judged to be objec-
tively wrong in a particular case, it will be said to have
been right for the man who did it because he thought it
right, and not for the man who did it from a direct desire
to give happiness. We rightly prefer the action of a man
who spoils his children because he likes to see them happy
to that of one who spoils them because he is a conscien-
DOCTRINE OF CONSEQUENCES IN ETHICS. 319

tious hedonist; but we should say that the action was

right for the second and wrong for the first.
It is clear that this sense of rightness corresponds
closely with Russell's subjective rightness. But there is
one point where I think Russell makes subjective right-
ness too subjective. He says that it is subjectively right
to do what is conscientiously believed to be objectively
right, but that does not imply that to be subjectively
right a man must hold Russell's theory as to what is
meant by objective rightness. This, I think, is a mistake
due to natural modesty. If Russell's theory of objective
rightness be true, then a man is not subjectively right if
he means something else by objective rightness, and does
what he judges to be objectively right on his own defini-
tion. In fact, a man is not subjectively right unless he
holds true views as to the meaning of objective rightness.
He may be as mistaken as he likes as to whether an act
really has the necessary qualities for making it objec-
tively right, but unless there be agreement as to what
these qualities are, there is nothing in common to those
beliefs, by agreeing in which men are called subjectively
right. You cannot avoid this by saying that it is sub-
jectively right to do that for which you have a feeling of
approbation. When feeling of approbation and judgment
of objective rightness go together, this is true; but, when
they diverge, it is not even subjectively right to act for the
feeling and against the judgment. Thus, it is always the
judgment that is relevant to subjective rightness; and,
therefore, if there is to be a definite common meaning for
subjective rightness, there must be a definite common
meaning for objective rightness. Thus, Russell ought
only to call a man subjectively right in his conscientious
actions if the man attaches the same meaning as he him-
self does to objective rightness.
The upshot of the discussion, then, is as follows: (1)
I consider Moore's definition of objective rightness and
Russell's definition of a most fortunate act too narrow.
They make an arbitrary cut in the whole universe and
320 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS.

lead to paradoxes which make us think that they can-

not be a part of what common sense means by rightness.
(2) I do not think that subjective rightness has any very
close connection with the objective rightness of praise or
blame, but that it is particularly connected with those
motives which are called conscientious, taken in abstrac-
tion from the rest of the act. (3) But Russell's definition
of subjective rightness is too subjective; for any agree-
ment about subjective rightness involves an agreement
about the meaning of objective rightness. (4) There is a
special sense of rightness which applies to feelings as di-
rected to situations. (5) I doubt whether common sense
means by objective rightness what Russell does, and I
hold that his account remains obscure, partly because you
cannot talk of the probability of a proposition, and partly
because of the ambiguity of the phrase 'a probably most
fortunate act.' (6) My definition of objective rightness
agrees with common sense in making motives an actual
and important factor in it; and I think that the difficulty
about the attitude of common sense to wrong acts done
through ignorance of unforeseeable circumstances is met
by the view that it is subjectively right for the agent to do
what he judges to be most probably objectively right on
his information. (7) But finally the existence of three
logical senses of right and ought does make it just possi-
ble that there is an ethical sense of right corresponding
to Russell's objective rightness, though the difficultyas to
what precisely is meant by a probably most fortunate
act infects this possible meaning with ambiguity.
C. D. BROAD.
UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND.