Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/162

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than a set precisely similar to B. And obviously all that we need to do, to show this, is to show that some sense can be given to the words “better” and “worse,” quite other than this; or, in other words, that to call a thing “good” does not always mean merely that some mental attitude is taken up towards it.

It will be best, therefore, in order to make the problem definite, to concentrate attention upon one particular usage of the word, in which it seems clearly not to mean this. And I will take as an example that usage in which we make judgments of what was called in Chapter II “intrinsic value”; that is to say, where we judge, concerning a particular state of things that it would be worth while—would be “a good thing”—that that state of things should exist, even if nothing else were to exist besides, either at the same time or afterwards. We do not, of course, so constantly make judgments of this kind, as we do some other judgments about the goodness of things. But we certainly can make them, and it seems quite clear that we mean something by them. We can consider with regard to any particular state of things whether it