Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/217

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could have done what we did not do, and that this fact is in no way inconsistent with the principle that everything has a cause. And for my part I must confess that I cannot feel certain that this may not be all that we usually mean and understand by the assertion that we have Free Will; so that those who deny that we have it are really denying (though, no doubt, often unconsciously) that we ever should have acted differently, even if we had willed differently. It has been sometimes held that this is what we mean; and I cannot find any conclusive argument to the contrary. And if it is what we mean, then it absolutely follows that we really have Free Will, and also that this fact is quite consistent with the principle that everything has a cause; and it follows also that our theory will be perfectly right, when it makes right and wrong depend on what we could have done, if we had chosen.

But, no doubt, there are many people who will say that this is not sufficient to entitle us to say that we have Free Will; and they will say this for a reason, which certainly has some plausibility, though I cannot