Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/241

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thing as to say that this remainder actually has no intrinsic goodness at all, but always is either positively bad or indifferent. Let us call the pleasure which such a whole contains, A, and the whole remainder, whatever it may be, B. We are then saying that the whole A + B is intrinsically good, but that B is not intrinsically good at all. Surely it seems to follow that the intrinsic value of A + B cannot possibly be greater than that of A by itself? How, it may be asked, could it possibly be otherwise? How, by adding to A something, namely B, which has no intrinsic goodness at all, could we possibly get a whole which has more intrinsic value than A? It may naturally seem to be self-evident that we could not. But, if so, then it absolutely follows that we can never increase the value of any whole whatever except by adding pleasure to it: we may, of course, lessen its value, by adding other things, e.g. by adding pain; but we can never increase it except by adding pleasure.

Now from this it does not, of course, follow strictly that the intrinsic value of a