Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/30

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other actions which the agent could have done instead, if he had chosen.” I propose, therefore, instead to call these simply “all the other actions which he could have done,” or “which were possible to him.” This is, of course, inaccurate, since it is, in a sense, not true that he could have done them, if he could not have chosen them: and our theory does not pretend to say whether he ever could have chosen them. Moreover, even if it is true that he could sometimes have chosen an action which he did not choose, it is pretty certain that it is not always so; it is pretty certain that it is sometimes out of his power to choose an action, which he certainly could have done, if he had chosen. It is not true, therefore, that all the actions which he could have done, if he had chosen, are actions which, in every sense, he could have done, even if it is true that some of them are. But nevertheless I propose, for the sake of brevity, to speak of them all as actions which he could have done; and this again, I think, need lead to no confusion, if it be clearly understood that I am doing so. It must, then,