Page:Ethics (Moore 1912).djvu/52

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the producing of this result does in fact happen to coincide with the producing of other results. They would say that though perhaps, in fact, actual cases never occur in which it is or would be wrong to do an action, which produces a maximum of pleasure, it is easy to imagine cases in which it would be wrong. If, for instance, we had to choose between creating a Universe, in which all the inhabitants were capable only of the lowest sensual pleasures, and another in which they were capable of the highest intellectual and æsthetic ones, it would, they would say, plainly be our duty to create the latter rather than the former, even though the mere quantity of pleasure enjoyed in it were rather less than in the former, and still more so if the quantities were equal. Or, to put it shortly, they would say that a world of men is preferable to a world of pigs, even though the pigs might enjoy as much or more pleasure than a world of men. And this is what our theory goes on to deny, when it says that voluntary actions are right, because they produce a maximum of pleasure. It implies, by saying this, that actions which