action whose total effects will be A rather than one whose total effects will be B, it must always be the duty of any being to do an action whose total effects will be precisely similar to A rather than one whose total effects will be precisely similar to B, if he has to choose between them.
I tried to show, then, first of all, that these two principles may be successfully defended against this first line of attack—the line of attack which consists in saying (to put it shortly) that “right” and “good” are merely subjective predicates. But we found next that even those who admit and insist (as many do) that “right” and “intrinsically good” are not subjective predicates, may yet attack the second principle on another ground. For this second principle implies that the question whether an action is right or wrong must always depend upon its actual consequences; and this view is very commonly disputed on one or other of three grounds, namely, (1) that it sometimes depends merely on the intrinsic nature of the action, or, in other words, that certain
