GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

146
ETHICS
to do, or the same as the action which we ought to do,
whether we think we Ought to or not? Can we, in other
words, be mistaken in our judgment, when we think we
ought to do a particular action, so that, although we may
have thought quite sincerely that we ought to do X,
what we realty ought to have done was Y, because Y was
right and X was not? When in such cases we speak of
what we really ought to have done, using such an
expression as "it wias right to do Y although, having regard
to the information available at the time, you could not
have acted otherwise than you did, when you chose to
do X," what is the meaning of the word "right"? Is a
"right" action one which is right independently of what
the agent, or any person, or any body of persons, thinks
or think about it? Or is "right** only the name we give
to the sort of action of which a particular society, or a
particular civilization, or mankind in general, happens to
approve?
(5) How are we to distinguish a right action from a
reference to some intrinsic
wrong one? Is it, for example, by
characteristic which right actions possess, but which wrong
ones do not, or by reference to the consequences of the
actions? If the latter, since the consequences of any action
are various and illimitable, which consequences ought we
to take into account? Is it, for example, by reference to
its happiness-promoting properties that the rightness of an
action is to be judged? If so, whose happiness* ought we
to take into account in passing our judgment? That of the
agent, of certain particular persons, or of all persons?
Should we, that is to say, regard the happiness of certain
persons, namely, those standing in a close relation to the
agent, as being of special relevance when we are considering
the consequences of a right action? Or is the happiness of
every person entitled to be considered as of equal importance?
The above are only some of the questions with which
writers on ethics concern themselves.