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

I5O
ETHICS
would fill several votaries. But I am led to believe that
the proposition is true as the result of looking up the train
in a time-table! and I come to know that it is true by being
at King's Gross and seeing the Edinburgh train leave the
platform at 10 a.m. In other words, what I mean by saying
of a thing that it is of a certain sort, by saying, for example,
of an action that it is right, is one thing; the way ia which
I come to know that the thing is of that sort, is another.
Clearly, then, the answer to the question, "what do I mean
by saying that an action is right?" is wholly different from
the answer to the question, "how am I led to recognize
that the action is right?" And the answer to the question,
"how am I led to recognize that an action is right?", is
again different from the answer to the question, "to what
standard ought I to appeal in order to establish the fact
of its tightness?"
By similar methods it could, I think, be shown that all
the groups of questions which I enunciated above are, at
least prima facie, distinct groups. At any rate, when the
subject matter is as complex and confusing as that of
ethics, everything is to be gained by treating them as if
they were distinct. Yet so to treat them is in practice ex*
ceedingly difficult. Setting out to discuss the criterion or
standard of tightness, the philosopher is disconcerted to
find that he is in feet discussing the meaning of a right
action, while enquiries into the nature of moral virtue are
apt to transform themselves into speculations upon the nature
of all kinds of good, aesthetic and intellectual as well as
moral. Ifwe are to think clearly it is essential that we should
know precisely what it is that we are trying to think about,
and this tendency on the part of the object ofone's thought
to turn into some allied, but slightly different, object, makes
thinking clearly on the subject of ethics certainly no less
difficult than thinking clearly in any other sphere.
(4) THAT THE MEANINGS ATTRIBUTED TO WORDS USBD
IN ETHICAL DISCUSSION OFTEN BEG THE QUESTIONS DIS-
CUSSED. The requirement of clear thinking also demands