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NATURE OF THE MORAL FACULTY 993
another, while conceding that they are not isolated occur-
rences, but are related factors in a single whole, points
out that the moral sense, in approving actions which are
done from a good motive) is also bestowing its approval
upon actions which are expected to produce good con-
sequences.
This is the line which is taken by Professor Muirhead
in his book, The Elements of Ethics. So far as an action is
really planned and voluntary, the motive to perform it
must, Professor Muirhead points out, contain an idea of
the consequences expected therefrom, and, inasmuch as
it inevitably points forward to those consequences and
takes its shape and quality from them, it cannot be judged
apart from diem. When, therefore, the moral sense passes a
judgment of approval on actions done from a good motive,
it is not judging about motive or action divorced from consequences,
but includes in its scope the end towards which
the motivated action is directed, from the nature of which
end the motive takes its colour. In affirming, in short, that
the motive which leads people to torture animals is bad,
the moral sense is influenced mainly by the result of the
action in question, namely, the pain experienced by the
victims of the torture; its reasoning, presumably, is that
the motive of an act which is expected to produce pain
derives its nature from the consequences it contemplates,
and is, accordingly, a blameworthy motive.
Consequences Immediate fln^ Ultimate* Intended
Actual. At this point Intuitionism approaches very
dose to Utilitarianism. The intuitionist says that a right
action is one which is done from a good motive, and a
good motive is a motive which aims at the production of
certain desirable consequences. The utilitarian affirms
that a 1
right act is one which produces happiness and
praises, therefore, those characters or dispositions which
naturally resuh in the performance of such actions. Thus
Sidgwick (1838-1900), the most authoritative writer on
1 Sec Chapter IX, p. 293.