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

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. ETHICS
we can only forecast them with a greater or less degree of .
accuracy. The point that I have tried to establish is that
a man who forecasted very inaccurately, so that, with
the best will in die world, he was continually performing
actions which had the most unfortunate consequences,
would not be adjudged by the popular consciousness to
be as morally virtuous a man as he who habitually performed
actions which had good consequences. It seems,
therefore, to follow that the possession of a reasonably
goodjudgment in the matter offorecasting the consequences
of one's actions forms an essential element in the popular
conception of moral virtue. On this point, I think that the
popular moral consciousness is right.
(5) Conclusion that Moral Virtue is Valued and Pursued.
Although we cannot describe moral virtue, we do nevertheless
desire it and seek to attain it. Three arguments
have been used in the foregoing discussions in support of
this conclusion. First, there is Socrates's argument 1 that
virtue is a form of knowledge, an argument which -entails
the assumption that we do all pursue what Socrates calls
"the Good", and that vice is, therefore, ignorance of what
"the Good" is. This argument was criticized on the ground
that it makes no provision for the fact that, although we
often recognize "the Good", we nevertheless perform "the
evil". 1 But the fact that we do not always or even often,
pursue " the Good " we see, does not justify us in concluding
that it has no influence over u*, even when we neglect it.
On the contrary, there is a part of us which would always
like to do what we conceive to be right, and would like
to behave in the way in which we think that we ought to
behave, although the part in question may be overborne
by desires for specific ends, whose achievement entails
conduct other than that which we think to be right.
Subsidiary arguments in favour of this conclusion which
have been mentioned in the preceding pages are, first, 1
1 See Chapter II,
Sec
pp. 48-50.
Chapter VI, pp. ftift, 913.
f See Chapter II, p. 51.