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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
Of all the kinds of arguments that philosophers use to support their conclusions, the one type that I find personally to stick longest and most vividly in my mind is the verbal pictures they occasionally draw. Whether this is a result of the fact that I myself think best in pictorial terms or, as I would rather like to believe, is a tribute to the verbal artistry of the writers themselves, it remains true that, for me, the history of philosophy is punctuated with pictures, some pleasing and others perplexing. I need hardly mention Plato; with the Allegory of the Cave, the Myth of Er, the Charioteer of the Soul, and countless others he is beyond question the supreme master of the art. But other examples easily come to mind. I see Descartes seated in solitude before the fire in his dressing gown, suddenly to be surprised by a malignant demon, who appears at his shoulder to whisper insinuatingly into his ear that 2 plus 2 does not equal 4 at all. Or William James on a camping trip with friends trying to decide whether one of their number who keeps circling a tree on which a squirrel clings - and in turn circles the tree at equal speed, keeping the tree between him and his tormenter and never permitting the latter to get into a position behind his back - does or does not circle the squirrel, as he undoubtedly does circle the tree to which the squirrel clings. Or, I see G. E. Moore - and it is this picture that gives rise to the present paper - carefully contemplating two complete, independent, and quite different worlds, trying to decide which of the two is intrinsically better than the other.
page 166 note 1 Moore, G. E., Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903) pp. 83–4.Google Scholar
page 170 note 1 In the case of Moore a further complication arises, in the distinction he makes between value as ‘objective’ and value as ‘intrinsic’. Cf. Moore, G. E., ‘The Conception of Intrinsic Value’, in Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1922) pp. 253–75.Google Scholar Since recognition of this distinction would complicate my argument unnecessarily, I shall disregard it.
page 171 note 1 Leviathan, bk 1, ch. vi.Google Scholar
page 171 note 2 Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731) bk 1, ch. ii.Google Scholar
page 173 note 1 Although we may not always be successful in discovering the consequences that will be best. However, this is a problem of human finitude, which does not significantly affect the cogency of the utilitarians' line of reasoning.
page 174 note 1 I italicise ‘objects’ here because I am using the term very broadly, to refer to anything that might possess value.
page 174 note 2 Moore, , p. 147.Google Scholar
page 176 note 1 It might be noted in passing that many moral philosophers would admit that, even though a certain act would produce better consequences than any other act a person could do, it is not true that the person has a duty to perform that act. It would be beyond the scope of this paper to discuss their reasons for taking such a stand but surely it can be said that their view is a logically possible one, which it could not be if the utilitarians' deductive argument were cogent.