 Chapter 6 Part 2 of Principia Ethica. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Fredrik Karlsson. Principia Ethica by G.E. Moore. 116. 3. Connected with the distinction just made between object in the sense of qualities, actually before the mind, and object in the sense of the whole thing which possesses the qualities actually before the mind, is another distinction of the utmost importance for a correct analysis of the constituents necessary to a valuable whole. It is commonly and rightly thought that to see beauty in a thing which has no beauty is in some way inferior to seeing beauty in that which really has it. But under this single description of seeing beauty in that which has no beauty, two very different facts and facts of very different value may be included. We may mean either the attribution to an object of really beautiful qualities which it does not possess, or the feeling towards qualities which the object does possess but which are in reality not beautiful, an emotion which is appropriate only to qualities really beautiful. Both these facts are a very frequent occurrence and in most instances of emotion both no doubt occur together, but they are obviously quite distinct and the distinction is of the utmost importance for a correct estimate of values. The former may be called an error of judgment and the latter an error of taste. But it is important to observe that the error of taste commonly involves a false judgment of value, whereas the error of judgment is merely a false judgment of fact. Now the case which I have called an error of taste, namely whether actual qualities we admire, whether possessed by the object or not or ugly, can in any case have no value except such as may belong to the emotion by itself. And in most, if not in all cases, it is a considerable positive evil. In this sense then it is undoubtedly right to think that seeing beauty in a thing which has no beauty is inferior in value to seeing beauty where beauty really is. But the other case is much more difficult. In this case there is present all that I have here to mentioned as necessary to constitute a great positive good. There is a cognition of qualities really beautiful together with an appropriate emotion towards these qualities. There can therefore be no doubt that we have here a great positive good. But there is present also something else, namely a belief that these beautiful qualities exist and that they exist in a certain relation to other things, namely to some properties of the object to which we attribute these qualities and further the object of this belief is false. And we may ask with regard to the whole thus constituted whether the presence of the belief and the fact that what is believed is false make any difference to its value. We thus get three different cases of which it is very important to determine the relative values where both the cognition of beautiful qualities and the appropriate emotion are present, we may also have either one, a belief in the existence of these qualities of which the object that is that they exist is true. Or two, a mere cognition without belief when it is a true, b false, that the object of the cognition that is the beautiful qualities exists. Or three, a belief in the existence of the beautiful qualities when they do not exist. The importance of these cases arises from the fact that the second defines the pleasures of imagination, including a great part of the appreciation of those works of art which are representative, whereas the first contrasts with these the appreciation of what is beautiful in nature and the human affections. The third on the other hand is contrasted with both in that it is chiefly exemplified in what is called misdirected affection and it is possible also that the love of God in the case of a believer should fall under this head. One hundred and seventeen. Now all these three cases as I've said have something in common, namely that in them all we have a cognition of really beautiful qualities together with an appropriate emotion towards those qualities. I think therefore it cannot be doubted nor is it commonly doubted that all three include great positive goods. They are all things of which we feel convinced that they are worth having for their own sakes. And I think that the value of the second in either of its two subdivisions is precisely the same as the value of the element common to all three. In other words, in the case of purely imaginative appreciations we have merely the cognition of really beautiful qualities together with the appropriate emotion. And the question whether the object cognized exists or not seems here where there is no belief either in its existence or in its non-existence to make absolutely no difference to the value of the total state. But it seems to me that the two other cases do differ in intrinsic value both from the one and from one another, even though the object cognized and the appropriate emotion should be identical in all three cases. I think that the additional presence of a belief in the reality of the object makes the total state much better if their belief is true and worse if the belief is false. In short, where there is belief in the sense in which we do believe in the existence of nature and horses and do not believe in the existence of an ideal landscape and unicorns the truth of what is believed does make a great difference to the value of the organic whole. If this be the case we shall have vindicated the belief that knowledge in the ordinary sense as distinguished on the one hand from belief in what is false and on the other from the mere awareness of what is true does contribute towards intrinsic value, that at least in some cases its presence as a part makes a whole more valuable than it could have been without. Now I think there can be no doubt that we do judge that there is a difference of value such as I have indicated between the three cases in question. We do think that the emotional contemplation of a natural scene supposing its qualities equally beautiful is in some way a better state of things than that of a painted landscape. We think that the world would be improved if we could substitute for the best works of representative art real objects equally beautiful. And similarly we regard a misdirected affection or admiration even where the error involved is a mere error of judgment and not an error of taste as in some way unfortunate. Further, those at least who have a strong respect for truth are inclined to think that a merely poetical contemplation of the kingdom of heaven would be superior to that of the religious believer if, if it were the case, that the kingdom of heaven does not and will not really exist. Most persons on a sober reflective judgment would feel some hesitation even in preferring the felicity of a madman which means that the world was ideal to the condition either of a poet imagining an ideal world or of themselves enjoying and appreciating the lesser goods which do and will exist. But in order to assure ourselves that these judgments are really judgments of intrinsic value upon the question before us and to satisfy ourselves that they are correct, it is necessary clearly to distinguish our question from two others which have a very important bearing upon our total judgment of the cases in question. 118. In the first place, A, it is plain that where we believe the question whether we believe is true or false will generally have a most important bearing upon the value of our belief as a means. Where we believe, we are apt to act upon our belief in a way in which we do not act upon our cognition of the events in a novel. The truth of what we believe is therefore very important as preventing the pains of disappointment and still more serious consequences. And it might be thought that a misdirected attachment was unfortunate solely for this reason, that it leads us to count upon results which the real nature of its object is not of a kind to ensure. So too the love of God where as usual it includes the belief that he will annex to certain actions consequences either in his life or the next which the cause of nature gives no reason to expect may lead the believer to perform actions of which the actual consequences supposing no such God to exist may be much worse than he might otherwise have affected. And it might be thought that this was the sole reason as it is a sufficient one why we should hesitate to encourage the love of God in the absence of any proof that he exists. And similarly it may be thought that the only reason why beauty in nature should be held superior to an equally beautiful landscape or imagination is that its existence would ensure greater permanence and frequency in our emotional contemplation of that beauty. It is indeed certain that the chief importance of most knowledge of the truth of most of the things which we believe does in this world consist in its extrinsic advantages. It is immediately valuable as a means. And secondly be. It may be the case that the existence of that which we contemplate is itself a great positive good so that for this reason alone the state of things described by saying that the object of our motion really exists would be intrinsically superior to that in which it did not. This reason for superiority is undoubtedly of great importance in the case of human affections where the object of our admiration is the mental qualities of an admirable person. For that two such admirable persons should exist is greatly better than that there should be only one. And it would also discriminate the admiration of an inanimate nature from that of its representations in art insofar as we may allow a small intrinsic value to the existence of a beautiful object apart from any contemplation of it. But it is to be noticed that this reason would not account for any difference in value between the cases where the truth was believed and that in which it was merely cognized without either belief or disbelief. In other words, so far as this reason goes the difference between the two subdivisions of our second class, that of imaginative contemplation would be as great as between our first class and the second subdivision of our second. The superiority of the mere cognition of a beautiful object when that object also happened to exist over the same cognition when the object did not exist would, on this account, be as great as that of the knowledge of a beautiful object of the mere imagination of it. These two reasons for discriminating between the value of the three cases we are considering must, I say, be carefully distinguished from that of which I am now questioning the validity if we are to obtain a correct answer concerning this letter. The question I am putting is this. Whether the whole constituted by the fact that there is an emotional contemplation of a beautiful object which is both believed to be and is real does not derive some of its value from the fact that the object is real. I am asking whether the value of this whole, as a whole, is not greater than that of those which differ from it either by the absence of belief with or without truth or belief being present by the mere absence of truth. I am not asking either whether it is not superior to them as a means which it certainly is nor whether it may contain a more valuable part namely the existence of the object in question. My question is solely whether the existence of its object does not constitute an addition to the value of the whole quite distinct from the addition constituted by the fact that this whole does contain a valuable part. If now we put this question I cannot avoid thinking that it should receive an affirmative answer. We can put it clearly by the method of isolation and the sole decision must rest with our reflective judgment upon it as thus clearly put. We can guard against the bias produced by a consideration of value as a means by supposing the case of an illusion as complete and permanent as illusions in this world never can be. We can imagine the case of a single person showing throughout eternity the contemplation of scenery as beautiful and intercourse with persons as admirable as can be imagined while yet the whole of the objects of this cognition are absolutely unreal. I think we should definitely pronounce the existence of a universe which consisted solely of such a person to be greatly inferior in value to one in which the objects in the existence of which he believes did really exist just as he believes them to do and that it would be thus inferior not only because it would lack the goods which consist in the existence of the objects in question but also merely because his belief would be false. That it would be inferior for this reason alone follows if we admit what also appears to be certain that the case of a person merely imagining without believing the beautiful objects in question would, although these objects really existed, be yet inferior to that of the person who also believed in their existence. For here all the additional good which consist in the existence of the objects is present and yet there still seems to be a great difference in value between this object and that in which the existence is believed. But I think that my conclusion may perhaps be exhibited in a more convincing light by the following considerations. 1. It does not seem to me that the small degree of value which we may allow to the existence of beautiful inanimate objects is nearly equal in amount to the difference which I feel that there is between the appreciation accompanied by belief of such objects when they really exist and the purely imaginative appreciation of them when they do not exist. This inequality is more difficult to verify where the object is an admirable person since a great value must be allowed to his existence. But yet I think it is not paradoxical to maintain that the superiority of reciprocal affection where both objects are worthy and both exist over an unreciprocated affection where both are worthy but one does not exist does not lie solely in the fact that in the former case there are two good things instead of one but also in the fact that each is such as the other believes him to be. 2. It seems to me that the important contribution to value made by true belief may be very plainly seen in the following case. Supposed that where the object of affection does really exist and is believed to do so but that there enters into the case this error of fact that the qualities loved are yet not the same which really do exist. This state of things is easily imagined and I think we cannot avoid pronouncing that although both persons here exist it is yet no so satisfactory as where the very person loved and believed to exist is also the one which actually does exist. 120 If all this be so we have in this third section added to our former results the third result that the true belief in the reality of an object greatly increases the value of many valuable holes. Just as in sections 1 and 2 it was maintained that aesthetic and affectionate emotions had little or no value apart from the cognition of appropriate objects and that the cognition of these objects had little or no value apart from the appropriate emotion so that the hole in which both were combined had a value great in excess of the sum of the values of its parts so according to this section if there be added to these holes a true belief in the reality of the object the new hole thus formed has a value greatly in excess of the sum obtained by adding the value of the true belief considered in itself to that of our original holes. This new case only differs from the former in this that whereas the true belief by itself has quite as little value as either of the two other constituents taking singly yet they taken together seem to form a whole of very great value whereas this is not the case with the two holes which might be formed by adding the true belief to either of the others. The importance of the result of this section seems to lie mainly in two of its consequences one that it affords some justification for the immense intrinsic value which seems to be commonly attributed to the mere knowledge of some truths and which was expressly attributed to some kinds of knowledge by Plato and Aristotle. Perfect knowledge has indeed competed with perfect love for the position of the ideal. If the results of this section are correct it appears that knowledge though having little or no value by itself is an absolutely essential constituent of the highest goods and contributes immensely to their value and it appears that this function may be performed not only by that case of knowledge which we have chiefly considered namely knowledge of the reality of the beautiful object cognized but also by knowledge of the numerical identity of this object with which really exists and by the knowledge that the existence of that object is truly good. That knowledge which is directly concerned with the nature of the constituents of a beautiful object would seem capable of adding greatly to the value of the contemplation of that object although by itself such knowledge would have no value at all. And two the second important consequence which follows from this section is that the presence of true belief may in spite of a great inferiority in the value of the emotion and the beauty of its objects constitute with them a whole equal or superior in value to holes in which the emotion and beauty are superior but in which a true belief is wanting or a false belief present. In this way we may justify the attribution of equal or superior value to an appreciation of an inferior real object as compared with the appreciation of a greatly superior object which is a mere creature of the imagination. Thus a just appreciation of nature and of real persons may maintain its equality when an equally just appreciation of the products of artistic imagination in spite of much greater beauty in the letter. And similarly though God may be admitted to be a more perfect object than any actual human being the love of God may yet be inferior to human love if God does not exist. 121 4 In order to complete the discussion of this first class of goods goods which have an essential reference to beautiful objects it would be necessary to attempt a classification and comparative valuation of all the different forms of beauty a task which properly belongs to the study called aesthetics. I do not however propose to attempt any part of this task it must only be understood that I intend to include among the essential constituents of the goods I have been discussing every form and variety of beautiful object if only it be truly beautiful and if this be understood. I think it may be seen that the consensus of opinion with regard to what is positively beautiful and what is positively ugly and even with regard to great differences in degree of beauty and to allow us a hope that we need not greatly in our judgments of good and evil. In anything which is thought beautiful by any considerable number of persons there is probably some beautiful quality and differences of opinion seem to be far more often due to exclusive attention on the part of different persons to different qualities in the same object than to the positive error of supposing a quality that is ugly to be really beautiful. When an object which something beautiful is denied to be so by others the truth is usually that it lacks some beautiful quality or is deformed by some ugly one which engage the exclusive attention of the critics. I may however state two general principles closely connected with the results of this chapter the recognition of which would seem to be of great importance for the investigation of what things are truly beautiful. The first of these is one, a definition of beauty of what is meant by saying that a thing is truly beautiful. The naturalistic fallacy has been quite as commonly committed with regard to beauty as with regard to good. Its use has introduced as many errors into aesthetics as into ethics. It has been even more commonly supposed that the beautiful may be defined as that which produces certain effects upon our feelings and the conclusion which follows this namely that judgments of taste are merely subjective. That precisely the same thing may according to circumstances be both beautiful and not beautiful has very frequently been drawn. The conclusions of this chapter suggest a definition of beauty which may partially explain and entirely remove the difficulties which have led to this error. It appears probable that the beautiful should be defined as that of which the admiring contemplation is good in itself. That is to say, to assert that a thing is beautiful is to assert that the cognition of it is an essential element in one of the intrinsically valuable holes we have been discussing. So that the question whether it is truly beautiful or not depends upon the objective question whether the whole in question is or is not truly good does not depend upon the question whether it would or would not excite particular feelings in particular persons. This definition has the double recommendation that it accounts both for the apparent connection between goodness and beauty and for the no less apparent difference between these two conceptions. It appears at first sight to be a strange coincidence that there should be two different objective predicates of value good and beautiful which are nevertheless so related to one another that whatever is beautiful is also good. But if our definition be correct the strangeness disappears since it leaves only one unanalyseable predicate of value namely good, while beautiful though not identical with is to be defined by reference to this being thus at the same time different from and necessarily connected with it. In short on this view to say that a thing is beautiful is to say not indeed that it is itself good but that it is a necessary element in something which is. To prove that a thing is truly beautiful is to prove that a whole to which it appears a particular relation as a part is truly good and in this way we should explain the immense predominance among objects commonly considered beautiful of material objects objects of the external senses since these objects though themselves having as has been said little or no intrinsic value are yet essential constituents in the largest groups of holes which have intrinsic value. These holes themselves may be and are also beautiful but the comparative rarity with which we regard them as themselves objects of contemplation seems sufficient to explain the association of beauty with external objects. And secondly to it is to be observed that beautiful objects of themselves for the most part organic unities in this sense that they are holes of great complexity such that the contemplation of any part by itself may have no value and yet that unless the contemplation of the whole includes the contemplation of that part it will lose in value this it follows that there can be no single criterion of beauty it will never be true to say this object owes its beauty solely to the presence of this characteristic nor yet that wherever this characteristic is present the object must be beautiful all that can be true is that certain objects are beautiful because they have certain characteristics in the sense that they would not be beautiful unless they had them it would be possible to find that certain characteristics are more or less universally present in all beautiful objects and are in this sense more or less important conditions of beauty but it is important to observe that the very qualities which differentiate one beautiful object from all others are if the object be truly beautiful as essential to its beauty as those which it has in common with ever so many others the object would no more have the beauty of beautiful qualities than without those that are generic and the generic qualities by themselves would fail as completely to give beauty as those which are specific End of Chapter 6 Part 2 Chapter 6 Part 3 of Principia Ethica this Librivox recording is in the public domain recording by Fredrik Karlsson Principia Ethica by G. E. Moore 122 2 It will be remembered that I began this survey of great unmixed goods by dividing all the greatest goods we know into the two classes of aesthetic enjoyments on the one hand and the pleasures of human intercourse or of personal affection on the other I postponed the consideration of the latter on the ground that they presented additional complications in what this additional complication consist will now be evident and I have already been obliged to take account of it in discussing the contribution to value made by true belief. It consists in the fact that in the case of personal affection the object itself is not merely beautiful while possessed of little or no intrinsic value but is itself in part at least of great intrinsic value all the constituents which we have found to be necessary to the most valuable aesthetic enjoyments namely appropriate emotion cognition of truly beautiful qualities and true belief are equally necessary here but here we have the additional fact that the object must be not only truly beautiful but also truly good in a high degree it is evident that this additional complication only occurs insofar as there is included in the object of personal affection some of the mental qualities of the person towards whom the affection is felt and I think it may be admitted that wherever the affection is most valuable the appreciation of mental qualities must form a large part of it and that the presence of this part makes the whole far more valuable than it could have been without it but it seems very doubtful whether this appreciation by itself can possess as much value as the whole in which it is combined with an appreciation of the appropriate corporeal expression of the mental qualities in question it is certain that in all actual cases of valuable affection the bodily expressions of character whether by looks, by words or by actions do form a part of the object towards which the affection is felt and that the fact of their inclusion appears to heighten the value of the whole state it is indeed very difficult to imagine what the cognition of mental qualities alone accompanied by any corporeal expression would be like and insofar as we succeed in making this abstraction the whole considered certainly appears to have less value I therefore conclude that the importance of an admiration of admirable mental qualities lies chiefly in the immense superiority of the whole in which it forms a part to one in which it is absent and not in any high degree of intrinsic value which it possesses by itself it even appears to be doubtful whether in itself it possesses so much value as the appreciation of mere corporeal beauty undoubtedly does possess that is to say whether the appreciation of what has intrinsic value is so valuable as the appreciation of what is merely beautiful but further, if we consider the nature of admirable mental qualities by themselves it appears that a proper appreciation of them involves a reference to purely material beauty in yet another way admirable mental qualities do, if our previous conclusions are correct consist very largely in an emotional contemplation of beautiful objects and hence the appreciation of them will consist essentially in the contemplation of such contemplation it is true that the most valuable appreciation of persons appear to be that which consist in the appreciation of their appreciation of other persons but even here a reference to material beauty appears to be involved both in respect of the fact that what is appreciated in the last instance may be the contemplation of what is merely beautiful and in respect of the fact that the most valuable appreciation of a person appears to include an appreciation of this corporeal expression though therefore we may admit that the appreciation of a persons attitude towards other persons or to take one instance is far the most valuable good we know and far more valuable that the mere love of beauty yet we can only admit this if the first be understood to include the latter in various degrees of directness with regard to the question what are the mental qualities of which the cognition is essential to the value of human intercourse it is plain that they include in the first place all those varieties of aesthetic appreciation which formed our first class of goods they include therefore a great variety of different emotions each of which is appropriate to some different kind of beauty but we must now add to these the whole range of emotions which are appropriate to persons which are different from those which are appropriate to mere corporeal beauty it must also be remembered that just as these emotions have little value in themselves the mind in which they exist may have its value greatly heightened or may entirely lose it and become positively evil in a great degree according as the cognitions accompanying the emotions are appropriate or inappropriate so too the appreciation of these emotions though it may have some value in itself may yet form part of a whole which has far greater value or no value at all according as it is or is not accompanied by a appreciation of the appropriateness of the emotions to their objects it is obvious therefore that the study of what is valuable in human intercourse is a study of immense complexity and that there may be much human intercourse which has little or no value or is positively bad yet here too as with the question what is beautiful there seems no reason to doubt that a reflective judgment will in the main decide correctly both what are positive goods and even to any great differences in value between these goods in particular it may be remarked that the emotions of which the contemplation is essential to the greatest values and which are also themselves appropriately excited by such contemplation appear to be those which are commonly most highly prized on the name of affection 123 I have now completed my examination into the nature of those great positive goods which do not appear to include among their constituents anything positively evil or ugly though they include much which is in itself indifferent and I wish to point out certain conclusions which appear to follow with regard to the nature of the summum bonum or that state of things which would be the most perfect we can conceive those idealistic philosophers whose views agree most closely were those here advocated in that they deny pleasure to be the so good and regard what is completely good as having some complexity have usually represented a purely spiritual state of existence as the ideal regarding matters essentially imperfect if not positively evil they have concluded that the total absence of all material properties is necessary to a state of perfection now according to what has been said this view would be correct so far as it asserts that any great good must be mental and so far as it asserts that the purely material existence by itself can have little or no value the superiority of the spiritual over the material has in a sense been amply vindicated but it does not follow from the superiority that a perfect state of things must be one from which all material properties are rigidly excluded on the contrary if our conclusions are correct it would seem to be the case that a state of things in which they are included must be vastly better than any conceivable state in which they were absent in order to see that this is so the chief thing necessary to be considered is exactly what it is which we declare to be good when we declare that the appreciation of beauty in art and nature is so that this appreciation is good the philosophers in question do not for the most part deny but if we admit it then we should remember Butler's maxim that everything is what it is and not another thing I have tried to show and I think it is too evident to be disputed that such appreciation is an organic unity a complex whole and that in its most undoubted instances part of what is included in this whole is a cognition of material qualities and particularly of a vast variety of what are called secondary qualities if then it is this whole which we know to be good and not another thing then we know that material qualities even though they be perfectly worthless in themselves are yet essential constituents of what is far from worthless what we know to be valuable is the apprehension of just these qualities and not of any others and if we propose to subtract them from it then what we have left is not that which we know to have value but something else and it must be noticed that this conclusion holds even if my contention that a true belief in the existence of these qualities adds to the value of the whole in which it is concluded be disputed we should then indeed be entitled to assert that the existence of a material world is wholly immaterial to perfection but the fact that what we knew to be good was a cognition of material qualities though purely imaginary would still remain it must then be admitted on pain of self-contradiction on pain of holding that things are not what they are but something else that a world from which material qualities were wholly banished would be a world which lacked many if not all those things which we know most certainly to be great goods that it might nevertheless be a far better world than one which retained these goods I have already admitted but in order to show that any such world would be thus better it would be necessary to show that the retention of these things though good in themselves impaired in a more than equal degree the value of some whole to which they might belong and the task of showing this has certainly never been attempted until it be performed we are entitled to assert that material qualities are a necessary constituent of the ideal that though something utterly unknown might be better than any world containing them or any other good we know yet we have no reason to suppose that anything whatever would be better than a state of things in which they were included to deny and exclude a matter to deny and exclude the best we know that a thing may retain its value while losing some of its qualities is utterly untrue all that is true is that the changed thing may have more value than or as much value as that of which the qualities have been lost what I contend is that nothing which we know to be good and which contains no material qualities has such great value that we can declare that by itself to be superior to the value which would be performed by the addition to it of an appreciation of material qualities that a purely spiritual good may be the best of single things I am not much concerned to dispute although in which has been said with regard to the nature of personal affection I have given reason for doubting it but that by adding to it some appreciation of material qualities though perhaps inferior by itself is certainly a great positive good we should obtain a greater sum of value which no corresponding decrease in the value of the whole as a whole could counterbalance this I maintain we have certainly no reason to doubt 124 in order to complete this discussion of the main principles involved in the determination of intrinsic value the chief remaining topics necessary to be treated appear to be two the first of these is the nature of great intrinsic evils including what I may call mixed evils that is to say those evil holds which nevertheless contain as essential elements something positively good or beautiful and the second is the nature of what I may similarly called mixed goods that is to say those which though intrinsically good as holds nevertheless contain as essential elements something positively evil or ugly it will greatly facilitate this discussion if I may be understood throughout to use the terms beautiful and ugly not necessarily with reference to things of the kind which most naturally occur to us as instances of what is beautiful and ugly but in accordance with my proposed definition of beauty thus I shall use the word beautiful to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is good in itself and ugly to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is evil in itself one with regard then to great positive evils I think it is evident that if we take all due precautions to discover precisely what those things are of which if they existed absolutely by themselves we should judge the existence to be a great evil we shall find most of them to be organic unities of exactly the same nature as those which are the greatest positive goods that is to say they are cognitions of some object accompanied by some emotion just as neither a cognition nor an emotion by itself appeared capable of being greatly good so such a whole by itself appears capable of being a great evil with regard to the third element which was discussed as capable of adding greatly to the value of a good that is to say a good being a good being a good being a good being a good being a good being a good being greatly to the value of a good namely true belief it will appear that it has different relations towards different kinds of evils in some cases the addition of true belief to a positive evil seems to constitute a far worse evil but in other cases it is not apparent that it makes any difference the greatest positive evils may be divided in the following three classes 125 1 the first class consists of those evils which seems always to include an enjoyment or admiring contemplation of things which are themselves either evil or ugly that is to say these evils are characterized by the fact that they include precisely the same emotion which is also essential to the greatest unmixed goods from which they are differentiated by the fact that this emotion is towards an inappropriate object insofar as this emotion is either a slight good in itself or a slightly beautiful object these evils would therefore be cases of what I have called mixed evils but as I have already said it seems very doubtful whether an emotion completely isolated from its object has either value or beauty it certainly has not much of either it is however important to observe that the very same emotions which are often loosely talked of as the greatest or the only goods may be essential constituents of the very worst holes that according to the nature of the cognition which accompanies them they may be conditions either of the greatest good or of the greatest evil in order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class I may take two instances cruelty and lasciviousness these are great intrinsic evils we may I think easily assure ourselves by imagining the state of a man whose mind is solely occupied by either of these passions in their worst form if we then consider what judgment we should pass upon a universe which consisted solely of minds thus occupied without the smallest hope that there would ever exist in its smallest consciousness of any object other than those proper to these passions or any feeling directed to any such object I think we cannot avoid the conclusion that the existence of such a universe would be a far worse evil than the existence of none at all but if this be so it follows that these two vicious states are not only as is commonly admitted bad as means but also bad in themselves and that they involve in their nature that complication of elements which I have called a love of what is evil or ugly is I think no less plain with regard to the pleasures of lust the nature of the cognition by the presence of which they are to be defined is somewhat difficult to analyze but it appears to include both cognitions of organic sensations and perceptions of states of the body of which the enjoyment is certainly an evil in itself so far as these are concerned lasciviousness would then include in its essence an admiring contemplation of what is ugly but certainly one of its commonest ingredients in its worst forms is enjoyment of the same state of mind in other people and in this case it would therefore also include a love of what is evil with regard to cruelty it is easy to see an enjoyment in other people as essential to it and as we shall see when we come to consider pain this is certainly a love of evil while in so far as it also includes a delight in the bodily signs of agony it would also comprehend a love of what is ugly in both cases it should be observed the evil of the state is heightened not only by an increase in the evil or ugliness of the object but by an increase in the enjoyment it might be objected in the case of cruelty that our disapproval of it even in the isolated case opposed where no considerations of its badness as a means could influence us may yet be really directed to the pain of the persons which it takes delight in contemplating this objection may be met in the first place by the remark that it entirely fails to explain the judgment which yet I think no one on reflection will be able to avoid making that even though the amount of pain contemplated be the same yet the greater the delight in its contemplation the worse the state of things but it may also I think be met by notice of a fact which we were unable to urge in considering the similar possibility with regard to goods namely the possibility that the reason why we attribute greater value to a worthy affection for a real person is that we take into account the additional good consisting in the existence of that person we may I think urge in the case of cruelty that its intrinsic odiousness is equally great whether the pain contemplated really exists or is purely imaginary I at least am unable to distinguish that in this case the presence of true belief makes any difference to the intrinsic view of the whole considered although it undoubtedly may make a great difference to its value as a means and so also with regard to other evils of this class I am unable to see that a true belief in the existence of their objects makes any difference in the degree of their positivity merits on the other hand the presence of another class of beliefs seem to make a considerable difference when we enjoy what is evil or ugly in spite of our knowledge that it is so the state of things seems considerable worse than if we made no judgment at all as to the objects value and the same seems also strangely enough to be the case when we make a false judgment of a value when we admire what is ugly or evil believing that it is beautiful and good this belief seems also to enhance the intrinsic wildness of our condition it must of course be understood that in both these cases the judgment in question is merely what I have called the judgment of taste that is to say it is concerned with the worth of the qualities actually cognized and not with the worth of object to which those qualities may be rightly or wrongly attributed finally it should be mentioned that evils of this class beside that emotional element namely enjoyment and admiration which they share with great mixed goods appear always also to include some specific emotion which does not enter in the same way into the constitution of any good the presence of this specific emotion seems certainly to enhance the badness of the whole though it is not plain that by itself it would be either evil or ugly 126 2 the second class of great evils are undoubtedly mixed evils but I treat them next because in a certain respect they appear to be the converse of the class last considered just as it is essential to this last class that they should include an emotion appropriate to the cognition of what is good or beautiful but directed to an inappropriate object so to this second class it is essential that they should include a cognition of what is good or beautiful but accompanied by an inappropriate emotion in short just as the last class may be described as cases of the love of what is evil or ugly so this class may be described as cases of the hatred of what is good or beautiful with regard to these evils it should be remarked first that the vices of hatred envy and contempt where these vices are evil in themselves appear to be instances of them and that they are frequently accompanied by evils of the first class for example where a delight is felt in the pain of a good person where they are thus accompanied the whole thus formed is undoubtedly worse than if either existed singly and secondly that in their case a true belief in the existence of the good or beautiful object which is hated does appear to enhance the badness of the whole in which it is present undoubtedly also in our first class the presence of a true belief as to the value of the objects contemplated increases the evil but contrary to what was the case in our first class a false judgment of value appears to lessen it 127 3 the third class of great positive evils appear to be the class of pains with regard to these it should first be remarked that as in the case of pleasure it is not pain itself but only the consciousness of pain towards which our judgments of value are directed just in chapter 3 it was said that pleasure however intense which no one felt would be no good at all so it appears that pain however intense of which there was no consciousness would be no evil at all it is therefore only the consciousness of intense pain which can be maintained to be a great evil but that this by itself may be a great evil I cannot avoid thinking the case of pain thus seems to differ from that of pleasure for the mere consciousness of pleasure however intense does not by itself appear to be a great good even if it has some slight intrinsic value in short pain if we understand by this expression the consciousness of pain appears to be a far worse evil than pleasure is a good but if this be so then pain must be admitted to be an exception from the rule which seems to hold both of all other great evils and of all great goods namely that they are all organic unities to which both the cognition of an object and an emotion directed towards that object are essential in the case of pain and on pain alone it seems to be true that a mere cognition by itself may be a great evil it is indeed an organic unity since it evolves both the cognition and the object neither of which by themselves has either merit or demerit but it is a less complex organic unity than any other great evil and than any great good both in respect of the fact that it does not preside the cognition and emotion directed towards that object and also in respect of the fact that the object may here be absolutely simple whereas in most if not all other cases the object itself is highly complex this want of analogy between the relation of pain to intrinsic evil and of pleasure to intrinsic good seems also to be exhibited in a second respect not only is it the case that consciousness of intense pain is by itself a great evil whereas consciousness of intense pleasure is by itself no great good but also the converse difference appears to hold of the contribution which they make to the value of the whole when they are combined respectively with another great evil or with a greater good that is to say the presence of pleasure though not in proportion to its intensity does appear to enhance the whole in which it is combined with any of the great unmixed goods which we have considered it might even be maintained that it is only goods in which some pleasures is included that possess any great value it is certain at all events that the presence of pleasure makes a contribution to the value of good holds greatly in excess of its own intrinsic value on the contrary if a feeling of pain be combined with the evil states of mind which we have been considering the difference which its presence makes to the value of the whole as a whole seems to be rather for the better than the worse in any case the only additional evil which it produces is that which it by itself intrinsically constitutes thus whereas pain is in itself a great evil that makes no addition to the badness of the whole which is combined with some other bad thing except that which consists in its own intrinsic badness pleasure conversely is not in itself a great good but does make a great addition to the goodness of a whole in which it is combined with a good thing quite apart from its own intrinsic value 128 but finally it must be insisted that pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this that we cannot assume either that the presence of pleasure always makes a state of things better on the whole or that the presence of pain always makes it worse this is the truth which is most liable to be overlooked with regard to them and it is because this is true that the common theory that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil has its grossest consequences of value not only is the pleasantness of a state not in proportion to its intrinsic worth it may even add positively to its vileness we do not think the successful hatred of a villain the less vile and odious because it takes the keenest delight in it nor is there the least need in logic why we should think so apart from an unintelligent prejudice in favor or pleasure in fact it seems to be the case that wherever pleasure is added to an evil state of either of our first two classes the whole thus formed is always worse than if no pleasure had been there and similarly with regard to pain if pain be added to an evil state of either of our first two classes the whole thus formed is always better as a whole than if no pain if the pain be too intense since that is a great evil the state may not be better on the whole it is in this way that the theory of vindicative punishment may be vindicated the infliction of pain on a person of state of mind is bad may if the pain be not too intense create a state of things that is better on the whole than if the evil state of mind had existed unpunished whether such a state of things can ever constitute a positive good is another question End of chapter 6 Part 3 Chapter 6 part 4 of Principia Ethica this Librivox recording is in the public domain recording by Fredrik Karlsson Principia Ethica by G. E. Moore 129 2 the consideration of this other question belongs properly to the second topic which was reserved above for discussion namely the topic of mixed goods mixed goods were defined above as things which though positively good as whole nevertheless contain as essential elements something intrinsically evil or ugly and there certainly seem to be such goods but for the proper consideration of them it is necessary to take into account a new distinction the distinction just expressed as being between the value which a thing possesses as a whole and that which it possesses on the whole when mixed goods were defined as things positively good as whole the expression was ambiguous it is meant that they were positively good on the whole but it must now be observed that the value which a thing possesses on the whole may be said to be equivalent to the sum of the value which it possesses as a whole together with the intrinsic values which may belong to any of its parts in fact by the value which a thing possesses as a whole there may be meant two quite distinct things there may be meant either one that value which arises solely from the combination of two or more things or else two in addition to one of any intrinsic value which may belong to the things combined the meaning of the distinction may perhaps be most easily seen by considering the supposed case of vindictive punishment if it is true that the combined existence of two evils may yet constitute a less evil than would be constituted by the existence of either singly it is plain that this can only be because there arises from the combination a positive good which is greater than the difference between the sum of the two evils and the demerit of either singly this positive good would then be the value of the whole as a whole in sense one yet if this value be not so great a good as the sum of the two evils is an evil it is plain that the value of the whole state of things will be a positive evil and this value is the value of the whole as a whole in sense two whatever view may be taken with regard to the particular case of vindictive punishment it is plain that we have here two distinct things with regard to either of which a separate question may be asked in the case of every organic unity the first of these two things may be expressed as the difference between the value of the whole thing and the sum of the value of its parts and it is plain that where the parts have little or no intrinsic value as in our first class of goods this difference will be nearly or absolutely identical with the value of the whole thing the distinction therefore only becomes important in the case of holes of which one or more parts have a great intrinsic value positive or negative the first of these cases that of a whole in which one has a great positive value is exemplified in our second and third classes of great unmixed goods and similarly the sum of boonum is a whole of which many parts have a great positive value such cases it may be observed are also very frequent and very important objects of aesthetic judgment since the essential distinction between the classical and the romantic styles consist in the fact that the order aims at obtaining the greatest possible value for the whole as a whole in the sense one whereas the latter sacrifices this in order to obtain the greatest possible value for some part which is itself an organic unity it follows that we cannot declare either style to be necessarily superior since an equally good result on the whole or as a whole in sense two may be obtained by either method but the distinctly aesthetic temperament seems to be characteristic by a tendency to prefer a good result obtained by the classical to an equally good result obtained by the romantic method 130 but what we have now to consider are cases of holes in which one or more parts have a great negative value or great positive evils and first of all we may take the strongest cases like that of retributive punishment in which we have a whole exclusively composed of two great positive evils wickedness and pain can such a whole ever be positively good on the whole one I can see no reason to think that such holes ever are positively good on the whole but from the fact that they may nevertheless be less evils than either of their parts taken interestingly it follows that they have a characteristic which is most important for the correct decision of practical questions it follows that quite apart from the consequences or any value which an evil may have as mere means it may supposing one evil already exist be worthwhile to create another since by the mere creation of this second there may be constituted a whole less bad than if the original evil has been left to exist by itself and similarly with regard to all the holes which I am about to consider it must be remembered that even if they are not goods on the whole yet where an evil already exists as in this world evils do exist the existence of the other part of these holes will constitute a thing desirable for its own sake that is to say not merely future goods but one of the ends which must be taken into account in estimating what that best possible state of things is to which every right action must be a means 131 2 but as a matter of fact I cannot avoid thinking there are holes containing something positively evil and ugly which are nevertheless great positive goods on the whole indeed it appears to be to this class that those instances of virtue which contain anything intrinsically good chiefly belong it need not of course be denied that there is sometimes included in a virtuous disposition more or less of those unmixed goods which were first discussed that is to say a real love of what is good or beautiful but the typical and characteristic virtues disposition so far as they are mere means seem rather to be examples of mixed goods we may take as instances a courage and compassion which seem to belong to the second of the three classes of virtues distinguished in our last chapter and b the specifically moral sentiment by reference to which the third of those three classes was defined courage and compassion in so far as they contain an intrinsically desirable state of mind seem to involve essentially a cognition of something evil or ugly in the case of courage the object of the cognition may be an evil of any of our three classes in the case of compassion the proper object is pain both these virtues accordingly must contain precisely the same cognitive element which is also essential to evils of class one and they are differentiated from these by the fact that the emotion directed to these objects is in their case an emotion of the same kind which was essential to evils of class two in short just as evils of class two seem to consist in a hatred of what was good or beautiful and evils of class one in a love of what was evil or ugly so these virtues involve a hatred of what is evil or ugly both these virtues do no doubt also contain other elements and among these each contains its specific emotion but that their value does not depend solely upon these other elements we may easily assure ourselves by considering what we should think of an attitude of endurance or of defined contempt toward an object intrinsically good or beautiful or of the state of a man whose mind was filled with pity for the happiness of a worthy admiration yet pity for the undeserved sufferings of others and endurance of pain to ourselves and a defined hatred of evil disposition in ourselves or in others seem to be undoubtedly admirable in themselves and if so there are admirable things which must be lost if there were no cognition of evil similarly the specifically moral sentiment in all cases where it has any considerable intrinsic value appears to include a hatred of evils of the first and second classes it is true that the emotion is here excited by the idea that an action is right or wrong and hence the object of the idea which excites it is generally not an intrinsic evil but as far as I can discover the emotion with which a conscientious man views a real or imaginary right action contains as an essential element the same emotion with which he views a wrong one it seems indeed that this element is necessary to make his emotion specifically moral and the specifically moral emotion excited by the idea of a wrong action seems to me to contain essentially a more or less vague cognition of the kind of intrinsic evils which are usually caused by wrong actions whether they would or would not be caused by the particular action in question I am in fact unable to distinguish in its main features the moral sentiment excited by the idea of rightness and wrongness wherever it is intense from this total state constituted by a cognition of something intrinsically evil together with the emotion directed towards it nor need we be surprised that this mental state should be the one chiefly associated with the idea of rightness if we reflect on the nature of those actions which are most commonly recognized as duties for by far the greater part of the actions of which we commonly think as duties are negative what we feel to be our duty is to abstain from some action to which a strong natural impulse tempts us and these wrong actions in the avoidance of which duty consists are usually such as produce very immediately some bad consequence in pain to others while in many prominent instances the inclination which promises to them is itself an intrinsic evil containing as where the impulse is lust or cruelty an anticipatory enjoyment of something evil or ugly that right action does thus so frequently entail the suppression of some evil impulse is necessary to explain the plausibility of the view that virtue consists in the control of passion by reason accordingly the truth seems to be that whenever a strong moral emotion is excited by the idea of rightness this emotion is accompanied by a vague cognition of the kind of evils usually suppressed or avoided by the action which most frequently occur to us as instances of duty and that the emotion is directed towards this evil quality we may then conclude that the specific moral emotion owes almost all of its intrinsic value to the fact that it includes a cognition of evils accompanied by a hatred of them mere rightness whether truly or untruly attributed to an action seems incapable of forming the object of an emotional contemplation which shall be any great good 132 if this be so then we have in many prominent instances of virtue cases of a whole greatly good in itself which yet contains the cognition of something existence would be a great evil a great good is absolutely dependent for its value upon its inclusion of something evil or ugly although it does not owe its value solely to this element in it and in the case of virtues this evil object does in generally actually exist but there seemed no reason to think that when it does exist the whole state of things thus constituted is therefore the better on the whole what seems indubitable is only that the feeling contemplation of an object whose existence would be a great evil or which is ugly may be essential to a valuable whole we have another undoubted instance of this in the appreciation of tragedy but in tragedy the sufferings of Leia and the struggle may be purely imaginary and it seems certain that if they really existed the evil thus existing while it must detract from the good consisting in a proper feeling towards them will add no positive value to that good great enough to counterbalance such a loss it does indeed seem that the existence of a true belief in the object of these mixed goods does add some value to the whole in which it is combined with them a conscious compassion for real suffering seems to be better as a whole than a compassion for sufferings merely imaginary and this may well be the case even though the evil involved in the actual suffering makes the total state of things bad on the whole and it certainly seems to be true that a false belief in the actual existence of its object is a worse mixed good than if our state of mind were that with which we normally regard pure fiction accordingly we may conclude that the only mixed goods which are positively good on the whole are those in which the object is something which would be a great evil if it existed or which is ugly 133 with regard then to those mixed goods which consist in an appropriate attitude of the mind towards things evil or ugly and which include among their number the greater part of such virtues as have any intrinsic value whatever the following three conclusions seem to be those chiefly requiring to be emphasized 1. There seems no reason to think that where the object is a thing evil in itself which actually exists in the total state of things is ever positively good on the whole the appropriate mental attitude towards a really existing evil contains of course an element which is absolutely identical with the same attitude towards the same evil where it is purely imaginary and this element which is common to the two cases may be a great positive good on the whole but there seems no reason to doubt is real the amount of this real evil is always efficient to reduce the total sum of value to a negative quantity accordingly we have no reason to maintain the paradox that an ideal world would be one in which vice and suffering must exist in order that it may contain the goods consisting in the appropriate emotion towards them it is not a positive good that suffering should exist in order that we may passionate it or wickedness that we may hate it there is no reason to think that any actual evil whatsoever would be contained in the ideal it follows that we cannot admit the actual validity of any of the arguments commonly used in theodices no such argument succeeds in justifying the fact that there does exist even the smallest of the many evils which this world contains the most that can be said for such arguments is that when they may appeal to the principle of organic unity their appeal is valid in principle it might be the case that the existence of evil was necessary not merely as a means but analytically to the existence of the greatest good but we have no reason to think that this is the case in any instance whatever but too there is reason to think that the cognition of things evil or ugly which are purely imaginary is essential to the ideal in this case the burden of proof lies the other way it cannot be doubted that the appreciation of strategy is a great positive good and it seems almost equally certain that the virtues of compassion courage and self-control contain such goods and to all these the cognition of things which would be evil if they existed is analytically necessary here then we have things of which the existence must add value to any hole in which they are contained nor is it possible to assure ourselves that any hole from which they were emitted would thereby gain more in its value as a hole than it would lose by their mission we have no reason to think that any hole which did not contain would be so good on the hole as some hole in which they were obtained the case for their inclusion in the ideal is as strong as that for the inclusion of material qualities against the inclusion of these goods nothing can be urged except a bare possibility finally three it is important to insist that as we said above these mixed virtues have a great practical value in addition to that which they possess either in themselves or as mere means where evils do exist as in this world they do the fact that they are known and properly appreciated constitutes a state of things having greater value as a hole even than the same appreciation of purely imaginary evils this state of things it has been said is never positively good on the hole but where the evil which reduces its total value to a negative quantity already unavoidably exists to obtain the intrinsic value which belongs to it as a whole will obviously produce a better state of affairs than if the evil had existed by itself quite apart from the good element in it which is identical with the appreciation of imaginary evils and from any ulterior consequences which its existence may bring about the cases here the same as with retributive punishment where an evil already exists it is well that it should be pitted or hated or endured according to its nature just as it may be well that some evils should be punished of course as in all practical cases it often happens that attainment of this good is incompatible with attainment of another and a greater one but it is important to insist that we have here a real intrinsic value which must be taken into account in calculating the greatest possible balance of intrinsic value which it is always our duty to produce 134 I have now completed such remarks as seemed most necessary to be made concerning intrinsic values it is obvious that for the proper answering of this the fundamental question of ethics there remains a field of investigation as wide and as difficult as was assigned to practical ethics in my last chapter there is as much to be said concerning what results are intrinsically good and in what degrees as concerning what results it is possible for us to bring about both questions demand and will repay an equally patient inquiry many of the judgments which I have made in this chapter will no doubt seem unduly arbitrary it must be confessed that some of the attributions of intrinsic value which have seemed to me to be true do not display that symmetry and system which is want to be required of philosophers but if this be urged as an objection I may respectfully point out that it is none we have no title whatever to assume that the truth on any subject matter will display such symmetry as we desire to see or to use the common vague phrase that it will possess any particular form of unity to search for unity and system at the expense of truth is not I take it the proper business of philosophy however universally it may have been the practice of philosophers and that all truths about the universe possess to one another all the various relations which may be meant by unity can only be legitimately asserted when we have carefully distinguish those various relations and discovered what those truths are in particular we can have no title to assert that ethical truths are unified in any particular manner except in virtue of an inquiry conducted by the method which I have endeavoured to follow and to illustrate the study of ethics would no doubt be far more simple and its results far more systematic if for instance pain were an evil of exactly the same magnitude as pleasure is a good but we have no reason whatever to assume that the universe is such that ethical truths must display this kind of symmetry no argument against my conclusion that pleasure and pain do not thus correspond can have any weight whatever failing a careful examination of the instances which have led me to form it nevertheless I am content that the results of this chapter should be taking rather as illustrating the method which must be pursued in answering the fundamental question of ethics and the principles which must be observed than as given the correct answer to that question that things intrinsically good or bad are many and various that most of them are organic unities in the peculiar and definite sense to which I have confined the term and that our only means of deciding upon their intrinsic value and its degree is by carefully distinguishing exactly what the thing is about which we ask the question and then look to see whether it has or has not a unique predicate good in any of its various degrees these are the conclusion upon the truth of which I desire to insist similarly in my last chapter with regard to the question what ought we to do I have endeavoured rather to show exactly what is the meaning of the question and what difficulties must consequently be faced in answering it than to prove that any particular answers are true and that these two questions having precisely the nature which I have signed to them are THE questions which it is the object of ethics to answer may be regarded as the main result of the preceding chapters these are the questions which ethical philosophers have always been mainly concerned to answer although they have not recognized what their question was what predicate they were asserting to attach to things the practice of asking what things are virtues or duties without distinguishing what these terms mean the practice of asking what ought to be here and now without distinguishing whether as means or end for its own sake or for that of its results the search for one single criterion of right and wrong without the recognition that in order to discover a criterion we must first know what things are right and wrong and the neglect of the principle of organic unities these sources of error have hid here to have been almost universally prevalent in ethics the conscious endeavor to avoid them all and to apply to all the ordinary objects of ethical judgments these two questions and these only has it intrinsic value and is it a means to the best possible this attempt as far as I know is entirely new and its results when compared with those habitual to moral philosophers are certainly sufficiently surprising that to common sense they will not appear so strange I venture to hope and believe it is I think much to be desired that the labor commonly devoted to answering such questions as whether certain ends are more or less comprehensive or more or less consistent with one another questions which even if a precise meaning were given to them are wholly irrelevant to the proof of any ethical conclusion should be diverted to the separate investigation of these two clear problems 135 The main object of this chapter has been to define roughly the class of things among which we may expect to find either great intrinsic goods or great intrinsic evils and particularly to point out that there is a vast variety of such things and that the simplest of them are with one exception highly complex holes composed of parts which have little or no value in themselves all of them involve consciousness of an object which is itself usually highly complex and almost all also an emotional attitude towards this object but though they thus have certain characteristics in common the vast variety of qualities in respect of which they differ from one another are equally essential to their value neither the generic character of all nor the specific character of each is either greatly good or greatly evil by itself may owe their value or demerit in each case to the presence of both my discussion falls into three main divisions dealing respectively one with unmixed goods two with evils and three with mixed goods one unmixed goods may all be said to consist in the love of beautiful things or of good persons but the number of different goods of this kind is as great as that of beautiful objects and they are also differentiated from one another by the different emotions appropriate to different objects these goods are undoubtedly good even where the things or persons loved are imaginary but it was urged that where the thing or person is real and is believed to be so these two facts together when combined with the mere love the qualities in question constitute a whole which is greatly better than that mere love having an additional value quite distinct from that which belongs to the existence of the object where that object is a good person finally it was pointed out that the love of mental qualities by themselves does not seem to be so great a good as that of mental and material qualities together and that in any case an immense number of the best things are or include a love of material qualities 2. great evils may be said to consist either A. in the love of what is evil or ugly or B. in the hatred of what is good or beautiful or C. in the consciousness of pain thus the consciousness of pain if it be a great evil there is no exception to the rule that all great goods and great evils involve both a cognition and an emotion directed towards its object 3. mixed goods of those which include some element which is evil or ugly they may be said to consist either in hatred of what is ugly or of evils of classes A and B or in compassion for pain but where they include an evil or ugly exists its demerit seems to be always great enough to outweigh the positive value which they possess the end end of principiaethica by G. E. Moore