Chapter V: Ethics in Relation to Conduct.
§ 93.
But (3) it is plain that even this is a task of immense difficulty. It is difficult to see how we can establish even a probability that by doing one thing we shall obtain a better total result than by doing another. I shall merely endeavour to point out how much is assumed, when we assume that there is such a probability, and on what lines it seems possible that this assumption may be justified—that no sufficient reason has ever yet been found for considering one action more right or more wrong than another. (§ 93 ¶ 1)
(a) The first difficulty in the way of establishing a
probability that one course of action will give a better total result than
another, lies in the fact that we have to take account of the effects of both
throughout an infinite future. We have no certainty but that, if we do one
action now, the Universe will, throughout all time, differ in some way from what
it would have been, if we had done another; and, if there is such a permanent
difference, it is certainly relevant to our calculation. But it is quite certain
that our causal knowledge is utterly insufficient to tell us what different
effects will probably result from two different actions, except within a
comparatively short space of time; we can certainly only pretend to calculate
the effects of actions within what may be called an immediate
future. No
one, when he proceeds upon what he considers a rational consideration of
effects, would guide his choice by any forecast that went beyond a few centuries
at most; and, in general, we consider that we have acted rationally, if we think
we have secured a balance of good within a few years or months or days. Yet, if
a choice guided by such considerations is to be rational, we must certainly have
some reason to believe that no consequences of our action in a further future
will generally be such as to reverse the balance of good that is probable in the
future which we can forsee. This large postulate must be made, if we are ever to
assert that the results of one action will be even probably better than those of
another. Our utter ignorance of the far future gives us no justification for
saying that it is even probably right to choose the greater good within the
region over which a probable forecast may extend. We do, then, assume that it is
improbable that effects, after a certain time, will, in general, be such as to
reverse the comparative value of the alternative results within that time. And
that this assumption is justified must be shewn before we can claim to have
given any reason whatever for acting in one way rather than in another. It may,
perhaps, be justified by some such considerations as the following. As we
proceed further and further from the time at which alternative actions are open
to us, the events of which either action would be part cause become increasingly
dependent on those other circumstances, which are the same, whichever action we
adopt. The effects of any individual action seem, after a sufficient space of
time, to be found only in trifling modifications spread over a very wide area,
whereas its immediate effects consist in some prominent modification of a
comparatively narrow area. Since, however, most of the things which have any
great importance for good or evil are things of this prominent kind, there may
be a probability that after a certain time all the effects of any particular
action become so nearly indifferent, that any difference between their value and
that of the effects of another action, is very unlikely to outweigh an obvious
difference in the value of the immediate effects. It does in fact appear to be
the case that, in most cases, whatever action we now adopt, it will be all
the same a hundred years hence,
so far as the existence at that time of
anything greatly good or bad is concerned: and this might, perhaps, be
shewn to be true, by an investigation of the manner in which the
effects of any particular event become neutralsed by lapse of time. Failing such
a proof, we can certainly have no rational ground for asserting that one of two
alternatives is even probably right another wrong. If any of our judgments of
right and wrong are to pretend to probability, we must have reason to think that
the effects of our actions in the far future will not have value sufficient to
outweigh any superiority of one set of effects over another in the immediate
future. (§ 93 ¶ 2)