ABSTRACT
Moore is frequently cited as a very clear and unambiguous exponent of what is called, in the jargon of recent philosophy, act utilitarianism. If, indeed, we define an act utilitarian as one who holds that the rightness of an individual action depends immediately and solely on the value of its consequences, then Moore is an act utilitarian; for he maintained this thesis without any wavering throughout his philosophical career. But Russell, in his Portraits from Memory, says of Moore: ‘I have never but once succeeded in making him tell a lie, and that was by a subterfuge. “Moore,” I said, “do you always speak the truth?” “No”, he replied. I believe this to be the only lie he has ever told.’ It would be strange that such a story should ring so characteristically true of the man if his relevant moral views could be adequately summarized in the thesis that ‘It is wrong to lie’ is but an empirical generalization, admitting of exceptions, to the effect that the consequences of lying are usually worse than the consequences of truth-telling. The purpose of this short paper is to point out that Moore’s views are much more complicated than this and contain a remarkable combination of act and rule utilitarianism. He was an act utilitarian in the sense defined above, but Russell’s story rings true because Moore held that one could never be justified in telling a lie, not because he was is an habitual rut of truth-telling.
