[lit-ideas] Re: The Final Finger of Fate
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:59:46 -0700
Here's the passage in Moore's book, Ethics, that I alluded to earlier.
It is impossible to exaggerate the frequency of the occasions on which we all of
us make a distinction between two things, neither of which did happen,?a
distinction which we express by saying, that whereas the one could have
happened, the other could not. No distinction is commoner than this. And no
one, I think, who fairly examines the instances in which we make it, can doubt
about three things: namely (1) that very often there really is some distinction
between the two things, corresponding to the language which we use; (2) that
this distinction, which really does subsist between the things, is the one
which we mean to express by saying that the one was possible and the other
impossible; and (3) that this way of expressing it is a perfectly proper and
legitimate way. But if so, it absolutely follows that one of the commonest and
most legitimate usages of the phrases could and could not is to express a
difference, which often really does hold between two things neither of which
did actually happen. Only a few instances need be given. I could have walked a
mile in twenty minutes this morning, but I certainly could not have run two
miles in five minutes. I did not, in fact, do either of these two things; but
it is pure nonsense to say that the mere fact that I did not, does away with
the distinction between them, which I express by saying that the one was within
my powers, whereas the other was not. Although I did neither, yet the one was
certainly possible to me in a sense in which the other was totally impossible.
Or, to take another instance: It is true, as a rule, that cats can climb trees,
whereas dogs can?t. Suppose that on a particular afternoon neither A?s cat
nor B?s dog do climb a tree. It is quite absurd to say that this mere fact
proves that we must be wrong if we say (as we certainly often should say) that
the cat could have climbed a tree, though she didn?t, whereas the dog
couldn?t. Or, to take an instance which concerns an inanimate object. Some
ships can steam 20 knots, whereas others can?t steam more than 15. And the
mere fact that, on a particular occasion, a 20-knot steamer did not actually
run at this speed certainly does not entitle us to say that she could not have
done so, in the sense in which a 15-knot one could not. On the contrary, we all
can and should distinguish between cases in which (as, for instance, owing to an
accident to her propeller) she did not, because she could not, and cases in
which she did not, although she could. Instances of this sort might be
multiplied quite indefinitely; and it is surely quite plain that we all of us
do continually use such language: we continually, when considering two events,
neither of which did happen, distinguish between them by saying that whereas
the one was possible, though it didn?t happen, the other was impossible. And
it is surely quite plain that what we mean by this (whatever it may be) is
something which is often perfectly true. But, if so, then anybody who asserts,
without qualification, Nothing ever could have happened, except what did
happen, is simply asserting what is false. (Ch. 6 ¶7)
http://fair-use.org/g-e-moore/ethics/chapter-vi
Robert Paul
Reed College
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