Additional premises—such as 'Act A saves many people's lives' or 'Act A leads to many people's deaths'—can weaken or strengthen the inference from 'Act A is a lie' to 'Act A is wrong'.

for A might be right even so, when all ethically relevant factors are taken into account. If A helps to save innocent people’s lives, for example, it’s right—actually right, as Ross says—even though it’s a lie. Nor is the relation between (L) and (W) causal or inductive. Lying doesn’t cause wrongness, and although it might be that most (or even all) lies are all-things-considered wrong—actually wrong—it might be that most (or even all) lies aren’t all-things-considered wrong—actually wrong. Rega