Before going on to discuss Russell’s meta-ethic in more detail, it is worth pausing for a moment to consider his ideal. For although Russell claimed to make his “practical moral judgments” on a “roughly hedonistic basis” (RoE: 165–6/Papers 11: 311), he was far from being an out-and out hedonist. He was, as we have seen, a utilitarian of sorts, who believed that the right thing to do is the action that, on the available evidence, seems likely to produce the best balance of good over evil conseque