Causal wrongs are those wrongs that one commits only if one makes a causal contribution c to some result r, where both c and r form part of the wrong. It is because c and r form part of the wrong that r is called a “result” rather than a “consequence” of the wrong. Consequences follow; results constitute.

Professor Moore believes, as I do, that causal wrongs exist, and that they exist not only in morally justified law, but also in morality outside the law—not only in captivity, as it were, but also in the wild. Moore also seems to believe, as I do, that moral and legal wrongs are paradigmatically causal, that one needs to understand the causal examples in order fully to understand the noncausal examples (or at least many of them). Moore and I part company, however, when we turn to the question of which moral and legal wrongs are causal wrongs. Naturally, we agree about some of them. We agree that murder and manslaughter are causal wrongs, for example; and so are torture, and extortion, and wounding; and so are the common law torts of negligence and nuisance and inducing breach of contract. Nevertheless, there are various wrongs that Moore classifies as causal that I would classify as noncausal. There are also some that I classify as causal that he would classify as noncausal. Let me say something about these two contrasting areas of disagreement in turn.

Moore classifies rape, assault, burglary, and theft as causal wrongs on the ground that “there plainly are causal requirements for such [wrongs].” True enough. Whenever any of these wrongs is committed, there is some-thing that makes a causal contribution to something. Consider a rape of V by D. Doubtless, D’s intentions make some sort of causal contribution to D’s bodily movements, and, doubtless, D’s bodily movements make some sort of causal contribution to something involving V’s body. What does not follow, as Moore claims it does, is that it must be D himself that makes these (or any other) causal contributions.