TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Italics have been transcribed using _underscores_ and small capitals as
ALL CAPITALS. Inconsistencies in hyphenation and punctuation have not
been corrected. A list of other corrections can be found at the end of
the document. The Table of Contents is left as in the original and does
not list all of the subsections.
_For we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the
free._
_E pur se muove._
OUTLINES
OF A
CRITICAL THEORY OF ETHICS
BY
JOHN DEWEY
Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michigan
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN REGISTER PUBLISHING COMPANY The Inland Press 1891.
Copyright, 1891. REGISTER PUBLISHING CO., Ann Arbor, Mich.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 1-12
PART I.--FUNDAMENTAL ETHICAL NOTIONS.
CHAPTER I.--_The Good_ 13-138
Hedonism 14
Utilitarianism 52
Evolutionary Utilitarianism 67
Kantianism 78
Problem and Solution 95
Realization of Individuality 97
Ethical Postulate 127
CHAPTER II.--_The Idea of Obligation_ 139-158
Bain's Theory 140
Spencer's Theory 142
Kant's Theory 147
Its Real Nature 152
CHAPTER III.--_The Idea of Freedom_ 158-166
Negative Freedom 158
Potential Freedom 159
Positive Freedom 164
PART II.--THE ETHICAL WORLD.
Social Relations 167
Moral Institutions 169
PART III.--THE MORAL LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
Division of Subject 181
CHAPTER I.--_The Formation and Growth of Ideals_ 182-211
Conscience 182
Conscientiousness 199
Development of Ideals 206
CHAPTER II.--_The Moral Struggle or the Realizing of Ideals_ 211-227
Goodness as Struggle 211
Badness 214
Goodness and Badness 221
CHAPTER III.--_Realized Morality or the Virtues_ 227-233
Cardinal Virtues 231
CONCLUSION 233-238
PREFACE.
Although the following pages have taken shape in connection with
class-room work, they are intended as an independent contribution
to ethical science. It is commonly demanded of such a work that its
readers shall have some prefatory hint of its sources and deviations.
In accordance with this custom, I may state that for the backbone
of the theory here presented--the conception of the will as the
expression of ideas, and of social ideas; the notion of an objective
ethical world realized in institutions which afford moral ideals,
theatre and impetus to the individual; the notion of the moral life
as growth in freedom, as the individual finds and conforms to the law
of his social placing--for this backbone I am especially indebted to
Green's 'Prolegomena to Ethics', to Mr. Bradley's 'Ethical Studies', to
Professor Caird's 'Social Philosophy of Comte' and 'Critical Philosophy
of Kant' (to this latter book in particular my indebtedness is
fundamental), and to Alexander's 'Moral Order and Progress'. Although
I have not been able to adopt the stand-point or the method of Mr.
Spencer, or of Mr. Leslie Stephen my obligation to the 'Data of Ethics'
and to the 'Science of Ethics' (especially to the latter) is large.
As to the specific forms which give a flesh and blood of its own to
this backbone, I may call attention to the idea of desire as the
ideal activity in contrast with actual possession; to the analysis of
individuality into function including capacity and environment; to the
treatment of the social bearings of science and art (a point concerning
which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Franklin Ford); to the statement
of an ethical postulate; to the accounts of obligation, of moral rules,
and of moral badness.
While the book is an analysis, in outline, of the main elements of the
theory of ethics rather than a discussion of all possible detailed
questions, it will not be found the less fitted, I hope, to give a
student an idea of the main methods and problems of contemporary
ethics. Other teachers, indeed, may agree that a general outline is
better than a blanket-mortgage spread over and forestalling all the
activity of the student's mind.
I have not been unmindful of the advisability of avoiding in
presentation both undue polemic, and undue dogmatism without sufficient
reference to the statements of others. I hope the method hit upon,
of comparing opposite one-sided views with the aim of discovering a
theory apparently more adequate, will help keep the balance. I have
quoted freely from the chief modern authorities, hoping that the
tastes here given will tempt the reader to the banquet waiting in
the authors themselves. The occasional references introduced are not
bibliographical, nor intended as exhaustive statements of authorities
consulted; they are meant as aids to an intelligent reading on the part
of the general student. For this reason they are confined mainly to
modern English writings.
INTRODUCTION.
I.
Definition of Ethics.
The term ethics is derived from a Greek word meaning manners, customs,
habits, just as the term morals is derived from a Latin word with a
similar meaning. This suggests the character of the science as an
account of human action. Anthropology, ethnology, psychology, are also,
in their way, accounts of human action. But these latter branches of
knowledge simply _describe_, while the business of ethics is to _judge_.
This does not mean that it belongs to ethics to prescribe what man
ought to do; but that its business is to detect the element of
obligation in conduct, to examine conduct to see what gives it its
_worth_. Anthropology, etc., do not take into account the _whole_ of
action, but simply some of its aspects--either external or internal.
Ethics deals with conduct in its entirety, with reference, that is,
to what makes it conduct, its _end_, its real meaning. Ethics is the
science of conduct, understanding by conduct man's activity in its
whole reach.
Three of the branches of philosophy may be called
_normative_, implying that they deal with some _norm,
standard_ or _end_, estimating the value of their
respective subject-matters as tested by this end. These
are Logic, dealing with the end Truth, and the value of
intellectual processes with respect to it; Æsthetics,
dealing with Beauty and the value of emotional conditions
as referred to it; and Ethics, as defined above. But this
norm in no case comes from outside the subject-matter; it
is the subject-matter considered in its totality.
II.
Meaning of Moral.
In its widest sense, the term moral or ethical means nothing more
than relating to conduct; having to do with practice, when we look at
conduct or practice from the point of view not of its occurrence, but
of its value. Action is something which takes place, and as such it
may be described like any objective fact. But action has also relation
to an end, and so considered it is _moral_. The first step in ethics
is to fix firmly in mind the idea that the term moral does not mean
any special or peculiar kind of conduct, but simply means practice and
action, conduct viewed not partially, but in connection with the end
which it realizes.
It should be noted that the term moral has a wider and a
narrower sense. In the wider sense it means action in the
moral sphere, as opposed to _non_-moral, and thus includes
both good and bad conduct. In the narrower sense it means
moral, as opposed to _im_moral. See Bradley, Ethical
Studies, p. 53, note, for a further meaning.
III.
Meaning of Conduct.
Ethics then has to do with conduct or action viewed completely, or in
relation to its end. But what is conduct? It must be distinguished from
action in general; for any process of change, the working of a pump,
the growth of a plant, the barking of a dog, may be called action.
Conduct implies more than something taking place; it implies purpose,
motive, intention; that the agent knows what he is about, that he has
something which he is aiming at. All action accomplishes something or
brings about results, but conduct has the result _in view_. It occurs
for the sake of producing this result. Conduct does not simply, like
action in general, have a cause, but also a reason, and the reason is
present to the mind of the agent. There can be conduct only when there
is a being who can propose to himself, as an end to be reached by
himself, something which he regards as worth while. Such a being is a
moral agent, and his action, when conscious, is conduct.
IV.
Division of Ethics.
The main ethical problem is just this: What is the conduct that really
deserves the name of conduct, the conduct of which all other kinds
of action can be only a perverted or deflected form? Or, since it is
the end which gives action its moral value, what is the true end,
_summum bonum_ of man? Knowing this, we have a standard by which we
judge particular acts. Those which embody this end are _right_, others
wrong. The question of the rightness of conduct is simply a special
form of the question concerning the nature of the end or good. But
the end bears another relation to specific acts. They are not only
marked off by it as right or wrong, but they have to fulfill it. The
end or good decides what should be or _ought_ to be. Any act necessary
to fulfill the end is a _duty_. Our second inquiry will be as to the
nature of obligation or duty. Then we have to discuss the nature of a
being who is capable of action, of manifesting and realizing the end;
capable of right (or wrong) of obligatory and good action. This will
lead us to discuss the question of _Freedom, or Moral Capacity and its
Realization_. The discussion of these three abstract questions will
constitute Part I of our theory; Part II will take up the various forms
and institutions in which the good is objectively realized, the family,
state, etc.; while Part III will be devoted to an account of the moral
experience of the individual.
V.
The Motive in Conduct.
Before taking up the first problem presented, the nature of the good
or the end of conduct, it is necessary to analyze somewhat further
the various sides and factors of conduct in order to see where the
distinctly ethical element is to be found. The elements particularly
deserving consideration are (1) the Motive; (2) the Feelings or
Sentiments; (3) Consequences of the Act; (4) Character of Agent. We
shall begin with
1. _The Motive._ The motive of the act is the end aimed at by the agent
in performing the act. Thus the motive of Julius Cæsar in crossing the
Rubicon was the whole series of results which he intended to reach by
that act of his. The motive of a person in coming to college is to gain
knowledge, to prepare himself for a certain profession. The motive is
thus identical with the ideal element of the action, the purpose in
view.
2. _The Feelings or Disposition._ Some writers speak of the feelings
under which the agent acts as his motive. Thus we may suppose Julius
Cæsar 'moved' by the feelings of ambition, of revenge, etc., in
crossing the Rubicon. The student may be 'moved' by curiosity, by
vainglory, by emulation, by conscience, in coming to college. It is
better, however, to regard the motive as the reason for which the act
is performed, and to use the term moving or impelling cause for the
feelings in their relation to action. Thus we may imagine a parent
asking a child why he struck a playmate, meaning what was the motive
of the action. If the child should reply that he struck his playmate
because he was angry, this answer would give the moving cause or
impelling force of the action, but not its motive. The motive would
be the idea of punishing this playmate, of getting even with him, of
taking something away from him. The motive is the end which he desired
to reach by striking and on account of which he struck. This is implied
by the fact that the parent would ask, "What _made_ you _angry_?"
VI.
Moral Bearing of These Distinctions.
It is the feelings which supply the impelling force to action. They
may be termed, collectively, the _natural disposition_. The natural
disposition in itself has no _moral_ value. This has been well
illustrated by Bentham.
Principles of Morals and Legislation, pp. 49-55. Bentham
here uses the term 'motive' to designate what we have
called the moving cause.
We may select of the many examples which he gives that of curiosity.
We may imagine a boy spinning a top, reading a useful book and letting
a wild ox loose in a road. Now curiosity may be the 'motive' of each
of these acts, yet the first act would generally be called morally
indifferent, the second good, the third abominable.
What we mean by the 'natural' feelings, then, is the feelings
considered in abstraction from activity: Benevolence, as a _mere_
feeling, has no higher moral value than malevolence. But if it is
directed upon action it gets a value at once; let the end, the act,
be right, and benevolence becomes a name for a _moral_ disposition--a
tendency to _act_ in the due way. Nothing is more important than to
distinguish between mere sentiments, and feeling as an element in
conduct.
VII.
Relation of Consequences and Conduct.
Do the consequences of an act have anything to do with its morality? We
may say no, pointing to the fact that a man who does his best we call
good, although the consequences of his act may be far from good. We say
his purpose in acting was right, and using as he did all the knowledge
that he had, he is not to be blamed for its bad consequences. On the
other hand, it is evident that we do take into account consequences in
estimating the moral value of an act. Suppose, to use one of Bentham's
examples, a person were about to shoot an animal but foresaw that
in doing so there was a strong probability that he would also wound
some bystander. If he shot and the spectator were wounded, should we
not hold the agent morally responsible? Are there not multitudes of
intended acts of which we say that we cannot tell whether they are good
or bad until we know how they are likely to turn out?
The solution of the difficulty is in recognizing the ambiguity of the
term 'consequences'. It may mean the whole outcome of the act. When I
speak, I set in motion the air, and its vibrations have, in turn, long
chains of effects. Whatever I do must have an endless succession of
'consequences' of which I can know but very little; just so far as, in
any act, I am ignorant of the conditions under which it is performed,
so far I am ignorant of its consequences. _Such_ consequences are
wholly irrelevant morally. They have no more to do with the morality of
the act than has the fact that the earth is revolving while the act is
taking place.
But we may mean by consequences the _foreseen_ consequences of an
act. Just in the degree that any consequence is considered likely to
result from an act, just in that degree it gets moral value, for it
becomes _part of the act_ itself. The reason that in many cases we
cannot judge of the morality of an intended act until we can judge its
probable results, is that until we know of these results the action is
a mere abstraction, having no content at all. _The conceived results
constitute the content of the act to be performed._ They are not
merely relevant to its morality, but _are_ its moral quality. The
question is whether any consequence is foreseen, conceived, or not. The
foreseen, the _ideal_ consequences are the end of the act, and as such
form the _motive_.
See on Sections 6 and 7, Alexander, Moral Order and
Progress, pp. 36-46; on Section 7, Green, Prolegomena to
Ethics, pp. 317-323.
VIII.
Character and Conduct.
We have seen that the moral sentiments, or the moral disposition
(distinguished from the feelings as passing emotions), on one side,
and the consequences as ideal or conceived (distinguished from the
consequences that, _de facto_, result), on the other, both have moral
value. If we take the moral feelings, not one by one, but as a whole,
as an _attitude_ of the agent toward conduct, as expressing the kind of
motives which upon the whole moves him to action, we have _character_.
And just so, if we take the consequences willed, not one by one, but
as a whole, as the kind of end which the agent endeavors to realize,
we have _conduct_. Character and conduct are, morally, the same thing,
looked at first inwardly and then outwardly. Character, except as
manifest in conduct, is a barren ideality. Our moral judgments are
always severe upon a man who has nothing to show but 'good intentions'
never executed. This is what character comes to, apart from conduct.
Our only way of telling the nature of character is the conduct that
issues from it. But, on the other hand, conduct is mere outward
formalism, excepting as it manifests character. To say that a man's
conduct is good, unless it is the manifestation of a good character, is
to pass a judgment which is self-contradictory.
See Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 48-50 and p. 39.
From this point of view we are enabled to identify the two senses of
motive already discussed--the ideal of action and the moving feelings.
Apart from each other they are abstractions. Cæsar's motive in
crossing the Rubicon may have been 'ambition,' but this was not some
bare feeling. It was a feeling of ambition produced in view of the
contemplation of a certain end which he wished to reach. So a boy's
motive in striking a playmate may be anger, but this means (if the
act is anything more than one of blind physical reaction) an anger
having its conscious cause and aim, and not some abstract feeling of
anger in general. The feeling which has its nature made what it is by
the conceived end, and the end which has ceased to be a bare abstract
conception and become an interest, are all one with each other.
Morality is then a matter pertaining to character--to the feelings
and inclinations as transformed by ends of action; and to conduct--to
conceived ends transformed into act under the influence of emotions.
But what _kind_ of character, of conduct, is right or realizes its true
end? This brings us to our first problem.
PART I.
FUNDAMENTAL ETHICAL NOTIONS.
CHAPTER I.--THE GOOD.
IX.
Subdivision of Theories.
We may recognize three main types of theories regarding the good,
of which the first two represent (we shall attempt to show) each
respectively one side of the truth, while the third combines the
one-sided truths of the other two. Of the first two theories one is
abstract, because it tends to find the good in the mere consequences
of conduct aside from character. This is the hedonistic theory, which
finds the good to be pleasure. This is either individualistic or
universalistic according as it takes individual or general pleasure
to be the good. The second type of theories attempts to find the good
in the motive of conduct apart from consequences even as willed; it
reduces the good to conformity to abstract moral law. The best type of
this theory is the Kantian. We shall criticize these theories with a
view to developing the factors necessary to a true moral theory.
X.
Hedonism.
According to the strict hedonistic position, the pleasure resulting
to the agent from his act is the end of conduct and is therefore the
criterion of its morality. The position as usually taken involves,
first, that pleasure is psychologically the sole motive to action; and,
secondly, that the results of an act in the way of the pain or pleasure
it produces are the only tests we have of the rightness of the act.
It is said above that these two points are involved in
the hedonistic position as _usually_ taken. They are not
_necessarily_ involved.
Sidgwick (Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, ch. IV and Bk. IV,
ch. I) holds that pleasure is not the object of desire
or motive of action, but that happiness is the moral
end and criterion. On the other hand Hodgson (Theory of
Practice, Vol. II, ch. II) holds that pleasure may be the
motive (in the sense of impelling force) but it is never
the criterion of conduct. Kant adopts the psychology of
hedonism regarding pleasure as the object of desire, but
holds that on that very account no object of desire can be
the standard of moral conduct.
A good statement of strict individualistic hedonism is the
following from Barratt, Physical Ethics, page 71: "If man
aims at pleasure merely by the physical law of action, that
pleasure must evidently be ultimately his own, and whether
it be or not preceded by phenomena which he calls the pain
and pleasure of others, is a question not of principle but
of detail, just as the force of a pound weight is unaltered
whether it be composed of lead or of feathers, or whether
it act directly or through pulleys."
XI.
The Hedonistic Position Supported.
Hedonism holds that pleasure is both the natural end and the proper
criterion of action:
The following quotation from Bentham (Principles of Morals
and Legislation, Works, Vol. I, p. 1) gives a statement
of both these elements. "Nature has placed man under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It
is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, [i. e.
they are criteria] as well as to determine what we shall do
[motives]. On the one hand, the standard of right or wrong
[criterion]; on the other the chain of causes and effects
[motives], are fastened to their throne."
1. _Pleasure as Criterion._ That the tendency of an action to produce
pleasure is the standard for judging its moral value is generally held
by the hedonists to be so axiomatic as to be beyond argument.
See Bain, Moral Science, p. 27. "The ultimate data must be
accepted as self-evident: they have no higher authority
than that mankind generally are disposed to accept them....
Now there can be no proof offered for the position that
happiness is the proper end of all human pursuits, the
criterion of all right conduct. It is an ultimate or final
assumption to be tested by reference to the individual
judgment of mankind." So Bentham, Enquiry I, II, "The
principle is not susceptible of direct proofs for that
which is used to prove everything else can not itself be
proved; a chain of proofs must have their commencement
somewhere." Mill, Utilitarianism. (Dissertations and
Discussions, pp. 348-349). "The only proof capable of being
given that an object is visible is that people actually
see it. In like manner the sole evidence it is possible
to produce that anything is desirable is that people do
actually desire it." See Stephen, Science of Ethics, p.
42; Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 30-32 and p. 46; Lotze,
Practical Philosophy, pp. 18-19: Sidgwick, Methods of
Ethics, pp. 368-369.
Hedonism, then, represents the good or the desirable and pleasure to be
two names for the same fact. What indeed can be worth while unless it
be either enjoyable in itself or at least a means to enjoyment? Would
theft be considered bad if it resulted in pleasure or truth itself good
if its universal effect were pain?
2. _Pleasure as object of desire._ It is also urged that psychological
analysis shows that pleasure is not only the desirable, but also always
the _desired_. Desire for an object is only a short way of saying
desire for the pleasure which that object may bring. To want food is to
want the pleasure it brings; to want scientific ability is to desire
to find satisfaction, or attain happiness. Thus it is laid down as a
general principle that the invariable object of desire, and motive
of action is some pleasure to be attained; the action itself and the
direct end of action being simply means to pleasure.
For a strong statement of this doctrine see Mill, Op. cit.,
pp. 354-5. "Desiring a thing and finding it pleasant,
aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena
entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same
phenomenon,--in strictness of language, two different
modes of naming the same psychological fact; to think of
an object as desirable and to think of it as pleasant are
one and the same thing." See also, Bain, Emotions and Will,
p. 436, Senses and Intellect, pp. 338-344; Sully, Outlines
of Psychology, p. 575, "The inclination or tendency of the
active mind towards what is pleasurable and away from what
is painful is the essential fact in willing." Also pp.
576-577.
XII. Criticism.
Pleasure Not the End of Impulse.
Taking up the points in reverse order, we shall endeavor to show
first, that the motive of action, in the sense of end aimed at, is not
pleasure. This point in itself, is, of course, rather psychological
than ethical. Taking up then the psychology of pleasure in its
connection with will, we shall discuss its relation to impulse, to
desire and to motive.
It is generally agreed that the raw material of volition is found
in some form or other of the impulsive or instinctive actions. Such
tendencies (_e. g._, the impulse for food, for drink, for unimpeded
motion) clearly precede the reaching of an end, and hence the
experience of any pleasure in the end. Our first actions, at least,
are not for pleasure; on the contrary, there is an activity for
some independent end, and this end being reached there is pleasure
in an act which has succeeded. This suggests as a possible principle
that pleasure is not so much the end of action, as an element in the
activity which reaches an end. What Aristotle says of another matter
is certainly true of instinctive action. "It is not true of every
characteristic function that its action is attended with pleasure,
_except indeed the pleasure of attaining its end_."
See Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, pp.
299-300; Sidgwick, Op. cit., pp. 38-45.
XIII. Criticism--_Continued_.
Pleasure Not the End of Desire.
It may, however, be said that, while our instinctive actions have
another end than pleasure, this is not true of conscious desires--that,
indeed, just the difference between instinct and desire is that the
former goes blindly to its end, while the latter superimposes the
thought of the pleasure to be reached upon the mere instinct. So we
have to analyze the nature of desire.
A child, led by impulse, has put a piece of sugar into his mouth,
just as, under the same circumstances, he would put a piece of stone
into his mouth. But his action results in a state of pleasure wholly
unforseen by him. Now the next time the child sees the sugar he will
not merely have the impulse to put it in his mouth. There will also be
the remembrance of the pleasure enjoyed from sugar previously. There is
consciousness of sugar as satisfying impulse and hence desire for it.
1. This is a description of an instance of desire. Does it bear us out
in the doctrine that pleasure is the object of desire? It is possible
that, in an irrational animal, the experience of eating food reinforces
the original instinct for it with associated images of pleasure. But
even this is very different from a desire for pleasure. It is simply
the primordial instinct intensified and rendered more acute by new
sensational factors joined to it. In the strict sense, there is still
no desire, but only _stronger_ impulse. Wherever there is desire there
is not only a feeling of pleasure associated with other feelings (_e.
g._, those of hunger, thirst), but there is the _consciousness of an
object in which satisfaction is found_. The error of the hedonistic
psychology is in omitting one's consciousness of an _object_ which
satisfies. The hedonists are quite right in holding that the end of
desire is not any object external to consciousness, but a condition of
consciousness itself. The error begins in eliminating all objective
(that is, active) elements from consciousness, and declaring it to be
a mere state of feeling or sensation. The practical consciousness, or
will, cannot be reduced to mere feeling, any more than the theoretical
consciousness, or knowledge, can be so reduced.
Even Mill, in its statement of the hedonistic psychology, does not
succeed in making the object of desire mere pleasure as a state of
feeling. It is the "pleasant _thing_" and not pleasure alone which
he finds equivalent to the desire. It is true enough that sugar as
an external fact does not awaken desire, but it is equally true
that a child does not want a passive pleasure. What he wants is his
own activity in which he makes the sugar his own. And it should
be remembered that the case of sugar is at once a trivial and an
exceptional one. Not even children want simply sweet-meats; and the
larger the character which finds expression in wants, the more does
the direct object of want, the bread, the meat, become a mere element
in a larger system of activity. What a man wants is to live, and he
wants sweet-meats, amusements, etc., just as he wants substantials--on
account of their value in life.
Professor James compares the idea that pleasure is the end
of desire to saying that "because no steamer can go to
sea without incidentally consuming coal, ... therefore no
steamer can go to sea for any other motive than that of
coal-consumption." Psychology, Vol. II, p. 558. See the
entire passage, pp. 549-559.
2. But granting that an 'object' and a 'pleasure' are both necessary
to desire, it may be argued that the 'object' is ultimately a means
to 'pleasure.' This expressly raises a question already incidentally
touched upon: What is the controlling element in desire? Why is the
object thought of as pleasant? Simply because it is thought of as
satisfying want. The hedonists, says Green (Prolegomena to Ethics, p.
168), make the "mistake of supposing that a desire can be excited by
the anticipation of its own satisfaction." This is to say, of course,
that it exists before it exists, and thus brings itself into being.
Green, Op. cit., p. 167, states the matter thus: "Ordinary
motives are interests in the attainment of objects, without
which it seems to the man that he cannot satisfy himself,
and in the attainment of which, _because he has desired
them_, he will find a certain pleasure, but only because he
has previously desired them, not because pleasures are the
objects desired." Bradley says on this same point (Ethical
Studies, p. 230): "The difference is between my finding
my pleasure in an end, and my finding means for the end
of my pleasure, and the difference is enormous." Consult
the entire passage, pp. 226-235. See also Caird, Critical
Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II, p. 229.
It is the object, then, which controls, and the pleasure is on account
of the attaining of the desired object. But even this statement makes
more division in desire than actually exists; for
3. The real object of desire is activity itself. The will takes its
rise, as we have seen, in impulse; in the reaching for something to
satisfy some felt lack. Now, in reality, desire adds nothing to
impulse excepting _consciousness_ of the impulse. Volitional action
does not differ from impulsive or instinctive, _except in bringing to
consciousness the nature of the want and of the activity necessary to
satisfy it_. But this makes just the difference between 'natural' or
animal activity, and 'moral' or human activity. To be conscious of the
impulse is to elevate it from a blind impelling force to an intended or
proposed end; and thus, by bringing it _before_ consciousness, both to
extend its range and to idealize it, spiritualize it. To be conscious
of an impulse for food means to give up the unreasoned and momentary
seizing of it; to consider the relation of things to this want, what
will satisfy it best, most easily, etc. The _object_ of desire is not
something outside the action; it is an element in the enlarged action.
And as we become more and more conscious of impulse for food, we
analyze our action into more and more 'objects' of desire, but these
objects never become anything apart from the action itself. They are
simply its analyzed and defined content. Man wants activity still, but
he knows better what activity means and includes.
Thus, when we learn what the activity means, it changes its character.
To the animal the activity wanted is simply that of eating the food,
of realizing the momentary impulse. To man the activity becomes
enlarged to include the satisfaction of a whole life, and not of one
life singly, but of the family, etc., connected with the single life.
The material well-being of the family becomes one of the objects of
desire into which the original impulse has grown. But we misinterpret,
when we conceive of this well-being as an external object lying outside
the action. It means simply one aspect of the fuller action. By like
growing consciousness of the meaning of the impulse, production and
exchange of commodities are organized. The impulse for food is extended
to include a whole range of commercial activities.
It is evident that this growing consciousness of the nature of an
impulse, whereby we resolve it into manifold and comprehensive
activities, also takes the impulse out of its isolation and brings it
into connection with other impulses. We come to have not a series of
disconnected impulses, but one all-inclusive activity in which various
subordinate activities (or conscious impulses) are included. Thus, in
the previous example, the impulse for food is united with the family
impulse, and with the impulse for communication and intercourse with
society generally. It is this growing unity with the whole range
of man's action that is the 'spiritualizing' of the impulse--the
natural and brutal impulse being just that which insists upon itself
irrespective of all other wants. The spiritualizing of the impulse
is organizing it so that it becomes one factor in action. Thus we
literally come to 'eat to live', meaning by life not mere physical
existence, but the whole possible sphere of active human relations.
4. Relation of activity to pleasure. We have seen that the 'object' of
desire in itself is a mere abstraction; that the real object is full
activity itself. We are always after larger scope of movement, fuller
income in order to get larger outgo. The 'thing' is always for the
sake of doing; is a part of the doing. The idea that anything less or
other than life (movement, action, and doing), can satisfy man is as
ridiculous when compared with the actual course of things in history,
as it is false psychologically. Freedom is what we want, and freedom
means full unimpeded play of interests, that is, of conscious impulses
(see Sec. 34 and 51). If the object is a mere abstraction apart from
activity, much more is pleasure. Mere pleasure as an object is simply
the extreme of passivity, of mere having, as against action or doing.
It is _possible_ to make pleasure to some degree the object of desire;
this is just what the voluptuary does. But it is a commonplace that
the voluptuary always defeats himself. He never gets satisfaction who
identities satisfaction with having pleasures. The reason is evident
enough. Activity is what we want, and since pleasure comes from getting
what we want, pleasure comes only with activity. To give up the
activity, and attempt to get the pleasure is a contradiction in effect.
Hence also the 'hedonistic paradox'--that in order to get pleasure we
must aim at something else.
There is an interesting recognition of this in Mill
himself, (see his Autobiography, p. 142). And in his
Utilitarianism, in discussing the feasibility of getting
happiness, he shows (pp. 318-319) that the sources of
happiness are an intelligent interest in surrounding
things--objects of nature, achievements of art, incidents
of history--and especially an unselfish devotion to others.
Which is to say that man does not find satisfaction
in pleasure as such at all, but only in objective
affairs--that is, in complete interpretation, in activity
with a wide and full content. Further consideration of the
end of desire and its relation to pleasure may be found in
Green, Op. cit., pp. 123-132; pp. 163-167. Bradley, Mind,
Vol. XIII, p. 1, and Dewey, Psychology, pp. 360-365.
XIV. Criticism--_Continued_.
Character and Pleasure.
It now being admitted that the end of desire is activity itself in
which the 'object' and 'pleasure' are simply factors, what is the
moving spring to action? What is it that arouses the mind to the larger
activity? Most of the hedonists have confounded the two senses of
motive already spoken of, and have held that _because_ pleasure is the
end of desire, therefore it is the moving spring of conduct (or more
often that because it is the moving spring of conduct it _therefore_ is
the end of desire).
Mr. Stephen (Science of Ethics, pp. 46-58), although classing himself
as a hedonist, has brought out this confusion very clearly. Ordinary
hedonism confounds, as he shows, the judgment of what is pleasant--the
supposed end--with the pleasant judgment--the moving spring. (See also
Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 232-236). It may be admitted that it is feeling
which moves to action, but it is the _present_ feeling which moves.
If the feeling aimed at moves, it is only as through anticipation it
becomes the present feeling. Now is this present feeling which moves
(1) mere pleasure and (2) mere feeling at all? This introduces us to
the question of the relation of pleasure (and of feeling in general) to
character.
1. If the existing state of consciousness--that which moves--were pure
pleasure, why should there be any movement, any act at all? The feeling
which moves must be in so far complex: over against the pleasure felt
in the anticipation of an end as satisfying, there must be pain felt in
the contrasting unsatisfactory present condition. There must be tension
between the anticipated or ideal action, and the actual or present
(relative) non-action. And it is this tension, in which pain is just
as normal an element as pleasure, which moves. Desire is just this
tension of an action which satisfies, and yet is only ideal, against an
actual possession which, in contrast with the ideal action, is felt as
incomplete action, or lack, and hence as unsatisfactory.
2. The question now comes as to the nature of this tension. We may
call it 'feeling,' if we will, and say that feeling is the sole motive
power to action. But there is no such thing as feeling at large, and
the important thing, morally, is what _kind_ of feeling moves. To take
a mere abstraction like 'feeling' for the source of action is, at
root, the fallacy of hedonism. To raise the question, What is it that
makes the feeling what it is, is to recognize that the feeling, taken
concretely, is _character_ in a certain attitude.
Stephen, who has insisted with great force that feeling
is the sole 'motive' to action, has yet shown with equal
cogency the moral uselessness of such a doctrine, when
feeling is left undefined (Op. cit., p. 44). "The love of
happiness must express the sole possible motive of Judas
Iscariot and his master; it must explain the conduct of
Stylites on his column, of Tiberius at Capreæ, of A Kempis
in his cell, and of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory.
It must be equally good for saints, martyrs, heroes,
cowards, debauchees, ascetics, mystics, cynics, misers,
prodigals, men, women, and babes in arms." Surely, this is
only to say, in effect, that 'love of happiness' is a pure
bit of scholasticism, an undefined entity.
In a hedonistic argument (by Stanton Coit, Mind, Vol. XI, p. 349),
the fallacy is seen in the following discussion. The story is told of
Abraham Lincoln that he once passed an animal in distress by the side
of the road, and that, after going by, he finally went back and got
him out of the ditch. On being praised for his act, he replied that he
did it on his own account, since he kept getting more uncomfortable as
he thought of the animal in distress. From this, it cannot be inferred
that love of pleasure is at the basis of moral acts. The mere lumping
off of feeling as the spring of conduct overlooks the only important
thing morally--the fact that Lincoln felt pain at the thought of the
animal unrelieved, and pleasure at the idea of its relief, just because
he was a man of compassionate _character_. It was not the feeling, but
the character revealed in, and creative of, the feeling that was the
real source of the act.
To connect this with our previous account of desire (p. 26): the
important thing morally is that the nature of the tension between fact
and idea--the actual state and the ideal activity--is an expression
of character. What kind of activity does it take to satisfy a man?
Does riding in a comfortable carriage, and following the course of his
own reflections exhaust his need of action? or does his full activity
require that note be taken of a suffering animal? It is the kind
of character one is (that is, the kind of activity which satisfies
and expresses one) which decides what pleasure shall be taken in an
anticipated end, what feeling of lack or hindrance (what pain) there
shall be in the given state, and hence what the resulting tension, or
desire, shall be. It is, therefore, character which moves to conduct.
Mere wishing, the mere floating fancy of this or that thing as
desirable, is not desire. To _want_ is an active projection of
character; really and deeply to want is no surface and passing
feeling; it is the stirring of character to its depths. There may be
repressed activity; that is not, of itself, desire. There may be an
image of larger activity; that is not, of itself, desire. But given
the _consciousness_ of a repressed activity in view of the perception
of a possible larger action, and a man strives within himself to break
his bonds and reach the new satisfaction. This striving within one's
self, before the activity becomes overt, is the emotional antecedent
of action. But this inward striving or tension, which constitutes
desire, is so far from being _mere_ emotion that it is character
itself--character as it turns an inward or ideal advance into an
outward, or real progress, into action.
We may fall back on Aristotle's statement (page 38, of
Peters' translation of his ethics): "The pleasure or pain
that accompanies an act must be regarded as a _test_ of
_character_. He who abstains from the pleasures of the body
and rejoices in his abstinence is temperate, while he who
is vexed at having to abstain is still profligate. As Plato
tells us, man needs to be so trained from youth up as to
take pleasure and pain _in the right objects_."
XV.
Summary.
The truth in hedonism is its conviction that the good, the end of man,
is not to be found in any outward object, but only in what comes home
to man in his own conscious experience. The error is in reducing this
experience to mere having, to bare feelings or affections, eliminating
the element of doing. It is this doing which satisfies man, and it is
this which involves as its content (as knowledge of impulse, instead
of blind impulse) objective and permanent ends. When Mill speaks of
the end of desire as a "satisfied life," (p. 317 of Utilitarianism) he
carries our assent; but to reduce this satisfied life to feelings of
pleasure, and absence of pains, is to destroy the life and hence the
satisfaction. As Mill recognizes, a life bounded by the agent's own
feelings would be, as of course, a life "centred in his own miserable
individuality." (Mill, p. 319). Such words have meaning only because
they suggest the contrast with activity in which are comprehended,
as 'ends' or 'objects' (that is, as part of its defined content)
things--art, science and industry--and persons (see Secs. 34 and 35).
Here too we must 'back to Aristotle.' According to him the
end of conduct is _eudaimonia_, success, welfare, satisfied
life. But _eudaimonia_ is found not in pleasure, but in
the fulfillment of human powers and functions, in which
fulfillment, since it is fulfillment, pleasure is had.
(Ethics, Bk. I, ch. 4-8).
We now take up the question whether pleasure is a standard of right
action, having finished the discussion concerning it as an end of
desire.
XVI.
Pleasure as the Standard of Conduct.
The line of criticism on this point may be stated as follows: Pleasure
fails as a standard for the very reason that it fails as a motive.
Pleasure, _as conceived by the hedonist_, is passive, merely agreeable
sensations, without any objective and qualitative (active) character.
This being so, there is no permanent, fixed basis to which we may refer
_acts_ and by which we may judge them. A standard implies a single
comprehensive end which unifies all acts and through connection with
which each gets its moral value fixed. Only action can be a standard
for acts. To reduce all acts to means to getting a mere state of
feeling is the inevitable consequence of hedonism. So reducing them is
to deprive them of any standard of value.
An end to serve as standard must be (1) a comprehensive end for all
the acts of an individual, and (2) an end comprehending the activities
of various individuals--a common good.
1. The moral end must be that for the sake of which all conduct
occurs--the _organizing principle_ of conduct--a totality, a system.
If pleasure is the end it is because each detail of conduct gets its
placing, its moral value through relation to pleasure, through the
contribution it makes to pleasure.
2. The moral end must also include the ends of the various agents who
make up society. It must be capable of constituting a social system
out of the acts of various agents, as well as an individual system out
of the various acts of one agent; or, more simply, the moral end must
be not only the good for all the particular acts of an individual, but
must be a _common good_--a good which in satisfying one, satisfies
others.
All ethical theories would claim that the end proposed by them served
these two purposes. We shall endeavor to show that the hedonistic
theory, the doctrine that the pleasure is the good, is not capable of
serving either of them.
XVII.
Pleasure Not a Standard.
1. _It does not unify character._ In the first place, the hedonistic
theory makes an unreal and impossible separation between conduct and
character. The psychology of hedonism comes into conflict with its
ethics. According to the former the motive of all action is to secure
pleasure or avoid pain. So far as the motive is concerned, on this
theory there can be no immoral action at all. That the agent should
not be moved by pleasure, and by what, at the time of acting, is the
greatest pleasure possible, would be a psychological impossibility.
Every motive would be good, or rather there would be no distinction of
good or bad pertaining to the motive. The character of the agent, as
measured by his motives, could never, under such circumstances, have
any moral quality.
To the consequences of action, or the conduct proper, however, the
terms good and bad might be applied. Although the agent is moved by
pleasurable feelings, the result of his action may be painful and thus
bad. In a word, on the hedonistic theory, it is only the external
consequences of conduct, or conduct divorced from character, to which
moral adjectives have any application. Such a separation not only
contradicts our experience (see VIII), but inverts the true order of
moral judgment. Consequences do not enter into the moral estimate at
all, except so far as, being foreseen, they are the act in idea. That
is, it is only as the consequences are taken up into the motive, and
thus related to character, that they are subject to moral judgment.
Indeed, except so far as action expresses character, it is not conduct,
but mere physical sequence, as irrelevant to morality as the change in
blood distribution, which also is the 'result' of an action. Hedonism
has to rule out at the start the only thing that gives totality to
action--the character of the agent, or conduct as the outcome of
motives. Furthermore, the ordinary judgment of men, instead of saying
that the sole moral motive is to get pleasure, would say that to
reduce everything to means for getting pleasure is the very essence of
immorality.
On the point above, compare Bentham, Op. cit., I, p. 48.
"A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or
pain operating in a certain manner. Now pleasure is in
itself a good: nay, even, setting aside immunity from pain,
the only good; pain is in itself an evil, and, indeed,
without exception, the only evil; or else the words good
and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every
sort of pain and of every sort of pleasure. It follows,
therefore, immediately and incontestably, that there is
no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a
bad one. If motives are good or bad, it is only on account
of their effects; good on account of their tendency to
produce pleasure or avert pain; bad on account of their
tendency to produce pain or avert pleasure. Now the case
is, that from one and the same motive, and from every kind
of motive, may proceed actions that are good, others that
are bad and others that are indifferent." Further, on p.
60, Bentham asks: "Is there nothing, then, about a man
that can properly be termed good or bad, when on such or
such an occasion he suffers himself to be governed by such
or such a motive? Yes, certainly, his _disposition_. Now
disposition is a kind of fictitious entity, feigned for the
convenience of discourse, in order to express what there
is supposed to be _permanent_ in a man's frame of mind. It
is with disposition as with everything else; it will be
good or bad according to its effects." The first quotation,
it will be noticed, simply states that the motive is in
itself always good, while conduct (_i. e._, consequences)
may be good, bad or indifferent. The second quotation
seems, however, to pass moral judgment upon character
under the name of disposition. But disposition is judged
according to the tendency of a person's actions. A good
or bad disposition, here, can mean nothing intrinsic to
the person, but only that the person has been observed to
act in ways that usually produce pain or pleasure, as the
case may be. The term is a 'fiction', and is a backhanded
way of expressing a somewhat habitual _result_ of a
given person's conduct his motive remaining good (or for
pleasure) all the time. The agent would never pronounce any
such judgment upon his own disposition, unless as a sort of
surprise that, his motive being 'good,' his actions turn
out so 'bad' all the time. At most, the judgment regarding
disposition is a sort of label put upon a man by others, a
label of "Look out for him, he is dangerous," or, "Behold,
a helpful man."
The moral standard of hedonism does not, then, bear any relation to the
character of the agent, does not enable us to judge it, either as a
whole or in any specific manifestation.
XVIII.
It Does Not Give a Criterion for Concrete Acts.
Pleasure, as the end, fails also to throw light on the moral value of
any specific acts. Its failure in this respect is, indeed, only the
other side of that just spoken of. There is no organizing principle,
no 'universal' on the basis of which various acts fall into a system
or order. The moral life is left a series of shreds and patches, where
each act is torn off, as to its moral value, from every other. Each
act is right or wrong, according as _it_ gives pleasure or pain, and
independently of any whole of life. There is, indeed, no whole of
moral life at all, but only a series of isolated, disconnected acts.
Possession, passivity, _mere_ feeling, by its very nature cannot
unite--each feeling is itself and that is the end of it. It is action
which reduces multiplicity to unity. We cannot say, in the hedonistic
theory, that pleasure is the end, but _pleasures_.
Each act stands by itself--the only question is: What pleasure will
_it_ give? The settling of this question is the "hedonistic calculus."
We must discover the intensity, duration, certainty, degree of nearness
of the pleasure likely to arise from the given act, and also its
purity, or likelihood of being accompanied by secondary pains and
pleasures. Then we are to strike the balance between the respective
sums on the pleasure and pain sides, and, according as this balance is
one of pleasure or pain, the act is good or evil.
Bentham, Op. cit., p. 16, was the first to go into detail
as to this method. He has also given certain memoriter
verses stating "the points on which the whole fabric of
morals and legislation may be seen to rest.
Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure,
Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure,
Such pleasures seek, if private be thy end.
If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid whichever be thy view,
If pains must come, let them extend to few."
This, however, in its reference to others, states the
utilitarian as well as the hedonistic view.
Now, it must be remembered that, if pleasure is the end, there is no
intrinsic connection between the motive of the act, and its result.
It is not claimed that there is anything belonging intrinsically to
the motive of the act which makes it result in pleasure or pain. To
make such a claim would be to declare the moral quality of the act the
criterion of the pleasure, instead of pleasure the criterion of the
act. The pleasures are external to the act; they are irrelevant and
accidental to its quality. There is no 'universal,' no intrinsic bond
of connection between the act and its consequences. The consequence is
a mere particular state of feeling, which, in this instance, the act
has happened to bring about.
More concretely, this act of truth-telling has in this instance,
brought about pleasure. Shall we call it right? Right in _this_
instance, of course; but is it right generally? Is truth-telling, as
such, right, or is it merely that this instance of it happens to
be right? Evidently, on the hedonistic basis, we cannot get beyond
the latter judgment. _Prior_ to any act, there will be plenty of
difficulties in telling whether it, as _particular_, is right or wrong.
The consequences depend not merely on the result intended, but upon a
multitude of circumstances outside of the foresight and control of the
agent. And there can be only a precarious calculation of possibilities
and probabilities--a method which would always favor laxity of conduct
in all but the most conscientious of men, and which would throw the
conscientious into uncertainty and perplexity in the degree of their
conscientiousness.
"If once the pleas of instinct are to be abolished and
replaced by a hedonistic arithmetic, the whole realm of
animated nature has to be reckoned with in weaving the
tissue of moral relations, and the problem becomes infinite
and insoluble".--Martineau, Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 334.
But waive this; let the particular case be settled. There is still no
law, no principle, indeed no presumption as to future conduct. The act
is not right _because_ it is _truth-telling_, but because, in this
instance, circumstances were such as to throw a balance of pleasure
in its favor. This establishes no certainty, no probability as to its
next outcome. The result _then_ will depend wholly upon circumstances
existing _then_--circumstances which have no intrinsic relation to the
act and which must change from time to time.
The hedonist would escape this abolition of all principle, or even
rule, by falling back upon a number of cases--'past experience' it is
called. We have found in a number of cases that a certain procedure has
resulted in pleasure, and this result is sufficient to guide us in a
vast number of cases which come up.
Says Mill (Op. cit., pp. 332-4): "During the whole past
duration of the species, mankind have been learning by
experience the tendencies of actions, on which experience
all the prudence as well as all the morality of life are
dependent.... Mankind must by this time have acquired
positive belief as to the effects of some actions on their
happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are
the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the
philosopher, until he has succeeded in finding better....
Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on
astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the
'Nautical Almanac'. Being rational creatures, they go to
sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go
out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the
common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of
the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish."
That we do learn from experience the moral nature of actions is
undoubted. The only question is: _if_ hedonism were true, _could_ we
so learn? Suppose that I were convinced that the results of murder in
the past had been generally, or even without exception (though this
could not be proved), painful; as long as the act and the result in the
way of feeling (pain or pleasure) are conceived as having no intrinsic
connection, this would not prove that in the present instance murder
will give a surplus of pain. I am not thinking of committing murder in
general, but of murder under certain specific present circumstances.
These circumstances may, and, to some extent, _must_ vary from all
previous instances of murder. How then can I reason from them to
it? Or, rather, let me use the previous cases as much as I may, the
moral quality of the act I am now to perform must still be judged not
from them, but from the circumstances of the present case. To judge
otherwise, is, on hedonistic principles, to be careless, perhaps
criminally careless as to one's conduct. The more convinced a man is
of the truth of hedonism and the more conscientious he is, the more he
is bound _not_ to be guided by previous circumstances, but to form his
judgment anew concerning the new case. This result flows out of the
very nature of the hedonistic ideal. Pleasure is not an activity, but
simply a particular feeling, enduring only while it is felt. Moreover,
there is in it no principle which connects it intrinsically with any
_kind_ of action. To suppose then that, because ninety-nine cases of
murder have resulted in pain, the hundredth will, is on a par with
reasoning that because ninety-nine days have been frosty, the hundredth
will be. Each case, taken as particular, must be decided wholly by
itself. There is no continuous moral life, and no system of conduct.
There is only a succession of unlike acts.
Mill, in his examination of Whewell, (Diss. and Diss.,
Vol. III, pp. 158-59), tries to establish a general
principle, if not a universal law, by arguing that, even
in exceptional cases, the agent is bound to respect the
rule, because to act otherwise would weaken the rule, and
thus lead to its being disregarded in other cases, in which
its observance results in pleasure. There are, he says,
persons so wicked that their removal from the earth would
undoubtedly increase the sum total of happiness. But if
persons were to violate the general rule in these cases,
it would tend to destroy the rule. "If it were thought
allowable for any one to put to death at pleasure any human
being whom he believes that the world would be well rid
of,--nobody's life would be safe." That is to say, if every
one were really to act upon and carry out the hedonistic
principle, no rule of life would exist. This does very well
as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of hedonism, or as an argument
against adopting hedonism, but it is difficult to see how
Mill thought that it established a 'rule' on a hedonistic
basis. Mill's argument comes to saying that if hedonism
were uniformly acted upon, it would defeat itself--that
is, pleasure would not result. Therefore, in order to get
pleasure, we must not act upon the principle of hedonism
at all, but follow a general rule. Otherwise put: hedonism
gives no general rule, but we must have a general rule to
make hedonism works and therefore there is a general rule!
This begging of the question comes out even more plainly as
Mill goes on: "If one person may break through the rule
on his own judgment, the same liberty cannot be refused to
others; and, since no one could rely on the rule's being
observed, the rule would cease to exist." All of this is
obviously true, but it amounts to saying: "We _must_ have
a rule, and this we would not have if we carried out the
hedonistic principle in each case; therefore, we must not
carry it out." A principle, that carried out destroys all
rules which pretend to rest upon it, lays itself open to
suspicion. Mill assumes the entire question in assuming
that there is a rule. Grant this, and the necessity of
not 'making exceptions,' that is, of not applying the
hedonistic standard to each case, on its own merits,
follows. But the argument which Mill needs to meet is that
hedonism _requires_ us to apply the standard to each case
in itself, and that, therefore, there _is_ no rule. Mill
simply says--_assume_ the rule, and it follows, etc.
See Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 96-101; Green, Bk. IV, Ch. 3;
Martineau, Vol. II, pp. 329-334.
XIX.
The Sum and the Quality of Pleasure as the Standard.
We have been dealing with hedonism in its strict form--that which makes
_a_ pleasure, considered as to its intensity, certainty, etc., the
end of an act. Hedonism in this form fails to unify life, and fails,
therefore, to supply any standard. But the end of conduct is often
stated to be the greatest possible sum of pleasures thus introducing a
certain element of generality. Mill goes further and brings in the idea
of quality of pleasure.
Regarding the sum of pleasures the following from Sidgwick
(Op. cit., p. 382; see also p. 114) gives the hedonistic
statement. "The assumption is involved that all pleasures
are capable of being compared qualitatively with one
another and with all pains; that every feeling has a
certain intensive quality, positive or negative (or perhaps
zero) in respect to its desirableness and that the quantity
may be known, so that each may be weighed in ethical scales
against any other. This assumption is involved in the very
motion of maximum happiness," as the attempt to make "as
great as possible a sum of elements not quantitatively
commensurable would be a mathematical absurdity."
I. Sum of pleasures as the moral end. This, first, taken as criterion,
comes into conflict with the hedonistic psychology of pleasure as the
motive of acts; and, secondly, it requires some objective standard by
means of which pleasure is to be summed, and is, in so far, a surrender
of the whole hedonistic position.
1. If the object of desire is pleasure or a state of feeling which
exists only as it is felt, it is impossible that we should desire a
greatest sum of pleasures. We can desire a pleasure and that only. It
is not even possible that we should ever desire a continuous series of
pleasures. We can desire one pleasure and when that is gone, another,
but we can not unify our desires enough to aim at even a sum of
pleasures.
This is well put by Green (Op. cit, p. 236). "For the
feeling of a pleased person, or in relation to his sense
of enjoyment, pleasure cannot form a sum. However numerous
the sources of a state of pleasant feeling, it is one
and is over before another can be enjoyed. It and its
successors can be added together in thought, but not in
enjoyment or in imagination of an enjoyment. If the desire
is only for pleasure, _i. e._, for an enjoyment or feeling
of pleasure, we are simply victims of words when we talk of
desire for a sum of pleasures, much more when we take the
greatest imaginable sum to be the most desirable." See the
whole passage, pp. 235-246.
2. But the phrase "sum of pleasures" undoubtedly has a meaning--though
the fact that it has a meaning shows the untruth of the hedonistic
psychology. Surrendering this psychology, what shall we say of the
maximum possibility of pleasure as the criterion of the morality
of acts? It must be conceded that this conception does afford some
basis--although a rather slippery one--for the unification of conduct.
Each act is considered now not in its isolation merely, but in its
connection with other acts, according as its relation to them may
increase or decrease the possible sum of future happiness. But this
very fact that some universal, or element of relation, albeit a
quantitative one, has been introduced, arouses this inquiry: Whence
do we derive it? How do we get the thought of a sum of pleasure,
and of a maximum sum? _Only by taking into account the objective
conditions upon which pleasures depend, and by judging the pleasures
from the standpoint of these objective conditions._ When we imagine
we are thinking of a sum of pleasures, we are really thinking of
that totality of conditions which will come nearest affording us
self-satisfaction--we are thinking of a comprehensive and continuous
activity whose various parts are adjusted to one another. Because it is
complete activity, it is necessarily conceived as giving the greatest
possible pleasure, but apart from reference to complete activity and
apart from the objects in which this is realized, the phrase 'greatest
sum of happiness' is a mere phrase. Pleasures must be measured by a
standard, by a yard stick, before they can be summed in thought, and
the yard stick we use is the activity in which the pleasure comes. We
do not measure conduct by pleasure, but we compare and sum up pleasures
on the basis of the objects which occasion them. To add feelings, mere
transitory consequences, without first reducing those feelings to a
common denominator by their relation to one objective standard, is an
impossibility. Pleasure is a sort of sign or symbol of the object which
satisfies, and we may carry on our judgment, if we will, in terms of
the sign, without reference to the standard, but to argue as if the
sign were the thing, as if the sum of pleasure were the activity, is
suicidal.
Thus Green says (Op. cit., p. 244): "In truth a man's
reference to his own true happiness is a reference to the
objects which chiefly interest him, and has its controlling
power on that account. More strictly, it is a reference
to an ideal state of well-being, a state in which he
shall be satisfied; _but the objects of the man's chief
interests supply the filling of that ideal state_." See the
argument as put by Alexander (Moral Order and Progress,
pp. 199-200). Alexander has also brought out (Ibid., pp.
207-210) that even if we are going to use a quantitative
standard, the idea of a sum is not a very happy one. It
is not so much a sum of pleasures we want, as a certain
proportionate distribution and combination of pleasures.
"To regard the greatest sum of pleasures as the test of
conduct, supposing that we could express it in units of
pleasure, would be like declaring that when you had an
atomic weight of 98 you had sulphuric acid. The numerical
test would be useless unless we knew what elements were
to be combined, and in what proportion. Similarly till we
know what kinds of activities (and therefore what kinds
of pleasures) go with one another to form the end, the
greatest sum of pleasures will give us only the equivalent
of the end, but will not tell us what the composition of
the end is, still less how to get at it; or, to put the
matter more simply, when we know what the characters of
persons are, and how they are combined in morality, we then
estimate the corresponding sum of pleasures." (p. 209.)
II. A certain quality of pleasure the end. Some moralists, notably John
Stuart Mill, introduce considerations regarding the quality of pleasure
into the conception of the end. "It is quite compatible," says Mill,
"with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds
of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others." (p.
310.) Is it compatible? Is kind of pleasure the same thing as pleasure?
does not strict hedonism demand that all kinds of pleasure equally
present as to intensity in consciousness shall be of the same value?
To say otherwise is to give up pleasure as such as the standard and to
hold that we have means for discriminating the respective values of
pleasures which simply, _as feelings_, are the same. It is to hold,
that is to say, that there is some standard of value external to the
pleasures as such, by means of which their moral quality may be judged.
In this case, this independent standard is the real moral criterion
which we are employing. Hedonism is surrendered.
Kant's position on this point seems impregnable. "It is
surprising," he says, "that men otherwise astute can
think it possible to distinguish between higher and lower
desires, according as the ideas which are connected with
the feeling of pleasure have their origin in the senses
or in the understanding; for when we inquire what are the
determining grounds of desire, and place them in some
expected pleasantness, it is of no consequence whence
the _idea_ of this pleasing object is derived, but only
how much it _pleases_.... The only thing that concerns
one, in order to decide choice, is how great, how long
continued, how easily obtained and how often repeated,
this agreeableness is. For as to the man who wants money
to spend, it is all the same whether the gold was dug out
of the mountain or washed out of the sand, provided it is
every-where accepted at the same value; so the man who
cares only for the enjoyment of life does not ask whether
the ideas are of the understanding or the senses, but only
_how much_ and _how great pleasure_ they will give for the
longest time."
See also Bradley, Op. cit., pp. 105-110.
When we ask how the differences in quality are established and how
we translate this qualitative difference into moral difference, the
surrender of pleasure as the standard becomes even more evident.
We must know not only the fact of different qualities, but how to
decide which is 'higher' than any other. We must bring the qualities
before a tribunal of judgment which applies to them some standard of
measurement. In themselves qualities may be different, but they are not
higher and lower. What is the tribunal and what is the law of judgment?
According to Mill the tribunal is the preference of those who are
acquainted with both kinds of pleasure.
"Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all, or almost
all who have experience of both, give a decided preference,
irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer
it, that is the more desirable pleasure." It is an
unquestionable fact that such differences exist. "Few human
creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower
animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's
pleasures. No intelligent person would consent to be a
fool; no instructed person would be an ignoramus; no person
of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base,
even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the
dunce or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than
they are with theirs.... It is better to be a human being
dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates
dissatisfied, than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the
pig are of a different opinion, it is because they only
know their own side of the question. The other party to the
comparison knows both sides."--Mill, Op. cit., pp. 311-313.
And in an omitted portion Mill says the reason that one
of the higher faculty would prefer a suffering which goes
along with that higher capacity, to more pleasure on a
lower plane, is something of which "the most appropriate
appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings
possess in one form or another."
A question immediately arises regarding this standard of preferability.
Is it the mere historical fact that some man, who has experienced both,
prefers A to B that makes A more desirable? Surely I might say that if
that person prefers A, A is more desirable to him, but that I for my
part prefer B, and that I do not intend to give up my preference. And
why should I, even though thousands of other men happened to prefer A?
B is the greater pleasure, none the less, to me, and as a hedonist I
must cling to the only standard that I have. The hedonists, in a word,
have appealed to feeling, and to feeling they must go for judgment. And
feeling exists only as it is felt and only to him who feels it.
On the other hand, perhaps it is not the bare act that some men prefer
one pleasure to another that makes it more desirable, but something
in the character of the men who prefer. And this is what Mill implies.
It is a "sense of dignity" belonging to man which makes his judgment
of pleasure better than that of animals; it is the human being against
the pig, Socrates against the fool, the good man against the rascal.
This is the complete surrender of hedonism, and the all but explicit
assertion that human character, goodness, wisdom, are the criteria of
pleasure, instead of pleasure the criterion of character and goodness.
Mill's "sense of dignity," which is to be considered in all estimates
of pleasures, is just the sense of a moral (or active) capacity and
destiny belonging to man. To refer pleasures to _this_ is to make it
the standard, and with this standard the anti-hedonist may well be
content, while asking, however, for its further analysis.
To sum up our long discussion of pleasure as a criterion of conduct
in respect of its unity, we may say: Pleasure, _as it actually exists
in man_, may be taken as _a_ criterion, although not the really
primary one, of action. But this is not hedonism; for pleasure as it
_exists_ is something more than pleasurable feeling; it is qualified
through and through by the kind of action which it accompanies, by
the kind of objects which the activity comprehends. And thus it is
always a secondary criterion. The moment we begin to analyze we
must ask what _kind of activity_, what kind of object it is which
the pleasure accompanies and of which it is a symbol. We may, if we
will, calculate a man's wealth in terms of dollars and cents; but this
is only because we can translate the money, the symbol, into goods,
the reality. To desire pleasure instead of an activity of self, is
to substitute symbol for fact, and a symbol cut off from fact ceases
to be a symbol. Pleasure, as the hedonist treats it, mere agreeable
feeling without active and thus objective relationships, is wholly an
abstraction. Since an abstraction, to make it the end of desire results
in self-contradiction; while to make it the standard of conduct is to
deprive life of all unity, all system, in a word--of all standard.
XX.
The Failure of Pleasure as a Standard to Unify Conduct Socially.
Thus far our examination of the hedonistic criterion has been devoted
to showing that it will not make a system out of individual conduct.
We have now to recognize the fact that pleasure is not a common good,
and therefore fails to give a social unity to conduct--that is, it does
not offer an end for which men may coöperate, or a good which reached
by one must be shared by another. No argument is needed to show,
theoretically, that any proposed moral criterion must, in order to be
valid, harmonize the interests and activities of different men, or to
show, practically, that the whole tendency of the modern democratic
and philanthropic movement has been to discover and realize a good
in which men shall share on the basis of an equal principle. It is
contended that hedonism fails to satisfy these needs. According to it,
the end for each man is his own pleasure. Pleasure is nothing objective
in which men may equally participate. It is purely individual in the
most exclusive sense of that term. It is a state of feeling and can
be enjoyed only while felt, and only by the one who feels it. To set
it up for the ideal of conduct is to turn life into an exclusive and
excluding struggle for possession of the means of personal enjoyment;
it is to erect into a principle the idea of the war of all against
all. No end more thoroughly disintegrating than individual agreeable
sensation could well be imagined.
Says Kant, (page 116 of Abbott's Trans., entitled Kant's
Theory of Ethics) on the basis of the desire of happiness
"there results a harmony like that which a certain
satirical poem depicts as existing between a married couple
bent on going to ruin: O, marvellous harmony, what he
wishes, she wishes also; or like what is said of the pledge
of Francis I to the emperor Charles V, what my brother
Charles wishes that I wish also (_viz._, Milan)."
Almost all modern moralists who take pleasure as the end conceive it
to be not individual pleasure, but the happiness of all men or even
of all sentient creatures. Thus we are brought to the consideration of
Utilitarianism.
Says Mill (Op. cit., p. 323), "The happiness which forms
the Utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is
not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned;
as between his own happiness and that of others,
Utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial
as a disinterested and benevolent spectator." And (page
315) the Utilitarian standard is "not the agent's own
greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness
altogether." See also Sidgwick (Op. cit., p. 379), "By
Utilitarianism is here meant the ethical theory, first
distinctly formulated by Bentham, that the conduct which,
under any given circumstances is externally or objectively
right is that which will produce the greatest amount of
happiness _on the whole_; that is, taking into account
all whose happiness is affected by the conduct. It would
tend to clearness if we might call this principle, and the
method based upon it, by some such name as Universalistic
hedonism." As popularly put, the utilitarian standard is
the "greatest happiness of the greatest number." While
in its calculation "each is to count for one and only
one." (_Bentham_). And finally Bain (Emotions and Mill,
p. 303), "Utility is opposed to the selfish theory, for,
as propounded, it always implies the good of society
generally, and the subordination of individual interests to
the general good."
XXI.
Criticism of Utilitarianism.
The utilitarian theory certainly does away entirely with one of the
two main objections to hedonism--its failure to provide a general,
as distinct from a private end. The question which we have to meet,
however, is whether this extension of the end from the individual to
society is consistent with the fundamental principles of hedonism.
_How_ do we get from individual pleasure to the happiness of all?
An intuitional utilitarian, like Sidgwick, has ready an
answer which is not open to the empirical utilitarians,
like Bentham, Mill and Bain. Methods of Ethics, Bk. III,
ch. 13-14, p. 355. "We may obtain the _self-evident
principle_ that the good of any one individual is of no
more importance, as a part of universal good, than the
good of any other. The abstract principle of the duty
of benevolence, _so far as it is cognizable by direct
intuition_" is, "that one is morally bound to regard the
good of any other individual as much as one's own"--and
page 364, "_the principles, so far as they are immediately
known by abstract intuition_, can only be stated as
precepts to seek (1) one's own good on the whole, and (2)
the good of any other no less than one's own, in so far as
it is no less an element of universal good." Sidgwick, that
is, differs in two important points from most utilitarians.
He holds that pleasure is not the sole, or even the usual
object of desire. And he holds that we have an immediate
faculty of rational intuition which informs us that the
good of others is as desirable an end of our conduct as is
our own happiness. Our former arguments against pleasure as
the _end_, bear, of course, equally against this theory,
but not the following arguments. Criticisms of this
position of Sidgwick's will be found in Green (Op. cit.,
pp. 406-415); Bradley (Op. cit., pp. 114-117).
The popular answer to the question how we get from individual to
general happiness, misses the entire point of the question. This
answer simply says that happiness is '_intrinsically_ desirable'. Let
it be so; but 'happiness' in this general way is a mere abstraction.
Happiness is always a particular condition of one particular person.
Whose happiness is desirable and _to whom_? Because my happiness is
intrinsically desirable to me, does it follow that your happiness is
intrinsically desirable to me? Indeed, in the hedonistic psychology,
is it not nonsense to say that a state of your feeling is desirable
to me? Mill's amplified version of the popular answer brings out the
ambiguity all the more plainly. He says (Utilitarianism, p. 349), "No
reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that
each person, so far as he believes it to be obtainable, desires his own
happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof
which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that
happiness is a good; that each person's happiness is a good to that
person; and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate
of all persons." But does it follow that because the happiness of A is
an end to A, the happiness of B an end to B, and the happiness of C an
end to C, that, therefore, the happiness of B and C is an end to A?
There is obviously no connection between the premises and the supposed
conclusion. And there appears to be, as Mill puts it, only an account
of the ambiguity of his last clause, "the general happiness a good to
the aggregate of all persons." The good of A and B and C may be a good
to the aggregate (A + B + C), but what universalistic hedonism requires
is that the aggregate good of A + B + C, be a good to A and to B and
to C taken separately--a very different proposition. Mill is guilty
of the fallacy known logically as the fallacy of division--arguing
from a collective whole to the distributed units. Because all men
want to be happy, it hardly follows that every man wants all to be
happy. There is, accordingly, no _direct_ road from individualistic
hedonism--private pleasure--to universalistic--general pleasure.
Moreover, if we adopt the usual psychology of hedonism and say that
pleasure is the motive of acting, it is absolutely absurd to say that
general pleasure can be a motive. How can I be moved by the happiness
which exists in some one else? I may feel a pleasure resembling his,
and be moved by it, but that is quite a different matter.
XXII.
Indirect Means of Identifying Private and General Pleasure.
Is there any _indirect_ method of going from the pleasure of one to
the pleasure of all? Upon the whole, the utilitarians do not claim
that there is any natural and immediate connection between the desire
for private and for general happiness, but suppose that there are
certain means which are instrumental in bringing about an identity. Of
these means the sympathetic emotions and the influence of law and of
education are the chief. Each of these, moreover, coöperates with the
other.
1. _Sympathetic and Social Emotions._
We are so constituted by nature that we take pleasure in the happiness
of others and feel pain in their misery. A proper regard for our own
welfare must lead us, therefore, to take an interest in the pleasure
of others. Our own feelings, moreover, are largely influenced by the
feelings of others toward us. If we act in a certain way we shall
incur the disapprobation of others, and this, independently of any
overt punishment it may lead them to inflict upon us, arouses feelings
of shame, of inferiority, of being under the displeasure of others,
feelings all of which are decidedly painful. The more enlightened our
judgment, the more we see how our pleasures are bound up in those of
others.
"The Dictates of Utility" (Bentham, Op. cit., p. 56)
"are neither more nor less than the dictates of the
most extensive and enlightened (that is, well advised)
benevolence," and (p. 18), "The pleasures of benevolence
are the pleasures resulting from the view of any pleasures
supposed to be possessed by the beings who may be the
objects of benevolence.... These may also be called the
pleasures of good will, the pleasures of sympathy, or the
pleasures of the benevolent or social affections"; and (p.
144), "What motives (independent of such as legislation and
religion may choose to furnish) can one man have to consult
the happiness of another?... In answer to this, it cannot
but be admitted that the only interests which a man at all
times and upon all occasions is sure to find _adequate_
motives for consulting, are his own. Notwithstanding this,
there are no occasions in which a man has not some motives
for consulting the happiness of other men. In the first
place he has, on all occasions, the purely social motive
of sympathy and benevolence; in the next place he has,
on most occasions, the semi-social motives of love of
amity and love of reputation." And so in the Deontology,
which, however, was not published by Bentham himself, page
203, "The more enlightened one is, the more one forms the
habit of general benevolence, because it is seen that the
interests of men combine with each other in more points
than they conflict in."
2. _Education and Law._
Education, working directly and internally upon the feelings, and
government, appealing to them from without through commands and
penalties, are constantly effecting an increasing identity of
self-interest and regard for others. These means supplement the action
of sympathy and the more instinctive emotions. They stimulate and even
induce a proper interest in the pleasures of others. In governmental
law, with its punishments, we have an express instrument for making the
pleasures of one harmonize with (or at least not conflict with) the
pleasures of others.
Thus Bentham, after stating that an enlightened mind
perceives the identity of self-interest and that of
others (or of _egoism_ and _altruism_, as these interests
are now commonly called), goes on (Deontology, p. 201):
"The majority do not have sufficient enlightenment, nor
enough moral feeling so that their character goes beyond
the aid of laws, and so the legislator should supplement
the frailty of this natural interest, in adding to it an
artificial interest more appreciable and more continuous.
Thus the government augments and extends the connexion
which exists between prudence and benevolence." Mill says
(Op. cit., p. 323): "To do as you would be done by, and
to love your neighbor as yourself, constitute the ideal
perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making
the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin,
first, that laws and social arrangements should place the
happiness or the interest of every individual as nearly as
possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and,
secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a
power over human character, should so use that power as to
establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble
association between his own happiness and the good of the
whole."
XXIII.
Private Pleasures and General Welfare.
In criticism of these indirect methods of establishing the identity of
'egoism' and 'altruism,' it may be said:
1. That the supposed relation between the private and the general
happiness is extrinsic, and hence always accidental and open to
exception.
It is not contended that there is any order which _morally_ demands
that there be an identity of interests. It is simply argued that there
are certain physical and psychological forces which operate, _as matter
of fact_, to bring about such a result. Now we may admit, if we like,
that such forces exist and that they are capable of accomplishing all
that Bentham and Mill claim for them. But all that is established is,
at most, a certain state of facts which is interesting as a state of
facts, but which has no especial moral bearing. It is not pretended
that there is in the very order of things any necessary and intrinsic
connection between the happiness of one and of another. Such identity
as exists, therefore, must be a mere external result of the action
of certain forces. It is accidental. This being the case, how can it
constitute the universal ideal of action? Why is it not open for an
agent, under exceptional circumstances, to act for his own pleasure,
to the exclusion of that of others? We may admit that, upon the whole
(or that always, though this is wholly impossible to prove) in past
experience, personal pleasure has been best attained by a certain
regard for the pleasures of others; but the connection being wholly
empirical (that is, of past instances and not of an intrinsic law), we
may ask how it can be claimed that the same connection is _certain_ to
hold in this new case? Nor is it probable that any one would claim that
the connection between individual pleasure and general pleasure had
been so universal and invariable in past experience.
_Intrinsic moral considerations_ (that is, those based on the very
nature of human action) being put aside, a pretty strong case could be
made out for the statement that individual happiness is best attained
by ignoring the happiness of others. Probably the most that can be
established on the other side is that a due prudence dictates that
_some_ attention be paid to the pleasures of others, in calculating
one's own pleasures.
And this suggests:
2. That the end is still private pleasure, general pleasure being
simply a means. Granting all that the hedonists urge, what their
arguments prove is not that the general pleasure is the end of action,
but that, private pleasure being the end, regard for the pleasures of
others is one of the most efficient means of reaching it. If private
pleasure is a selfish end, the end is not less selfish because the road
to it happens to bring pleasure to others also.
See Royce, Religious Aspect of Philosophy, pp. 61-74.
3. The use of education and law to bring about this identity,
presupposes that we already have the _ideal_ of the identity as
something desirable to realize--it takes for granted the very thing to
be proved. Why should it occur to men to use the private influence of
opinion and education, and the public influences of law and penalty
to identify private welfare with public, unless they were already
convinced that general welfare was the end of conduct, the one
desirable thing? What the hedonist has to do is to show how, from the
end of private happiness, we may get to the end of general happiness.
What Bentham and Mill do show is, that if we take general happiness as
the end, we may and do use education and law to bring about an identity
of personal and general pleasures. This may go undoubted, but the
question how we get the general happiness as the end, the good, remains
unanswered.
Nor is this all. The conception of general happiness, taken by itself,
has all the abstractness, vagueness and uncertainty of that of personal
happiness, multiplied indefinitely by the greater number of persons
introduced. To calculate the effects of actions upon the general
happiness--when happiness is interpreted as a state of feeling--is an
impossibility. And thus it is that when one is speaking of pleasures
one is really thinking of welfare, or well-being, or satisfied and
progressive human lives. Happiness is considered as it would be, if
determined by certain active and well defined interests, and thus the
hedonistic theory, while contradicting itself, gets apparently all
the support of an opposed theory. Universalistic hedonism thus, more
or less expressly, takes for granted a social order, or community of
persons, of which the agent is simply one member like any other. This
is the ideal which it proposes to realize. In this way--although at the
cost of logical suicide--the ideal gets a content and a definiteness
upon which it is possible to base judgments.
That this social organization of persons is the ideal which
Mill is actually thinking of, rather than any succession of
states of agreeable sensation, is evident by his treatment
of the whole subject. Mill is quite clear that education
and opinion may produce _any_ sort of feeling, as well as
truly benevolent motives to actions. For example, in his
critique of Whewell, he says, (Op. cit., p. 154): "All
experience shows that the moral feelings are preëminently
artificial, and the products of culture; that even when
reasonable, they are no more spontaneous than the growth
of corn and wine (which are quite as natural), and that
the most senseless and pernicious feeling can as easily be
raised to the utmost intensity by inculcation, as hemlock
and thistles could be reared to luxuriant growth by sowing
them instead of wheat." It is certainly implied here that
legislation, education and public opinion must have as a
presupposed standard the identity of general and private
interests or else they may produce anything whatever.
That is to say, Mill instead of arriving at his result of
general happiness simply takes it for granted.
This fact and the further fact that he virtually defines
happiness through certain objective interests and ends
(thus reversing the true hedonistic position) is obvious
from the following, (Mill, Op. cit., pp. 343-347): After
again stating that the moral feelings are capable of
cultivation in almost any direction, and stating that
moral associations that are of artificial construction
dissolve through the force of intellectual analysis (_cf._
his Autobiography, p. 136), and that the association
of pleasure with the feeling of duty would similarly
dissolve unless it had a _natural_ basis of sentiment, he
goes on. "But there is this basis of powerful _natural_
sentiment. This firm foundation is that of the social
feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our
fellow-creatures. _The social state is at once so natural,
so necessary, and so habitual to man that except in some
unusual circumstances, or by an effort of voluntary
abstraction he never conceives of himself otherwise than
as a member of a body._ Any condition, therefore, which
is essential to a state of society becomes more and more
an inseparable part of every person's conception of the
state of things which he is born into, and which is the
destiny of a human being." Mill then goes on to describe
some of the ways in which the social unity manifests itself
and influences the individual's conduct. Then the latter
"comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself
as a being who _of course_ pays regard to others. The good
of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily
to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of
our existence. _The deeply-rooted conception which every
individual even now has of himself as a social being tends
to make him feel it as one of his natural wants, that there
should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those
of his fellow-creatures._ This conviction is the ultimate
sanction of the greatest happiness morality."
It is to be noticed that there is involved in this account three ideas,
any one of which involves such a reconstruction of the pleasure theory
as to be a surrender of hedonism.
1. There is, in one instance, a _natural_ (or intrinsic) connection
between the end of conduct and the feelings, and not simply an
external or artificial bond. This is in the case of the social
feelings. In other words, in one case the ideal, that is, happiness,
is intrinsically, or necessarily connected with a certain kind of
conduct, that flowing from the social impulses. This, of course,
reverses hedonism for it makes happiness dependent upon a certain kind
of conduct, instead of determining the nature of conduct according as
it happens to result in pleasure or pain.
2. Man conceives of himself, of his end or of his destiny as a member
of a social body, and this conception determines the nature of his
wants and aims. That is to say, it is not mere happiness that a man
wants, but a certain _kind_ of happiness, that which would satisfy a
man who conceived of himself as social, or having ends and interests in
common with others.
3. Finally, it is not mere general "happiness" which is the end, at
all. It is social unity; "harmony of feelings and aims," a beneficial
condition for one's self in which the benefits of all are included.
Instead of the essentially vague idea of states of pleasurable
sensation we have the conception of a community of interests and ends,
in securing which alone is true happiness to be found. This conception
of the moral ideal we regard as essentially true, but it is not
hedonism. It gives up wholly the notion that pleasure is the _desired_,
and, since it sets up a standard by which it determines pleasure, it
gives up equally the notion that pleasure as such is the _desirable_.
In addition to the works already referred to, the following
will give fuller ideas of hedonism and utilitarianism: For
historical treatment see Sidgwick, History of Ethics; Jodl,
Geschichte der Ethik, Vol. II., pp. 482-468; Bain, Moral
Science, Historical Mention; Guyau, La Morale Anglaise
Contemporaine; Wallace, Epicureanism; Pater, Marius, the
Epicurean; Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy; Grote,
Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (especially
fair and valuable criticism); Lecky, History of European
Morals, Vol. I, ch. I; Birks, Utilitarianism (hostile);
Blackie, Four Phases of Morals: Essay on Utilitarianism
(hostile); Gizycki, Students' Manual of Ethical Philosophy,
(Coit's trans., favorable); Calderwood, Hand-Book of Moral
Philosophy (opposed); Laurie, Ethica (_e. g._, p. 10). "The
object of will is not pleasure, not yet happiness, but
reason-given law--the law of harmony; but this necessarily
ascertained through feeling, and, therefore, through
happiness."
Wilson and Fowler, Principles of Morals, Vol. I, pp.
98-112; Vol. II, pp. 262-273. Paulsen, System der Ethik,
pp. 195-210.
XXIV.
The Utilitarian Theory Combined With the Doctrine of Evolution.
There has lately been an attempt to combine utilitarian morality with
the theory of evolution. This position, chiefly as occupied by Herbert
Spencer and Leslie Stephen, we shall now examine.
Alexander, also, Moral Order and Progress, makes large use
of the theory of evolution, but does not attempt to unite
it with any form of hedonism.
For the combination, at least three decided advantages are claimed over
ordinary utilitarianism.
1. It transforms 'empirical rules' into 'rational laws.' The
evolutionary hedonists regard pleasure as the good, but hold that the
theory of evolution enables them to judge _of the relation of acts to
pleasure_ much better than the ordinary theory. As Mr. Spencer puts
it, the ordinary theory is not scientific, because it does not fully
recognize the principle of causation as existing between certain
acts as causes, and pleasures (or pains) as effects. It undoubtedly
recognizes that some acts _do_ result in pain or pleasure, but does
not show _how_ or _why_ they so result. By the aid of the theory of
evolution we can demonstrate that certain acts _must_ be beneficial
because furthering evolution, and others painful because retarding it.
Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 5758. "Morality properly
so-called--the science of right conduct--has for its object
to determine _how_ and _why_ certain rules of conduct are
detrimental, and certain other rules beneficial. Those good
and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary
consequences of the constitution of things; and I conceive
it to be the business of moral science to _deduce, from
the laws of life and the conditions of existence_, what
kinds of action _necessarily_ tend to produce happiness,
and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this,
its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and
are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation
of happiness or misery.... The objection which I have to
the current utilitarianism is, that it recognizes no more
developed form of utility--does not see that it has reached
but the initial stage of moral science.... It is supposed
that in future, as now, utility is to be determined only by
observation of results; and that there is no possibility
of knowing by deduction from fundamental principles what
conduct _must_ be detrimental and what conduct _must_ be
beneficial." _Cf._ also ch. IX, and Stephen, Science of
Ethics, ch. IX.
It is contended, then, that by the use of the evolutionary theory, we
may substitute certain conditions, which in the very nature of things
tend to produce happiness, for a calculation, based upon observation
of more or less varying cases in the past, of the probable results of
the specific action. Thus we get a fixed objective standard and do
away with all the objections based upon the uncertainty, vagueness and
liability to exceptions, of the ordinary utilitarian morality.
Spencer, Op. cit., p. 162: "When alleging that empirical
utilitarianism is but introductory to rational
utilitarianism I pointed out that the last does not take
welfare for its _immediate_ object of pursuit, but takes
for its immediate object of pursuit conformity to certain
principles which, in the nature of things, causally
determine welfare."
2. It reconciles 'intuitionalism' with 'empiricism.' The theory of
evolution not only gives us an objective standard on which happiness
necessarily depends, and from which we may derive our laws of conduct,
instead of deriving them from observation of particular cases, but
it enables us to recognize that there are certain moral ideas now
innate or intuitive. The whole human race, the whole animal race, has
for an indefinite time been undergoing experiences of what leads to
pleasure and of what leads to pain, until finally the results of these
experiences have become organized into our very physical and mental
make-up. The first point was that we could substitute for consideration
of results consideration of the causes which determine these results;
the present point is that so far as we have to use results, we can use
those of the race, instead of the short span of the individual's life.
Spencer, Op. cit., pp. 123-124. "The experiences of utility
organized and consolidated through all past generations
of the human race have been producing corresponding
nervous modifications, which, by continued transmission
and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties
of moral intuition--certain emotions corresponding to
right and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in
the individual experiences of utility.... The evolution
hypothesis thus enables us to reconcile opposed moral
theories.... The doctrine of innate powers of moral
perception become congruous with the utilitarian doctrine,
when it is seen that preferences and aversions are rendered
organic by inheritance of the effects of pleasurable and
painful experiences in progenitors."
3. It reconciles 'egoism' with 'altruism.' As we have seen, the
relation of personal pleasure to general happiness presents very
serious difficulties to hedonism. It is claimed, however, that the
very process of evolution necessitates a certain identity. The being
which survives must be the being which has properly adapted himself to
his environment, which is largely social, and there is assurance that
the conduct will be adapted to the environment just in the degree in
which pleasure is taken in acts which concern the welfare of others.
If an agent has no pleasure in such acts he will either not perform
them, or perform them only occasionally, and thus will not meet the
conditions of surviving. If surrounding conditions demand constantly
certain actions, those actions in time must come to be pleasurable. The
conditions of survival demand altruistic action, and hence such action
must become pleasurable to the agent (and in that sense egotistic).
"From the laws of life (Spencer Op. cit., p. 205) it must
be concluded that unceasing social discipline will so mould
human action, that eventually sympathetic pleasures will
be pursued to the fullest extent advantageous to each and
all.... Though pleasure may be gained by giving pleasure,
yet the thought of the sympathetic pleasure to be gained
will not occupy consciousness, but only the thought of the
pleasure given."
XXV.
Criticism of Evolutionary Utilitarianism.
Regarding the whole foregoing scheme, it may be said so far as it is
true, or suggestive of truth, it is not hedonistic. It does not judge
actions from their effects in the way of pleasure or pain, but it
judges pleasures from the basis of an independent standard 'in the
nature of things.' It is expressly declared that happiness is not to
be so much the end, as the _test_ of conduct, and it is not happiness
in general, of every sort and kind, but a certain kind of happiness,
happiness conditioned by certain modes of activity, that is the test.
Spencer's hedonism in its final result hardly comes to more than saying
that in the case of a perfect individual in a perfect society, every
action whatever would be accompanied by pleasure, and that, therefore,
_in such a society_, pleasure would be an infallible sign and test of
the morality of action--a position which is not denied by any ethical
writer whatever, unless a few extreme ascetics. Such a position simply
determines the value of pleasure by an independent criterion, and then
goes on to say _of pleasure so determined_, that it is the test of
the morality of action. This may be true, but, true or not, it is not
hedonistic.
Furthermore, this standard by which the nature of pleasure is
determined is itself an ethical (that is, active) standard. We have
already seen that Spencer conceives that the modes of producing
happiness are to be deduced from the "laws of life and the conditions
of existence". This might be, of course, a deduction from _physical_
laws and conditions. But when we find that the laws and conditions
which Spencer employs are mainly those of _social_ life, it is
difficult to see why he is not employing a strictly ethical standard.
To deduce not right actions directly from happiness, but the kinds of
actions which will produce happiness from a consideration of a certain
ideal of social relationships seems like a reversal of hedonism; but
this is what Mr. Spencer does.
XXVI.
The Real Criterion of Evolutionary Ethics.