Chapter I: The Good (1)

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.