Chapter I: The Good (2)

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.

Mr. Spencer expressly recognizes that there exists (1) an ideal code of conduct, formulating the conduct of the completely adapted man in the completely evolved society. Such a code is called absolute ethics as distinguished from relative ethics--a code the injunctions of which are alone to be considered "as absolutely right, in contrast with those that are relatively right or least wrong, and which, as a system of ideal conduct, is to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, as well as we can, the problems of real conduct" (p. 275 of the Data of Ethics). "The ideal code deals, it will be observed, with the behavior of the completely adapted man in a completely evolved society." This ideal as elsewhere stated, is "an ideal social being so constituted that his spontaneous activities are congruous with the conditions imposed by the social environment formed by other such beings.... The ultimate man is one in whom there is a correspondence between all the promptings of his nature and all the requirements of his life as carried on in society" (p. 275). Furthermore, "to make the ideal man serve as a standard, he has to be defined _in terms of the conditions which his nature fulfill_--in terms of the objective requisites which must be met before conduct can be right" (p. 179). "Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state" (p. 280).

Here we have in the most express terms the recognition of a final and permanent standard with reference to which the nature of happiness is determined, and the standard is one of social relationships. To be sure it is claimed that the standard is one which results in greatest happiness, but every ethical theory has always claimed that the ideal moral condition would be accompanied by the maximum possible happiness.

2. The ideal state is defined with reference to the end of evolution. That is, Spencer defines pleasure from an independent standard instead of using pleasure as the standard. This standard is to be got at by considering that idea of "fully evolved conduct" given by the theory of evolution. This fully evolved conduct implies: (i.) Greatest possible quantity of life, both in length and breadth; (ii.) Similar maintenance of life in progeny; and (iii.) Life in which there is no interference of actions by one with those of another, and, indeed, life in which the "members of a society" give material help in the achievement of ends, thus rendering the "lives of all more complete". (See Chap. II of Data of Ethics). Furthermore, the "complete life here identified with the ideally moral life" may be otherwise defined as a life of perfect equilibrium (p. 74), or balance of functions (p. 90), and this considered not simply with reference to the individual, but also with reference to the relation of the individual to society. "Complete life in a complete society is but another name for complete equilibrium between the co-ordinated activities of each social unit and those of the aggregate of units" (p. 74, and the whole of chap. V. See also pp. 169-170 for the position that the end is a society in which each individual has full functions freely exercised in due harmony, and is, p. 100, "the spontaneous exercise of duly proportioned faculties").

3. Not only is pleasure thus determined by an objective standard of "complete living in a complete society" but it is expressly recognized that _as things are now, pleasure is not a perfect guide to, or even test of action_. And this difficulty is thought to be removed by reference to the ideal state in which right action and happiness will fully coincide.

The failure of pleasure as a perfect test and guide of right conduct, comes out in at least three cases:--

1. There is the conflict of one set of pleasures with another, or of present happiness with future, one lot having to be surrendered for the sake of another. This is wrong, since pleasure as such is good, and, although a fact at present, exists only on account of the incomplete development of society. When there is "complete adjustment of humanity to the social state there will be recognition of the truth that actions are completely right only when, besides being conducive to future happiness, special and general, they are immediately pleasurable, and that painfulness, not only ultimate but proximate, is the concomitant of actions which are wrong" (p. 29. See for various cases in which "pleasures are not connected with actions which must be performed" and for the statement that this difficulty will be removed in an ideal state of society, p. 77; pp. 85-87; pp. 98-99).

2. There is also, at present, a conflict of individual happiness with social welfare. In the first place, as long as there exist antagonistic societies, the individual is called upon to sacrifice his own happiness to that of others, but "such moralities are, by their definition, shown to belong to incomplete conduct; not to conduct that is fully evolved" (See pp. 133-137). Furthermore, there will be conflict of claims, and consequent compromises between one's own pleasure and that of others (p. 148), until there is a society in which there is "complete living through voluntary co-operation", this implying negatively that one shall not interfere with another and shall fulfill contracts, and positively that men shall spontaneously help to aid one another lives beyond any specified agreement (pp. 146-149).

3. There is, at present, a conflict of obligation with pleasure. Needed activities, in other words, have often to be performed under a pressure, which either lessens the pleasure of the action, or brings pain, the act being performed, however, to avoid a greater pain (so that this point really comes under the first head). But "the remoulding of human nature into fitness for the requirements of social life, must eventually make all needful activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all activities at variance with these requirements" (p. 183). "The things now done with dislike, through sense of obligation, will be done then with immediate liking" (p. 84, and p. 186; and pp. 255-256). All the quotations on these various points are simply so many recognitions that pleasure and pain as such are not tests of morality, but that they become so when morality is independently realized. Pleasure is _not_ now a test of conduct, but becomes such a test as fast as activity becomes full and complete! What is this but to admit (what was claimed in Sec. XIII) that activity itself is what man wants; not _mere_ activity, but the activity which belongs to man as man, and which therefore has for its realized content all man's practical relationships.

Of Spencer's conception of the ideal as something not now
realized, but to be some time or other realized once for
all, we have said nothing. But see below, Sec. 64, and also
Alexander, Op. cit., pp. 264-277, and also James, Unitarian
Review, Vol. XXII., pp. 212-213.

We have attempted, above, to deal with evolutionary
ethics only in the one point of its supposed connection
with pleasure as a standard. Accounts and criticisms
of a broader scope will be found in Darwin, Descent
of Man; Martineau, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 335-393;
Schurman, Ethical Import of Darwinism; Sorley, Ethics of
Naturalism, chapters V, and VI; Stephen, Science of Ethics,
particularly pp. 31-34; 78-89; 359-379; Royce, Religious
Aspect of Philosophy, pp. 74-85; Everett, Poetry, Comedy
and Duty, Essay on the New Ethics; Seth in Mind, Jan. 1889,
on Evolution of Morality; Dewey, Andover Review, Vol. VII,
p. 570; Hyslop, Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 348.

XXVII.

Formal Ethics.

We come now to the ethical theories which attempt to find the good not only in the will itself, but in the will irrespective of any end to be reached by the will. The typical instance of such theories is the Kantian, and we shall, therefore, make that the basis of our examination. Kant's theory, however, is primarily a theory not of the good, but of the nature of duty, and that makes a statement of his doctrine somewhat more difficult.

"The concept of good and evil must not be determined
before the moral law (of which it seems as if it must be
the foundation), but only after it and by means of it"
(Abbott's Trans., p. 154).

Separating, as far as we can, his theory of the good from that of duty, we get the following results:

1. Goodness belongs to the will, and to that alone. "Nothing can possibly be conceived, in the world or out of it, which can be called good without qualification except a good will." The will is not good because of what it brings about, or what it is fitted to bring about; that is, it is not good on account of its adaptation to any end outside of itself. It is good in itself. "It is like a jewel which shines by its own light, having its whole value in itself."

2. The good, then, is not to be found in any _object_ of will or of desire, nor in the will _so far as it is directed towards an end outside itself_. For the will to be moved by inclination or by desire is for it to be moved for the sake of some external end, which, moreover, is always pleasure (Kant, _i. e._, agrees with the hedonists regarding the object of desire, but on that very ground denies that pleasure is the good or the desirable). If, then, no object of desire can be the motive of a good will, what is its motive? Evidently only some principle derived from the will itself. The good will is the will which acts from regard to its own law.

3. What is the nature of this law? All objects of desire (_i. e._, all material) have been excluded from it. It must, therefore, be purely formal. The only content of the law of the good will is the _idea of law itself_. The good will acts from reverences for law as _law_. It not only acts _in conformity with law_, but has the conception of law as its directing spring.

4. There must, however, be some application of this motive of law in general to particular motives or acts. This is secured as follows: The idea of law carries with it the idea of universality or self-identity. To act from the idea of law is then so to act that the motive of action can be generalized--made a motive for all conduct. The good will is the _legislative_ will; the will whose motive can be made a law for conduct universally. The question in a specific case is then: Can your motive here be made universal, _i. e._, a law? If the action is bad, determined by an object of desire, it will be contingent and variable, since pleasures are different to different persons and to the same person from moment to moment. The will is good, then, when its motive (or maxim) is to be found solely in the _legislative form_ of the action, or in its fitness to be generalized into a universal principle of conduct, and the law of the good will is: "Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation" (Abbott's Trans., p. 119; also p. 55).

5. The application may be illustrated by the following cases:

(_a_) Some one, wearied by what he conceives to be the entire misery of life proposes to commit suicide, but he asks himself whether this maxim based on the principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature; and "we see at once that a system of nature in which the very feeling, whose office is to compel men to the preservation of life, should lead men by a universal law to death, cannot be conceived without contradiction". That is to say, the principle of the motive which would lead a man to suicide cannot be generalized without becoming contradictory--it cannot be made a law universal.

(_b_) An individual wishes to borrow money which he knows that he cannot repay. Can the maxim of this act be universalized? Evidently not: "a system of nature in which it should be a universal law to promise without performing, for the sake of private good, would contradict itself, for then no one would believe the promise--the promise itself would become impossible as well as the end it had in view."

(_c_) A man finds that he has certain powers, but is disinclined to develop them. Can he make the maxim of such conduct a universal law? He cannot _will_ that it should become universal. "As a rational being, he must will that his faculties be developed."

(_d_) A prosperous individual is disinclined to relieve the misery of others. Can his maxim be generalized? "It is impossible to _will_ that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, in as much as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires."

In conclusion, then, the good is the good will itself, and the will is good in virtue of the bare form of its action, independently of all special material willed.

See Abbott's trans., pp. 9-46; 105-120. Caird's Critical
Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II, pp. 171-181; 209-212.

XXVIII.

Relation of this Theory to Hedonism.

The Kantian theory, as already noticed, agrees in its psychology with hedonism. It holds that pleasures are the objects of desire. But it reverses the conclusion which hedonism draws from this fact _as to the desirable_. Since pleasures are the object of desire, and pleasures can give no law, no universality to action, the end of action must be found wholly _outside_ the pleasures, and wholly outside the desires. It can be found only in the bare law of the will itself.

1. Hedonism finds the end of conduct, or the desirable, wholly determined by the various particular desires which a man happens to have; Kantianism holds that to discover the end of conduct, we must wholly exclude the desires.

2. Hedonism holds that the rightness of conduct is determined wholly by its consequences; Kantianism holds that the consequences have nothing to do with the rightness of an act, but that it is decided wholly by the motive of the act.

From this contrast, we may anticipate both our criticism of the Kantian theory and our conception of the true end of action. The fundamental error of hedonism and Kantianism is the same--the supposition that desires are for pleasure only. Let it be recognized that desires are for objects conceived as satisfying or developing the self, and that pleasure is incidental to this fulfillment of the capacities of self, and we have the means of escaping the one-sidedness of Kantianism as well as of hedonism. We can see that the end is neither the procuring of particular pleasures through the various desires, nor action from the mere idea of abstract law in general, but that it is the _satisfaction of desires according to law_. The desire in its particular character does not give the law; this, as we saw in our criticism of hedonism, is to take away all law from conduct and to leave us at the mercy of our chance desires as they come and go. On the other hand the law is not something wholly apart from the desires. This, as we shall see, is equally to deprive us of a law capable of governing conduct. The law is the law of the desires themselves--the harmony and adjustment of desires necessary to make them instruments in fulfilling the special destiny or business of the agent.

From the same point of view we can see that the criterion is found neither in the consequences of our acts _as pleasures_, nor _apart from consequences_. It is found indeed in the consequences of acts, _but in their complete consequences_:--those upon the agent and society, as helping or hindering them in fulfillment of their respective functions.

XXIX.

Criticism of Kantian Criterion of Conduct.