(bb) from more than one self-consistent code being possible,
But although this requisite is complied with, it will still remain possible, in the second place, that two or more of the assumed principles may yield systems of practical rules perfectly self-consistent, and yet inconsistent with one another.[9]It would be very hard indeed to show that both the theory of Egoistic Hedonism, and what is generally called Utilitarianism, do not succeed in doing so: and thus the examination of methods is not of itself sufficient to settle the question of the end of conduct. And since—to quote Mr Sidgwick[10]—it is "a fundamental postulate of ethics that either these methods must be reconciled and harmonised, or all but one of them rejected," it follows that the criticism of methods leads naturally up to an independent criticism of principles, unless indeed it can be shown that one method only yields a consistent code of practical rules.
(cc) from its assumption that the true end must give perfectly consistent rules.
Even in this case, however, if it led to the adoption of the end in question, it must be borne in mind that the postulate would be implied that the true ethical end must be able to yield a consistent and harmonious system of rules for practical life. Without altogether denying this postulate, it yet seems to me that it stands in need of qualification. For in different circumstances, and at different stages of individual and social development, the application of the same ethical end may naturally produce different and conflicting courses of conduct. We must not start with any such assumption as that the rationality of the end consists in some sort of mathematical equality which ignores alike the different environment with which one age and another surround different generations, and the different functions which one individual and another have to perform in the social whole. We must leave open the possibility that what is right now may be wrong in another age; we must remember that everybody may not count for one, and that some people may count for more than one; we must admit that we may have sometimes to do to others what we would not that others should do to us. The only consistency we have a right to demand must leave room for such a variety of different conditions as to be, by itself, a very insecure guide.
From the difficulty of complying with the aboveconditions, it seems practically impossible for the criticism of ethical methods to decide the question of the ethical end. Even if the application to conduct of every important end has been taken account of, we are met with the difficulty that two or more mutually antagonistic though self-consistent practical codes may probably have been developed, while we are not even justified in assuming that inability to yield a system which will fit the complex circumstances of life in a perfectly harmonious manner is sufficient ground for rejecting an end shown in some other way to be reasonable.
(β) distinct from moral psychology and sociology.
The last department of ethics referred to—that which has to do with the origin and nature of moral sentiments and social customs—has a bearing on the question of the end of conduct in some respects more important than the investigation of ethical methods. For, whereas the latter expressly assumes certain ends asprimâ faciereasonable, the former inquiry, on the contrary, is now frequently understood to be able, without presupposing any ethical relations whatever, to trace the way in which, from primitive feelings and customs, morality itself has been evolved. The psychological side of ethical inquiry has always had an important place with English moralists. At times, indeed, the question of the "moral faculty" has excited so much interest as to divert attention from the nature of morality itself. Moral truth has been supposed tobe something known and indisputable, the only question being how we came to know it. But the psychology of ethics, reinforced by the knowledge sociology gives of the development of morality, rises now to larger issues. It attempts to show the genesis of the moral from the non-moral, to account thus for the origin of ethical ideas, and even to determine what kinds of ends are to be striven after. In this way, a theory of the origin and growth of moral sentiments and institutions is made to render important help to more than one of the theories which will fall to be considered in the sequel.
3. Present inquiry limited
The present Essay has to inquire into the way in which we may determine what the end of human conduct is,—into the basis of ethics, therefore. But I do not propose to offer an exhaustive investigation of all the theories which have been or may be started in solution of the problem. On the contrary, I will begin by excluding from the inquiry all theories which seek the basis of ethics in something outside the constitution of man as a feeling and reasoning agent:[11]not because I contend that allsuch theories areprimâ facieunreasonable, but because it is at any rate the more obvious course to|to theories depending on the human constitution,|seek to determine the function of an organism by studying its inner constitution, than by having regard to something which is external to it, and does not act upon and modify it as a necessary part of its environment. It is only when this method has been tried and has failed that we should seek outside us for some guide as to the part we ought to play in the universe. For this reason I shall not take into consideration the views of the basis of ethics which find it in positive law either divine or human, except in so far as they are shown to follow from the nature of man. It is not necessary for me to deny that the source of all moral obligation may be the will of God, or the commands of the sovereign, or the opinion of society, and that the highest moral ideal may be obedience to such a rule. But theories of this kind make ethics merely an application of positive theology, or of legislation, or of social sentiment, and seem only to have anappropriate place when we have failed to find an independent basis for action.
The question which remains to be put may be expressed in these terms: Can we find in human nature (taken either alone or in connection with its environment) any indications of the end of human conduct, or, in other words, of the principle on which human beings "ought" to act? and if so, in what direction do these indications point, and what is their significance? The answer to this question will thus necessarily depend on the view we take of the constitution of man and his relation to his environment. And I purpose to bring this discussion within the necessary limits by considering the ethical consequences of one only of the two views into which philosophical opinion is divided.
and here to ethics of Naturalism,
Now the fundamental principle of division in philosophical opinion lies in the place assigned to reason in human nature.[12]According to one theory, man is essentially a sensitive subject, though able to reason about his sensations—that is, to associate, compound, and compare them. He is supposed to be built up of sense-presentations associated with feelings of pleasure and pain. Recipient of external impressions which persist in idea and are accompaniedby pleasure or pain on his part, and thus followed by other ideas and impressions, man's mental constitution is explained without attributing to reason any spontaneous or productive function.[13]|as distinguished from Rational ethics.|The other view differs from this in attributing spontaneity to reason—making it, in one way or another, the source of forms of thought, principles, or ideas. The former may be called the Naturalistic, the latter the Rationalistic view of man: from that follows a Naturalistic or Natural ethics, from this a Rationalistic or Rational ethics. Into both these theories, in a theoretical as well as in an ethical aspect, the historical turn of thought which has characterised recent inquiry has introduced a profound modification.|Naturalism either individualistic|On the basis of Naturalism, we may either look upon man as an individual distinct from other individuals, as was done by Epicurus and Hobbes and the materialists of the eighteenth century, or we may consider the race as itself an organism,|or historical.|apart from which the individual is unintelligible, and look upon human nature as having become what it now is through a long process of interaction between organism and environment, in which social as well as psychical and physical facts have influenced the result. This is the view to the elaboration of which Comte andDarwin and Spencer have in different ways contributed.[14]What makes the historical method of importance philosophically, is not the mere fact that it traces a sequence of events in time, but the fact that, by doing so, it is able to look upon each link in the chain of events as necessarily connected with every other, and thus to regard as a system—or, rather, as an organism—what previous empirical theories had left without any principle of unity.
Rationalism either individualistic
A similar movement of thought has introduced a like modification into the Rationalistic theory. According to older doctrines, the individual reason is mysteriously charged with certainà prioriprinciples which are to us laws of knowledge and of action; whereas the form of Rationalism which is now in the ascendant resembles the theory of natural evolution in this, that as the latter finds the race more real than the individual, and the individual to exist only in the race, so the former looks upon the individual reason as but a finite|or universalistic.|manifestation of the universal reason, and attempts to show the principles or constitutive elements of this universal reason or consciousness in their logical or necessary connection—leaving open to empirical investigation the way in which they have gradually disclosed themselves in the individualhuman subject, and in the expression of the collective life of the race. Thus, as Natural Ethics is divided into an individualistic and an historical view, a similar distinction might be made in Rational Ethics, though in this case it would be more difficult to follow out the distinction in detail; and many ethical systems cannot be said to have kept consistently either to one side of it or to the other.
In the following discussion I shall investigate the ethical theory which is founded on the basis of Naturalism—working out and criticising in somewhat greater detail that form of the theory which, from the agreement it lays claim to with the results of modern science, plays so important a part in contemporary philosophical thought.
PART I.THE INDIVIDUALISTIC THEORY.
Definition of Naturalism.
It is difficult to give an exact definition or even description of what I have called the "natural" view of man. Perhaps it may be best defined, negatively, as the view which denies to reason any spontaneous or creative function in the human constitution. For this definition, if it still leaves the positive description wanting, will at least make the classification into "natural" and "rational" exhaustive and mutually exclusive. At the same time it is to be noted that, on the theory of Naturalism, reason is not supposed to be excluded from all share in determining questions of conduct or the choice of ends. It would, indeed,be impossible to have even the pretence of an ethical theory without a certain use of reason. But its function, in this case, is limited to the merely formal one of bringing different presentations (or objects) and feelings into connection, and comparing the different states of mind thus formed with one another, not with a reason-given standard.
Psychological hedonism.
Since the function of reason is thus restricted, and its competency to supply an end for, or principle of, action is denied, we must seek this end either in the feelings of pleasure and pain which accompany both sensory and motor presentations,—perceptions, that is to say, and actions,—or in the more complex, or apparently more complex, emotions of the mind. And the latter may either be themselves reducible to feelings of pleasure or pain accompanying presentations directly pleasurable or painful, and thence transferred by association to other presentations, or they may be regarded as somehow motives to action which may be or ought to be followed on their own account. The Individualistic Theory, therefore, is not necessarily hedonistic. It admits of a twofold view of the "natural" man: one which looks upon him as in essence a pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding animal; another which regards him as having a variety of impulses, some of which are not directed to his own pleasure or avoidance of pain.
1. Its theory of action
The former view—psychological hedonism, as it is called—claims to be an exhaustive analysis of the motives of human conduct, perfectly general indeed, but yet valid for every case of action. It denies the possibility of a man acting from any other principle than desire of pleasure or aversion from pain. The theory is, that it is a psychological law that action is motived by pleasure and pain, and that nothing else has motive-power over it. If, then, one pleasure (or avoidance of pain) is chosen in preference to another, it must be either by chance,—an alternative which has no ethical significance—no significance, that is, for the guidance of voluntary conduct,—or because the one course promises, or seems to promise, the attainment of a greater balance of pleasure than the other, or is actually at the time more pleasant than that other. Thus the view that pleasure is theonlymotive of human action is really identical, for ethical purposes, with the theory loosely expressed in the law that action follows thegreatestpleasure.[15]|ambiguous,|I say "loosely expressed"; for the law as thus stated really admits of three quite|referring to|different interpretations,not always distinguished with the precision which such subjects require.
(a) actual consequences of action,
(a) In the first place, the law might mean that action always follows the course which, as a matter of fact, will in the long-run bring the greatest balance of pleasure to the agent. It is evident that there is no ground in psychology for maintaining this view. Yet it is a fair interpretation of the "law" of psychological hedonism, as commonly stated; and it is at least an admissible supposition that this meaning of the phrase has not been without effect upon the uses to which the law has been put by some of its upholders. The second interpretation of the law—namely (b),|or (b) its expected consequences,|that action is always in the direction which seems to the agent most likely to bring him the greatest balance of pleasure, whether it actually brings it or not—is the sense in which it appears to have been most commonly taken when expressed with any degree of accuracy. It is in this sense that—in language which ascribes greater consistency to men's conduct than it usually displays—"interest" is asserted by the author of the 'Système de la nature' to be "the sole motive of human action."[16]The same view is adopted by Bentham;[17]and both James Mill and John Stuart Mill identify desire with pleasure, or an "idea" of pleasure, in terms which are sufficiently sweeping, if not very carefully weighed;[18]while the will is said to follow desire, or only to pass out of its power when coming under the sway of habit.[19]Still another meaning may, however, be given to the "law" of psychological hedonism, according to which the doubtful reference to the manifold pleasures and pains, contemplated as resulting from an action, is got rid of, and (c)|or (c) its present characteristics.|the agent is asserted always tochoose that action or forbearance which is actually most pleasant, or least painful, to him at the time—taking account, of course, of imaginative pleasures and pains, as well as of those which are immediately connected with the senses. It is in this interpretation of its law that psychological hedonism seems to be most capable of defence, and in this sense it has been more than once stated and defended.[20]
2. Ethical inferences from this theory,
The ethics of the form of Naturalism which is now under examination must be inferred from the "law" that human action follows the greatestpleasure, in one or other of the above meanings which that law admits of. The law is the datum or premiss from which we are to advance to an ethical conclusion. The "right" is to be evolved from the pleasurable; and the pleasurable, consequently, cannot be made to depend upon the right. It is certainly true of the conduct of most men, "that our prospect of pleasure resulting from any course of conduct may largely depend on our conception of it as right or otherwise."[21]But this presupposes that there is a right independent of one's own pleasure, and therefore does not apply to an ethics based on the simple theory of human nature put forward by psychological hedonism.
(a) in its first meaning,
It is scarcely necessary to discuss the first alternative (a), as no psychologist would seriously maintain it. A society composed of men constituted in the way it supposes men to be constituted, would be a collection of rational egoists, omniscient in all that concerned the results of action, and each adopting unerringly at every moment the course of conduct which would increase his own pleasure the most. The conduct of any member of such a society could only be modified when—and would always be modified when—the modified conduct actually brought pleasurable results to the agent: never so as to make him prefer the public good to his own.|(b)in its second meaning:|The second alternative (b) admits ofsuch modification taking place only when it seems to the individual that this modified action will produce a greater balance of pleasure or smaller balance of pain than any other course of action. Under this theory an individual might indeed prefer the public good or another man's good to his own, but only through his being deceived as to the actual results of his course of action. Ethics as determining an end for conduct is put out of court; though the statesman or the educator may modify the actions of others by providing appropriate motives. If the "two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure," "determine what we shall do," it is hardly necessary for them also "to point out what we ought to do."[22]The end is already given in the nature of action, though an enlightened understanding will teach men how the greatest|private ethics and legislation,|balance of pleasure may be obtained. We can only get at a rule prescribing an end by changing our point of view from the individual to the state. It is best for the state that each individual should aim at the common happiness; but, when we talk of this as a moral duty for the individual, all we can mean is that the state will punish a breach of it. In the words of Helvétius,[23]"pain and pleasure are the bonds by which we can always unite personal interest to the interest of the nation.... The sciences of morals and legislation can be only deductions from this simple principle." According to Bentham's psychology, a man is necessitated by his mental and physical nature to pursue at every moment, not the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but what seems to him his own greatest happiness. And what the legislator has to do is, by judiciously imposed rewards and punishments, especially the latter, to make it for the greatest happiness of each to pursue the greatest happiness of all.[24]As distinguished from this "art of legislation," "private ethics" consists only of prudential rules prescribing the best means to an end predetermined by nature as the only possible end of human action: it "teaches how each man maydispose himself to pursue the course most conducive to his own happiness."[25]The consequences to the theory of action of the third alternative|(c) in its third meaning.|(c) are similar: it only states the law with more appearance of psychological accuracy. If a man always follows that course of action which will give him at the time the greatest (real and imaginative) satisfaction, it is impossible for us to infer from his nature an ethical law prescribing some other end, without admitting a fundamental contradiction in human nature; while to say that he ought to seek the end he always does and cannot help seeking, is unnecessary and even unmeaning. Modification of character may of course be still brought about, since the kinds of action in which an individual takes pleasure may be varied almost indefinitely. But the motive made use of in this educative process must be personal pleasure; and the end the legislator has in view in his work must be the same,[26]though it is often quietly assumed that for him personal pleasure has become identified with the wider interests of the community.
Result of this ambiguity,
The different significations of which it admits show that the psychological law that action follows the greatest pleasure is by no means so clear as it may at first sight appear. Probably it is the veryambiguity of the law that has made it appear to provide a basis for an ethical system. When it is said that greatest pleasure is the moral end of action, this "greatest pleasure" is looked upon as the greatest possible balance of pleasurable over painful states for the probable duration of life: on the egoistic theory, of the life of the individual; on the utilitarian theory, of the aggregate lives of all men or even of all sentient beings. But when it is said that greatest pleasure is, as a matter of fact, always the motive of action, it is obvious that "greatest pleasure" has changed its signification. For if the same meaning were kept to, not only would the psychological law as thus stated be openly at variance with facts, but its validity would render the moral precept unnecessary. It is even unmeaning to say that a man "ought" to do that which he always does and cannot help doing.[27]On the other hand, if the double meaning of the phrase had been clearly stated, we should at once have seen the hiatus in the|ethical hedonism.|proof of egoistic hedonism—the gap between the present (or apparent) pleasure for which one does act, and the greatest pleasure of a lifetime for which one ought to act—as well as the additional difficulty of passingfrom egoism to utilitarianism. If greatest apparent pleasure—or greatest present pleasure—is by an inexorable law of human nature always sought, how can it be shown that we ought to sacrifice the apparent to the real—the present pleasure that is small to the greater future pleasure? If the individual necessarily pursues his own pleasure, how can we show that he ought to subordinate it to the pleasures of the "greatest number"?
3. Transition from psychological to ethical hedonism. Right action will imply
It is a matter of fact, however, that the psychologists who maintain that action follows the greatest pleasure—meaning by that, greatest apparent or greatest present pleasure—have in their ethics made the transition to an enlightened Egoism, or even to Utilitarianism. The nature of the transition thus requires to be more clearly pointed out. If the former interpretation of the law of psychological hedonism could be accepted, and a man's motive for action were always what seemed to him likely to bring him the greatest pleasure on the whole, ethics—what Bentham calls private ethics—could be reduced (as Bentham finally reduces it) to certain maxims of prudence.|(a) correct estimate of consequences of action,|To be fully acquainted with the sources of pleasure and pain, and to estimate them correctly, would imply possession of the highest (egoistic) morality. If men could be made to think rightly as to what their greatest pleasure consisted in, then right action on their part—that is to say, the pursuit oftheir greatest pleasure—would (according to Bentham's psychology) follow as a matter of course. Right conduct, however, is not so purely an affair of the intellect as this would make it. Indeed, Bentham's psychological assumption requires only to be plainly stated for its inconsistency with the facts of human action to become apparent. The "video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor" expresses too common an experience to be so easily explained away. The impulses by which action is governed are not always in accordance with what the intellect decides to be best on a survey of the whole life and its varied chances. In judging the consequences of action, a future good is compared with a present, regardless of the mere difference of time by which they are separated.|(b) and corresponding strength of feeling.|But the springs which move the will are often at variance with the decisions of the understanding; and many men are unable to resist the strength of the impulse to act for the pleasure of the moment, though they foresee that a greater future satisfaction would follow from present self-denial.
It would seem, then, that the facts of experience are sufficient to show that a man's conduct does not always follow the course which he thinks likely to bring him the greatest pleasure on the whole. But the view that a man always acts for what is most pleasant—or least painful—at the time cannot be dismissed so easily. It is not enough simplyto point to the facts of human action in order to show that this hypothesis is inconsistent with them. If we instanced the self-restraint in which so many pass their lives from day to day, it might perhaps be answered that there is a persistent idea of duty, or love of reputation, or fear of social stigma, the repression of which would be more painful than the restraint it puts upon other impulses. Even the martyr who deliberately parts with life itself for the sake of an ideal, may be said to choose death as the least painful course open to him at the time. It should be borne in mind, however, that Professor Bain, the most thorough psychologist of Bentham's school, refuses to admit this line of defence for psychological hedonism, and holds that, in actions such as those referred to, men are really carried out of the circle of their self-regarding desires.[28]But my present purpose is not to discuss the merits of any such psychological theory, but rather to investigate its ethical consequences. And for this purpose the question requires to be put, how a passage is effected from psychological hedonism to an egoistic—and even to a utilitarian—theory of ethics.
The postulate that action can be rationalised
If a man always acts for his greatest present pleasure, real and imaginary, it seems a far step to say that he "ought" to act—or in any way to expect that he will act—at each moment for thegreatest sum of pleasure attainable in the probable duration of his life. But on reflection, this may turn out to follow if we postulate that conduct can be rationalised. What is meant by this egoistic "ought" may be said to be simply that to the eye of reason the pleasure of any one moment cannot be regarded as more valuable than the equal pleasure of any other moment, if it is equally certain;|involves these conditions,|and that therefore to act as if it were is to act unreasonably. Man fails in acting up to reason in this sense, because his action is not motived by reason, but directly by pleasure and pain; and not by a mere estimate of pleasure and pain, but by pleasure and pain themselves. The psychological hedonist must maintain that the estimates of future pleasure and pain only become motives by being not merely recognised (intellectually) but felt (emotionally)—that is, by themselves becoming pleasurable or painful. If the Egoist calls any action irrational, it cannot be because the motive which produced it was not the greatest pleasure in consciousness at the time. It can only be on the ground that the greatest pleasure in consciousness at the time is likely to lead to a sacrifice of greater pleasure in the future; and this must be due either to intellectual misapprehension or to the imagined fruition of future pleasure not being strong enough to outweigh the pleasure which comes from a present stimulus, and to the imaginedfruition of the more distant being weaker than that of the less distant pleasure. It is owing to a defect of the imagination on a man's part that even with complete information he does not act "up to his lights"—irrational action being partly a consequence of insufficient acquaintance with the normal results of conduct, partly due to defective imagination. Were a man's imagination of future pleasure and pain as strong as his experience of present pleasure and pain, and did he correctly appreciate the results of his conduct, then his action would, of psychological necessity, harmonise with the precepts of egoistic hedonism.
Egoistic hedonism may therefore, in a certain sense, be said to be a "reasonable" end of conduct on the theory of psychological hedonism; it is the end which will be made his own by that ideally perfect man whose intellect can clearly see the issues of conduct, and whose imagination of the future causes of sensibility is so vivid that the pleasure or pain got from anticipating them is as great as if they were present, or only less lively in proportion as there is a risk of their not being realised. Conversely it would seem that only that|the latter of which|man can act "reasonably" in whom imagination of pleasure (or of pain) is already of equal strength with the actual experience of it. But, if the "pleasures of the imagination" are as strong as those of sense or of reality, the latter obviously becomesuperfluous; and it follows that the ideally perfect man is left without any motive to aim at the real thing, since he can obtain as much pleasure by imagining it. The cultured hedonist must, it would seem, be able to—
"Hold a fire in his handBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus,Or cloy the hungry edge of appetiteBy bare imagination of a feast."
"Hold a fire in his handBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus,Or cloy the hungry edge of appetiteBy bare imagination of a feast."
"Hold a fire in his handBy thinking on the frosty Caucasus,Or cloy the hungry edge of appetiteBy bare imagination of a feast."
|is inconsistent with the nature of voluntary action.|So far as feeling or motive to action goes, no difference must exist for him between reality and imagination. And thus, although we may admit that, on this psychological basis, conduct when rationalised agrees with that prescribed by egoistic hedonism, yet it can only be rationalised by a development of the strength of the imagination, which would make the feeling which it brings with it as strong as that which accompanies a real object, and hence take away the motive for the pursuit of the latter. The discrepancy between representation and presentation which is necessary for the state of desire,[29]is no longer present. Hedonism vindicates its rationality only on conditions which imply the futility of action altogether. It is not merely that the attainment of the hedonistic end in practical conduct implies a strength of imagination of which no one is capable, but the conditions ofacting both rationally and hedonistically, are conditions which would paralyse all activity.
4. Possible objections to preceding argument:
The foregoing argument may perhaps be objected to on two grounds. On the one hand, it may be said that it ignores the vast complexity of human motive, and treats action as if it were a simple and abstract thing. On the other hand, we may be reminded of the fact that, while all men act for pleasure, the moral quality of their conduct does not depend on this fact, but on thekindof things in which they take pleasure.
(a) complexity of motive; but it is psychological hedonism which ignores this.
So far as the first objection is concerned, it seems to me that the fault belongs to the psychological theory of human action, the ethical consequences of which are under investigation. It is this theory which asserts that, however interwoven the threads of impulse, aversion, and habit may be, their most complex relations can be reduced to the formula, "greatest pleasure, or least pain, prevails." It is not necessary, indeed, that every action should be the conscious pursuit of a pleasurable object already before the mind in idea. But the theory, if consistently carried out, implies that the action which follows in the line of a previously formed habit, does so because the discomfort or pain of breaking through the habit would be sufficient to counter-balance any satisfaction that might result. The objection, therefore, of excessive simplicity or "abstractness," is one which cannot have greater forcethan when urged against the theory of psychological hedonism.
(b) difference in kind of pleasurable objects;
Further—and this is the second objection—the above analysis may be considered by some not to have taken sufficient account of the difference in the objects in which a human being can take pleasure, and of the fact that the moral quality of men differs, not according as they act for pleasure or not, but according to the kind of actions and sufferances in which they find pleasure. There can be no doubt of the importance of this distinction for questions of practical morals. The man in whom "selfishness takes the shape of benevolence," as it did in Bentham, is infinitely better than the man in whom it retains the form of selfishness. But the consideration is important just because it goes on the implied assumption that the hedonistic is not the chief aspect of conduct, and that there is a difference between courses of action more fundamental than the pleasurable or painful feeling attendant on them.|but this involves a reference to something else than pleasure,|If the principles on which the objection is founded were consistently adhered to and followed out, they would make not pleasure, but something else—that, namely, by which pleasures differ from one another in kind—the ethical standard. But if, in ultimate analysis, it is the pleasure felt or expected that moves to action, it would seem that there is no way in which the conclusion of the preceding argument can be avoided. If pleasure isthe motive, it must bequâpleasure—that is to say, either the greatest apparent pleasure, or the greatest present pleasure, is the motive. If difference of quality be admitted, we are introducing a determining factor other than pleasure. Certain kinds of pleasure may be better than others for the race or for the state.|which psychological hedonism does not admit of.|But these differences must be reducible to terms of individual pleasure admitting of purely quantitative comparisons, before they become motives to action.[30]From the point of view of the whole, we may say that one action leads to a greater sum of pleasure than another. But, in judging the action of individuals, all that we can say of it is, that to one man one class of actions gives pleasure, to another another: each man is equally following the course of action which either (a) will bring, or (b) seems to him likely to bring, the greatest pleasure, or (c) is actually most pleasant at the time. From the nature of the individual we can evolve no end beyond egoistic hedonism. And even this end can only be made his at each occurrence of action (assuming the first alternative (a) to be incorrect) by enlightening his intellect so that (b) will correspond with the actual greatest pleasure, or by alsoenlivening his imagination of future pleasures and pains so that (c) will correspond with it; and this, as has been shown, could only be effected under conditions which are inconsistent with the principles of human action.
1. Different standpoints of individual and state
It still remains possible, of course, to fix an ethical end in some other way than by studying individual human nature. We may, for instance, looking from the point of view of the community, fix its greatest happiness, instead of his own, as the individual's end. But the difficulty then arises of persuading the individual—or, indeed, making it possible for him—to regard this impersonal goal as the end of his conduct. For this purpose, Bentham seemed to look to the exercise of administrative control which, by a system of rewards and punishments, will make the greatest happiness of the individual coincide so far as possible with that of the community.[31]J. S. Mill, on the other hand, with his eyes turned to thesubjective springs of action, saw in the gradual growth of sympathetic pleasures and pains the means by which an individual's desires would cease to conflict with those of his neighbours.
It is in some such way that the transition is made from Egoism to Utilitarianism. The transition is made: Bentham and his school are an evidence of the fact. But it is not therefore logical. It is, indeed, important to notice that we only pass from the one theory to the other by changing our original individualistic point of view. Having already fixed an end for conduct regardless of the difference between the individual at the time of acting and at subsequent times, we proceed to take the much longer step of ignoring the difference between the agent and other individuals. The question is no longer, What is good or desirable for the person who is acting? but, What is best on the whole for all those whom his action may affect—that is to say, for the community?
cannot be logically connected
But while it is comparatively easy to see how this transition is effected as a matter of fact, it is difficult to establish any logical connection between its different stages, or to offer any considerations fitted to convince the individual that it is reasonable for him to seek the happiness of the community rather than his own. Only that conduct, itmay seem, can be reasonable which directs and perfects the natural striving of each organism towards its own pleasure.|through analogy of state to individual.|We may, of course, let our point of view shift from the individual to the social "organism." And in this case, if the "natural" end of each human being is his own greatest pleasure, the end of the community, or organised body of pleasure-seekers, will naturally be concluded to be the greatest aggregate pleasure of its members. Thus, if we can hypostatise the community, and treat it as an individual with magnified but human wants and satisfactions, then, for this leviathan, the ethical end will correspond to what is called Utilitarianism or Universalistic Hedonism.|Difference between one's own pleasure and the pleasure of others|But, when we remember that the community is made up of units distinct from one another in feeling and action, the difficulty arises of establishing it as the natural end, or as a reasonable end, for each of these units to strive after the greatest pleasure of all. For it is evident that the pursuit of the greatest aggregate pleasure may often interfere with the attainment by the individual of his own greatest pleasure. On the other hand, the self-seeking action of the individual may no doubt lead to a loss of pleasure on the whole; but then it is not his own pleasure that is lost, only other people's. To the outsider—as to the community—it may seem irrational that a small increase in the pleasure of one unit should be allowed at the expense of a loss of greater pleasureon the part of other units. But it seems irrational only because the outsider naturally puts himself in the place of the community; and neither takes account of the fact that to the individual agent there is a fundamental difference between his own pleasure and any one else's pleasure: for him the former is, and the latter is not, pleasure at all.[32]