The Principles of Ethics: In Two Volumes

9. Criticisms and Explanations

Ethics_V1_151-200.indd 183 1/16/12 9:41 AM CHAPTER 9 Criticisms and Explanations 56. comparisons of the foregoing chapters with one another , suggest sundry questions which must be answered partially, if not completely, before anything can be done towards reducing ethical principles from abstract forms to concrete forms. We have seen that to admit the desirableness of conscious existence, is to admit that conduct should be such as will produce a consciousness which is desirable-a consciousness which is as much pleasurable and as little painful as may be. We have also seen that this necessary implication corresponds with the a priori inference, that the evolution of life has been made possible only by the establishment of connections between pleasures and beneficial actions and between pains and detrimental actions. But the general conclusion reached in both of these ways, though it covers the area within which our special conclusions must fall, does not help us to reach those special conclusions. Were pleasures all of one kind, differing only in degree; were pains all of one kind, differing only in degree; and could pleasures be measured against pains with definite results; the problems of conduct would be greatly simplified. Were the pleasures and pains serving as incentives and deterrents, 183 Ethics_V1_151-200.indd 184 1/16/12 9:41 AM 184 The Data of Ethics simultaneously present to consciousness with like vividness, or were they all immediately impending, or were they all equidistant in time; the problems would be further simplified. And they would be still further simplified if the pleasures and pains were exclusively those of the actor. But both the desirable and the undesirable feelings are of various kinds, making quantitative comparisons difficult; some are present and some are future, increasing the difficulty of quantitative comparison ; some are entailed on self and some are entailed on others; again increasing the difficulty. So that the guidance yielded by the primary principle reached, is of little service unless supplemented by the guidance of secondary principles. Already, in recognizing the needful subordination of presentative feelings to representative feelings, and the implied postponement of present to future throughout a wide range of cases, some approach towards a secondary principle of guidance has been made. Already, too, in recognizing the limitations which men's associated state puts to their actions, with the implied need for restraining feelings of some kinds by feelings of other kinds, we have come in sight of another secondary principle of guidance. Still, there remains much to be decided respecting the relative claims of these guiding principles, general and special. Some elucidation of the questions involved, will be obtained by here discussing certain views and arguments set forth by past and present moralists. 57. Using the name hedonism for that ethical theory which makes happiness the end of action; and distinguishing hedonism into the two kinds, egoistic and universalistic, according as the happiness sought is that of the actor himself or is that of all, Mr. Sidgwick alleges its implied belief to be that pleasures and pains are commensurable. In his criticism on (empirical) egoistic hedonism he says: The fundamental assumption of Hedonism, clearly stated, is that all feelings considered merely as feelings can be arranged in a certain Ethics_V1_151-200.indd 185 1/16/12 9:41 AM Criticisms and Explanations 185 scale of desirability, so that the desirability or pleasantness of each bears a definite ratio to that of all the others. [Methods ofEthics, 2d ed., p. 115.] And asserting this to be its assumption, he proceeds to point out difficulties in the way of the hedonistic calculation; apparently for the purpose of implying that these difficulties tell against the hedonistic theory. Now though it may be shown that by naming the intensity, the duration, the certainty, and the proximity, of a pleasure or a pain, as traits entering into the estimation of its relative value, Bentham has committed himself to the specified assumption ; and though it is perhaps reasonably taken for granted that hedonism as represented by him, is identical with hedonism at large; yet it seems to me that the hedonist, empirical or other, is not necessarily committed to this assumption . That the greatest surplus of pleasures over pains ought to be the end of action, is a belief which he may still consistently hold after admitting that the valuations of pleasures and pains are commonly vague and often erroneous. He may...