§5. 1 think, however, that this view ought not to commend itselfto the sober judgment of reflective persons. In order to show this, Imust ask the reader to use the same twofold procedure that I beforerequested him to employ in considering the absolute and independentvalidity of common moral precepts. I appeal firstly to his intuitivejudgment after due consideration of the question when fairly placedbefore it: and secondly to a comprehensive comparison of the ordinaryjudgments of mankind. As regards the first argument, to me at least itseems clear after reflection that these objective relations of theconscious subject, when distinguished from the consciousnessaccompanying and resulting from them, are not ultimately andintrinsically desirable; any more than material or other objects are,when considered apart from any relation to conscious existence.Admitting that we have actual experience of such preferences as havejust been described, of which the ultimate object is something that isnot merely consciousness: it still seems to me that when (to useButler's phrase) we ``sit down in a cool hour'', we can only justifyto ourselves the importance that we attach to any of these objects byconsidering its conduciveness, in one way or another, to the happinessof sentient beings.
The second argument, that refers to the common sense of mankind,obviously cannot be made completely cogent; since, as above stated,several cultivated persons do habitually judge that knowledge, art,etc.---not to speak of Virtue---are ends independently of the pleasurederived from them. But we may urge not only that all these elements of``ideal good'' are productive of pleasure in various ways; but alsothat they seem to obtain the commendation of Common Sense, roughlyspeaking, in proportion to the degree of this productiveness. Thisseems obviously true of Beauty; and will hardly be denied in respectof any kind of social ideal: it is paradoxical to maintain that anydegree of Freedom, or any form of social order, would still becommonly regarded as desirable even if we were certain that it had notendency to promote the general happiness. The case of Knowledge israther more complex; but certainly Common Sense is most impressed withthe value of knowledge, when its `fruitfulness' has beendemonstrated. It is, however, aware that experience has frequentlyshown bow knowledge, long fruitless, may become unexpectedly fruitful,and how light may be shed on one part of the field of knowledge fromanother apparently remote: and even if any particular branch ofscientific pursuit could be shown to be devoid of even this indirectutility, it would still deserve some respect on utilitarian grounds;both as furnishing to the inquirer the refined and innocent pleasuresof curiosity, and because the intellectual disposition which itexhibits and sustains is likely on the whole to produce fruitfulknowledge. Still in cases approximating to this last, Common Sense issomewhat disposed to complain of the misdirection of valuable effort;so that the meed of honour commonly paid to Science seems to begraduated, though perhaps unconsciously, by a tolerably exactutilitarian scale. Certainly the moment the legitimacy of any branchof scientific inquiry is seriously disputed, as in the recent case ofvivisection, the controversy on both sides is generally conducted onan avowedly utilitarian basis.
The case of Virtue requires special consideration: since theencouragement in each other of virtuous impulses and dispositions is amain aim of men's ordinary moral discourse; so that even to raise thequestion whether this encouragement can go too far has a paradoxicalair. Still, our experience includes rare and exceptional cases inwhich the concentration of effort on the cultivation of virtue hasseemed to have effects adverse to general happiness, through beingintensified to the point of moral fanaticism, and so involving aneglect of other conditions of happiness. If, then, we admit as actualor possible such `infelicific' effects of the cultivation of Virtue, Ithink we shall also generally admit that, in the case supposed,conduciveness to general happiness should be the criterion fordeciding how far the cultivation of Virtue should be carried.
At the same time it must be allowed that we find in Common Sense anaversion to admit Happiness (when explained to mean a sum ofpleasures) to be the sole ultimate end and standard of rightconduct. But this, I think, can be fully accounted for by thefollowing considerations.
I. The term Pleasure is not commonly used so as to include clearlyall kinds of consciousness which we desire to retain orreproduce: in ordinary usage it suggests too prominently the coarserand commoner kinds of such feelings; and it is difficult even forthose who are trying to use it scientifically to free their mindsaltogether from the associations of ordinary usage, and to mean byPleasure only Desirable Consciousness or Feeling of whateverkind. Again, our knowledge of human life continually suggests to usinstances of pleasures which will inevitably involve as concomitant orconsequent either a greater amount of pain or a loss of more importantpleasures: and we naturally shrink from including even hypotheticallyin our conception of ultimate good these---in Bentham'sphrase---``impure'' pleasures; especially since we have, in manycases, moral or esthetic instincts warning us against such pleasures.
II. Wehave seen that manyimportant pleasures can only be felt on condition of our experiencingdesires for other things than pleasure. Thus the very acceptance ofPleasure as the ultimate end of conduct involves the practical rulethat it is not always to be made the conscious end. Hence, even if weare considering merely the good of one human being taken alone,excluding from our view all effects of his conduct on others, stillthe reluctance of Common Sense to regard pleasure as the sole thingultimately desirable may be justified by the consideration that humanbeings tend to be less happy if they are exclusively occupied with thedesire of personal happiness.E.g. (as was before shown) weshall miss the valuable pleasures which attend the exercise of thebenevolent affections if we do not experience genuinely disinterestedimpulses to procure happiness for others (which are, in fact, impliedin the notion of `benevolent affections').
III. But again, I hold, as was expounded in the preceding chapter,that disinterested benevolence is not only thus generally in harmonywith rational Self-love, but also in another sense and independentlyrational: that is, Reason shows me that if my happiness is desirableand a good, the equal happiness of any other person must be equallydesirable. Now, when Happiness is spoken of as the sole ultimate goodof man, the idea most commonly suggested is that each individual is toseek his own happiness at the expense (if necessary) or, at any rate,to the neglect of that of others: and this offends both oursympathetic and our rational regard for others' happiness. It is, infact, rather the end of Egoistic than of Universalistic Hedonism, towhich Common Sense feels an aversion. And certainly one's individualhappiness is, in many respects, an unsatisfactory mark for one'ssupreme aim, apart from any direct collision into which the exclusivepursuit of it may bring us with rational or sympathetic Benevolence.It does not possess the characteristics which, as Aristotle says, we``divine'' to belong to Ultimate Good: being (so far, at least, as itcan be empirically foreseen) so narrow and limited, of suchnecessarily brief duration, and so shifting and insecure while itlasts. But Universal Happiness, desirable consciousness or feeling forthe innumerable multitude of sentient beings, present and to come,seems an End that satisfies our imagination by its vastness, andsustains our resolution by its comparative security.
It may, however, be said that if we require the individual tosacrifice his own happiness to the greater happiness of others on theground that it is reasonable to do so, we really assign to theindividual a different ultimate end from that which we lay down as theultimate Good of the universe of sentient beings: since we direct himto take, as ultimate, Happiness for the Universe, but Conformity toReason for himself. I admit the substantial truth of this statement,though I should avoid the language as tending to obscure thedistinction before explained between ``obeying the dictates'' and``promoting the dictation'' of reason. But granting the allegeddifference, I do not see that it constitutes an argument against theview here maintained, since the individual is essentially andfundamentally different from the larger whole---the universe ofsentient beings---of which he is conscious of being a part; justbecause he has a known relation to similar parts of the same whole,while the whole itself has no such relation. I accordingly see noinconsistency in holding that while itwould be reasonablefor the aggregate of sentient beings, if it could act collectively, toaim at its own happiness only as an ultimate end---and would bereasonable for any individual to do the same, if he were the onlysentient being in the universe---it may yet beactuallyreasonable for an individual tosacrifice his own Good or happiness for the greater happiness ofothers.
At the same time I admit that, in the earlier age of ethical thoughtwhich Greek philosophy represents, men sometimes judged an act to be`good'for the agent, even while recognising that itsconsequences would be on the whole painful to him,---as (e.g.)a heroic exchange of a life full of happiness for a painful death atthe call of duty. I attribute this partly to a confusion of thoughtbetween what it is reasonable for an individual to desire, when heconsiders his own existence alone, and what he must recognise asreasonably to be desired, when he takes the point of view of a largerwhole: partly, again, to a faith deeply rooted in the moralconsciousness of mankind, that there cannot be really and ultimatelyany conflict between thetwo kindsof reasonableness. But when `Reasonable Self-love' has beenclearly distinguished from Conscience, as it is by Butler and hisfollowers, we find it is naturally understood to mean desire for one'sown Happiness: so that in fact the interpretation of `one's own good',which was almost peculiar in ancient thought to the Cyrenaic andEpicurean heresies, is adopted by some of the most orthodox of modernmoralists. Indeed it often does not seem to have occurred to theselatter that this notion can have any other interpretation.[4] If, then, when any onehypothetically concentrates his attention on himself, Good isnaturally and almost inevitably conceived to be Pleasure, we mayreasonably conclude that the Good of any number of similar beings,whatever their mutual relations may be, cannot be essentiallydifferent in quality.
IV. But lastly, from the universal point of view no less than fromthat of the individual, it seems true that Happiness is likely to bebetter attained if the extent to which we set ourselves consciously toaim at it be carefully restricted. And this not only because action islikely to be more effective if our effort is temporarily concentratedon the realisation of more limited ends---though this is no doubt animportant reason:---but also because the fullest development of happylife for each individual seems to require that he should have otherexternal objects of interest besides the happiness of other consciousbeings. And thus we may conclude that the pursuit of the ideal objectsbefore mentioned, Virtue, Truth, Freedom, Beauty, etc.,for theirown sakes, is indirectly and secondarily, though not primarilyand absolutely, rational; on account not only of the happiness thatwill result from their attainment, but also of that which springs fromtheir disinterested pursuit. While yet if we ask for a finalcriterion of the comparative value of the different objects of men'senthusiastic pursuit, and of the limits within which each maylegitimately engross the attention of mankind, we shall none the lessconceive it to depend upon the degree in which they respectivelyconduce to Happiness.
If, however, this view be rejected, it remains to consider whether wecan frame any other coherent account of Ultimate Good. If we are notto systematise human activities by taking Universal Happiness as theircommon end, on what other principles are we to systematise them? Itshould be observed that these principles must not only enable us tocompare among themselves the values of the different non-hedonisticends which we have been considering, but must also provide a commonstandard for comparing these values with that of Happiness; unless weare prepared to adopt the paradoxical position of rejecting happinessas absolutely valueless. For we have a practical need of determiningnot only whether we should pursue Truth rather than Beauty, or Freedomor some ideal constitution of society rather than either, or perhapsdesert all of these for the life of worship and religiouscontemplation; but also bow far we should follow any of these lines ofendeavour, when we foresee among its consequences the pains of humanorother sentient beings, oreven the loss of pleasures that might otherwise have been enjoyed bythem.
I have failed to find---and am unable to construct---any systematicanswer to this question that appears to me deserving of seriousconsideration: and hence I am finally led to the conclusion (which atthe close of the last chapter seemed to be premature) that theIntuitional method rigorously applied yields as its final result thedoctrine of pureUniversalisticHedonism,---which it is convenient to denote by the single word,Utilitarianism.