2016년 11월 7일 월요일

Principia Ethica 21

Principia Ethica 21


52.= Let us consider what this means. What is pleasure? It is
certainly something of which we may be conscious, and which, therefore,
may be distinguished from our consciousness of it. What I wish first to
ask is this: Can it really be said that we value pleasure, except in
so far as we are conscious of it? Should we think that the attainment
of pleasure, of which we never were and never could be conscious, was
something to be aimed at for its own sake? It may be impossible that
such pleasure should ever exist, that it should ever be thus divorced
from consciousness; although there is certainly much reason to believe
that it is not only possible but very common. But, even supposing
that it were impossible, that is quite irrelevant. Our question is:
Is it the pleasure, as distinct from the consciousness of it, that we
set value on? Do we think the pleasure valuable in itself, or must
we insist that, if we are to think the pleasure good, we must have
consciousness of it too?
 
This consideration is very well put by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue
_Philebus_ (21 A).
 
‘Would _you_ accept, Protarchus,’ says Socrates, ‘to live your whole
life in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?’ ‘Of course I would,’
says Protarchus.
 
_Socrates._ Then would you think you needed anything else besides, if
you possessed this one blessing in completeness?
 
_Protarchus._ Certainly not.
 
_Socrates._ Consider what you are saying. You would not need to be wise
and intelligent and reasonable, nor anything like this? Would you not
even care to keep your sight?
 
_Protarchus._ Why should I? I suppose I should have all I want, if I
was pleased.
 
_Socrates._ Well, then, supposing you lived so, you would enjoy always
throughout your life the greatest pleasure?
 
_Protarchus._ Of course.
 
_Socrates._ But, on the other hand, inasmuch as you would _not_ possess
intelligence and memory and knowledge and true opinion, you would, in
the first place, necessarily be without the knowledge whether you were
pleased or not. For you would be devoid of any kind of wisdom. You
admit this?
 
_Protarchus._ I do. The consequence is absolutely necessary.
 
_Socrates._ Well, then, besides this, not having memory, you must
also be unable to remember even that you ever were pleased; of the
pleasure which falls upon you at the moment not the least vestige must
afterwards remain. And again, not having true opinion, you cannot think
that you are pleased when you are; and, being bereft of your reasoning
faculties, you cannot even have the power to reckon that you will be
pleased in future. You must live the life of an oyster, or of some
other of those living creatures, whose home is the seas and whose
souls are concealed in shelly bodies. Is all this so, or can we think
otherwise than this?
 
_Protarchus._ How can we?
 
_Socrates._ Well, then, can we think such a life desirable?
 
_Protarchus._ Socrates, your reasoning has left me utterly dumb.’
 
Socrates, we see, persuades Protarchus that Hedonism is absurd. If
we are really going to maintain that pleasure alone is good as an
end, we must maintain that it is good, whether we are conscious of
it or not. We must declare it reasonable to take as our ideal (an
unattainable ideal it may be) that we should be as happy as possible,
even on condition that we never know and never can know that we are
happy. We must be willing to sell in exchange for the mere happiness
every vestige of knowledge, both in ourselves and in others, both
of happiness itself and of every other thing. Can we really still
disagree? Can any one still declare it obvious that this is reasonable?
That pleasure alone is good as an end?
 
The case, it is plain, is just like that of the colours[18], only,
as yet, not nearly so strong. It is far more possible that we should
some day be able to produce the intensest pleasure, without any
consciousness that it is there, than that we should be able to produce
mere colour, without its being any particular colour. Pleasure and
consciousness can be far more easily distinguished from one another,
than colour from the particular colours. And yet even if this were
not so, we should be bound to distinguish them if we really wished to
declare pleasure alone to be our ultimate end. Even if consciousness
were an inseparable accompaniment of pleasure, a _sine quâ non_ of
its existence, yet, if pleasure is the only end, we are bound to call
consciousness a mere _means_ to it, in any intelligible sense that can
be given to the word _means_. And if, on the other hand, as I hope is
now plain, the pleasure would be comparatively valueless without the
consciousness, then we are bound to say that pleasure is _not_ the only
end, that some consciousness at least must be included with it as a
veritable part of the end.
 
[18] § 48 _sup._
 
For our question now is solely what the end is: it is quite another
question how far that end may be attainable _by itself_, or must
involve the simultaneous attainment of other things. It may well be
that the _practical_ conclusions at which Utilitarians do arrive,
and even those at which they ought logically to arrive, are not far
from the truth. But in so far as their _reason_ for holding these
conclusions to be true is that ‘Pleasure alone is good as an end,’ they
are _absolutely_ wrong: and it is with _reasons_ that we are chiefly
concerned in any scientific Ethics.
 
 
=53.= It seems, then, clear that Hedonism is in error, so far as it
maintains that pleasure alone, and not the consciousness of pleasure,
is the sole good. And this error seems largely due to the fallacy which
I pointed out above in Mill--the fallacy of confusing means and end.
It is falsely supposed that, since pleasure must always be accompanied
by consciousness (which is, itself, extremely doubtful), therefore
it is indifferent whether we say that pleasure or the consciousness
of pleasure is the sole good. _Practically_, of course, it would be
indifferent at which we aimed, if it were certain that we could not
get the one without the other; but where the question is of what is
good in itself--where we ask: For the sake of what is it desirable to
get that which we aim at?--the distinction is by no means unimportant.
Here we are placed before an exclusive alternative. _Either_ pleasure
by itself (even though we can’t get it) would be all that is desirable,
_or_ a consciousness of it would be more desirable still. Both these
propositions cannot be true; and I think it is plain that the latter is
true; whence it follows that pleasure is _not_ the sole good.
 
Still it may be said that, even if consciousness of pleasure, and
not pleasure alone, is the sole good, this conclusion is not very
damaging to Hedonism. It may be said that Hedonists have always meant
by pleasure the consciousness of pleasure, though they have not been at
pains to say so; and this, I think is, in the main, true. To correct
their formula in this respect could, therefore, only be a matter of
practical importance, if it is possible to produce pleasure without
producing consciousness of it. But even this importance, which I think
our conclusion so far really has, is, I admit, comparatively slight.
What I wish to maintain is that even consciousness of pleasure is
not the sole good: that, indeed, it is absurd so to regard it. And
the chief importance of what has been said so far lies in the fact
that the same method, which shews that consciousness of pleasure is
more valuable than pleasure, seems also to shew that consciousness of
pleasure is itself far less valuable than other things. The supposition
that consciousness of pleasure is the sole good is due to a neglect of
the same distinctions which have encouraged the careless assertion that
pleasure is the sole good.
 
The method which I employed in order to shew that pleasure itself
was not the sole good, was that of considering what value we should
attach to it, if it existed in absolute isolation, stripped of all its
usual accompaniments. And this is, in fact, the only method that can
be safely used, when we wish to discover what degree of value a thing
has in itself. The necessity of employing this method will be best
exhibited by a discussion of the arguments used by Prof. Sidgwick in
the passage last quoted, and by an exposure of the manner in which they
are calculated to mislead.
 
 
=54.= With regard to the second of them, it only maintains that other
things, which might be supposed to share with pleasure the attribute
of goodness, ‘seem to obtain the commendation of Common Sense, roughly
speaking, in proportion to the degree’ of their productiveness of
pleasure. Whether even this rough proportion holds between the
commendation of Common Sense and the felicific effects of that which it
commends is a question extremely difficult to determine; and we need
not enter into it here. For, even assuming it to be true, and assuming
the judgments of Common Sense to be on the whole correct, what would it
shew? It would shew, certainly, that pleasure was a good _criterion_
of right action--that the same conduct which produced most pleasure
would also produce most good on the whole. But this would by no means
entitle us to the conclusion that the greatest pleasure _constituted_
what was best on the whole: it would still leave open the alternative
that the greatest quantity of pleasure was as a matter of fact, _under
actual conditions_, generally accompanied by the greatest quantity
of _other goods_, and that it therefore was _not_ the sole good. It
might indeed seem to be a strange coincidence that these two things
should always, even in this world, be in proportion to one another.
But the strangeness of this coincidence will certainly not entitle us
to argue directly that it does not exist--that it is an illusion, due
to the fact that pleasure is really the sole good. The coincidence may
be susceptible of other explanations; and it would even be our duty
to accept it unexplained, if direct intuition seemed to declare that
pleasure was not the sole good. Moreover it must be remembered that
the need for assuming such a coincidence rests in any case upon the
extremely doubtful proposition that felicific effects _are_ roughly in
proportion to the approval of Common Sense. And it should be observed
that, though Prof. Sidgwick maintains this to be the case, his detailed
illustrations only tend to shew the very different proposition that a
thing is not held to be good, unless it gives a balance of pleasure;
not that the degree of commendation is in proportion to the quantity of pleasure.

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