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.