Principia Ethica 8

Principia Ethica 8

not: on the contrary, it would be absolutely meaningless to say that

oranges were yellow, unless yellow did in the end mean just ‘yellow’

and nothing else whatever--unless it was absolutely indefinable. We

should not get any very clear notion about things, which are yellow--we

should not get very far with our science, if we were bound to hold that

everything which was yellow, _meant_ exactly the same thing as yellow.

We should find we had to hold that an orange was exactly the same thing

as a stool, a piece of paper, a lemon, anything you like. We could

prove any number of absurdities; but should we be the nearer to the

truth? Why, then, should it be different with ‘good’? Why, if good is

good and indefinable, should I be held to deny that pleasure is good?

Is there any difficulty in holding both to be true at once? On the

contrary, there is no meaning in saying that pleasure is good, unless

good is something different from pleasure. It is absolutely useless,

so far as Ethics is concerned, to prove, as Mr Spencer tries to do,

that increase of pleasure coincides with increase of life, unless good

_means_ something different from either life or pleasure. He might just

as well try to prove that an orange is yellow by shewing that it always

is wrapped up in paper.

 

 

=13.= In fact, if it is not the case that ‘good’ denotes something

simple and indefinable, only two alternatives are possible: either it

is a complex, a given whole, about the correct analysis of which there

may be disagreement; or else it means nothing at all, and there is no

such subject as Ethics. In general, however, ethical philosophers have

attempted to define good, without recognising what such an attempt

must mean. They actually use arguments which involve one or both of

the absurdities considered in § 11. We are, therefore, justified in

concluding that the attempt to define good is chiefly due to want of

clearness as to the possible nature of definition. There are, in fact,

only two serious alternatives to be considered, in order to establish

the conclusion that ‘good’ does denote a simple and indefinable notion.

It might possibly denote a complex, as ‘horse’ does; or it might have

no meaning at all. Neither of these possibilities has, however, been

clearly conceived and seriously maintained, as such, by those who

presume to define good; and both may be dismissed by a simple appeal to

facts.

 

(1) The hypothesis that disagreement about the meaning of good is

disagreement with regard to the correct analysis of a given whole,

may be most plainly seen to be incorrect by consideration of the fact

that, whatever definition be offered, it may be always asked, with

significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is itself good. To

take, for instance, one of the more plausible, because one of the more

complicated, of such proposed definitions, it may easily be thought,

at first sight, that to be good may mean to be that which we desire

to desire. Thus if we apply this definition to a particular instance

and say ‘When we think that A is good, we are thinking that A is one

of the things which we desire to desire,’ our proposition may seem

quite plausible. But, if we carry the investigation further, and ask

ourselves ‘Is it good to desire to desire A?’ it is apparent, on a

little reflection, that this question is itself as intelligible, as the

original question ‘Is A good?’--that we are, in fact, now asking for

exactly the same information about the desire to desire A, for which

we formerly asked with regard to A itself. But it is also apparent

that the meaning of this second question cannot be correctly analysed

into ‘Is the desire to desire A one of the things which we desire to

desire?’: we have not before our minds anything so complicated as the

question ‘Do we desire to desire to desire to desire A?’ Moreover any

one can easily convince himself by inspection that the predicate of

this proposition--‘good’--is positively different from the notion of

‘desiring to desire’ which enters into its subject: ‘That we should

desire to desire A is good’ is _not_ merely equivalent to ‘That A

should be good is good.’ It may indeed be true that what we desire to

desire is always also good; perhaps, even the converse may be true: but

it is very doubtful whether this is the case, and the mere fact that we

understand very well what is meant by doubting it, shews clearly that

we have two different notions before our minds.

 

(2) And the same consideration is sufficient to dismiss the hypothesis

that ‘good’ has no meaning whatsoever. It is very natural to make the

mistake of supposing that what is universally true is of such a nature

that its negation would be self-contradictory: the importance which has

been assigned to analytic propositions in the history of philosophy

shews how easy such a mistake is. And thus it is very easy to conclude

that what seems to be a universal ethical principle is in fact an

identical proposition; that, if, for example, whatever is called ‘good’

seems to be pleasant, the proposition ‘Pleasure is the good’ does not

assert a connection between two different notions, but involves only

one, that of pleasure, which is easily recognised as a distinct entity.

But whoever will attentively consider with himself what is actually

before his mind when he asks the question ‘Is pleasure (or whatever

it may be) after all good?’ can easily satisfy himself that he is not

merely wondering whether pleasure is pleasant. And if he will try

this experiment with each suggested definition in succession, he may

become expert enough to recognise that in every case he has before his

mind a unique object, with regard to the connection of which with any

other object, a distinct question may be asked. Every one does in

fact understand the question ‘Is this good?’ When he thinks of it, his

state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked ‘Is

this pleasant, or desired, or approved?’ It has a distinct meaning for

him, even though he may not recognise in what respect it is distinct.

Whenever he thinks of ‘intrinsic value,’ or ‘intrinsic worth,’ or

says that a thing ‘ought to exist,’ he has before his mind the unique

object--the unique property of things--which I mean by ‘good.’

Everybody is constantly aware of this notion, although he may never

become aware at all that it is different from other notions of which

he is also aware. But, for correct ethical reasoning, it is extremely

important that he should become aware of this fact; and, as soon as the

nature of the problem is clearly understood, there should be little

difficulty in advancing so far in analysis.

 

 

=14.= ‘Good,’ then, is indefinable; and yet, so far as I know, there

is only one ethical writer, Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly

recognised and stated this fact. We shall see, indeed, how far many of

the most reputed ethical systems fall short of drawing the conclusions

which follow from such a recognition. At present I will only quote one

instance, which will serve to illustrate the meaning and importance of

this principle that ‘good’ is indefinable, or, as Prof. Sidgwick says,

an ‘unanalysable notion.’ It is an instance to which Prof. Sidgwick

himself refers in a note on the passage, in which he argues that

‘ought’ is unanalysable[2].

 

[2] _Methods of Ethics_, Bk. I, Chap. iii, § 1 (6th edition).

 

‘Bentham,’ says Sidgwick, ‘explains that his fundamental principle

“states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in

question as being the right and proper end of human action”’; and yet

‘his language in other passages of the same chapter would seem to

imply’ that he _means_ by the word “right” “conducive to the general

happiness.” Prof. Sidgwick sees that, if you take these two statements

together, you get the absurd result that ‘greatest happiness is the

end of human action, which is conducive to the general happiness’; and

so absurd does it seem to him to call this result, as Bentham calls

it, ‘the fundamental principle of a moral system,’ that he suggests

that Bentham cannot have meant it. Yet Prof. Sidgwick himself states

elsewhere[3] that Psychological Hedonism is ‘not seldom confounded with

Egoistic Hedonism’; and that confusion, as we shall see, rests chiefly

on that same fallacy, the naturalistic fallacy, which is implied in

Bentham’s statements. Prof. Sidgwick admits therefore that this fallacy

is sometimes committed, absurd as it is; and I am inclined to think

that Bentham may really have been one of those who committed it. Mill,

as we shall see, certainly did commit it. In any case, whether Bentham

committed it or not, his doctrine, as above quoted, will serve as a

very good illustration of this fallacy, and of the importance of the

contrary proposition that good is indefinable.

 

[3] _Methods of Ethics_, Bk. I, Chap. iv, § 1.

 

Let us consider this doctrine. Bentham seems to imply, so Prof.

Sidgwick says, that the word ‘right’ _means_ ‘conducive to general

happiness.’ Now this, by itself, need not necessarily involve

the naturalistic fallacy. For the word ‘right’ is very commonly

appropriated to actions which lead to the attainment of what

is good; which are regarded as _means_ to the ideal and not as

ends-in-themselves. This use of ‘right,’ as denoting what is good as

a means, whether or not it be also good as an end, is indeed the use

to which I shall confine the word. Had Bentham been using ‘right’ in

this sense, it might be perfectly consistent for him to _define_ right

as ‘conducive to the general happiness,’ _provided only_ (and notice

this proviso) he had already proved, or laid down as an axiom, that

general happiness was _the_ good, or (what is equivalent to this)

that general happiness alone was good. For in that case he would have

already defined _the_ good as general happiness (a position perfectly

consistent, as we have seen, with the contention that ‘good’ is

indefinable), and, since right was to be defined as ‘conducive to _the_

good,’ it would actually _mean_ ‘conducive to general happiness.’

But this method of escape from the charge of having committed the

naturalistic fallacy has been closed by Bentham himself. For his

fundamental principle is, we see, that the greatest happiness of all

concerned is the _right_ and proper _end_ of human action. He applies

the word ‘right,’ therefore, to the end, as such, not only to the means

which are conducive to it; and, that being so, right can no longer be

defined as ‘conducive to the general happiness,’ without involving the

fallacy in question. For now it is obvious that the definition of right

as conducive to general happiness can be used by him in support of the

fundamental principle that general happiness is the right end; instead

of being itself derived from that principle. If right, by definition,

means conducive to general happiness, then it is obvious that general

happiness is the right end. It is not necessary now first to prove or

assert that general happiness is the right end, before right is defined

as conducive to general happiness--a perfectly valid procedure; but on

the contrary the definition of right as conducive to general happiness

proves general happiness to be the right end--a perfectly invalid

procedure, since in this case the statement that ‘general happiness is

the right end of human action’ is not an ethical principle at all, but

either, as we have seen, a proposition about the meaning of words, or

else a proposition about the _nature_ of general happiness, not about

its rightness or goodness.