Principia Ethica 9
Now, I do not wish the importance I assign to this fallacy to be
misunderstood. The discovery of it does not at all refute Bentham’s
contention that greatest happiness is the proper end of human action,
if that be understood as an ethical proposition, as he undoubtedly
intended it. That principle may be true all the same; we shall consider
whether it is so in succeeding chapters. Bentham might have maintained
it, as Professor Sidgwick does, even if the fallacy had been pointed
out to him. What I am maintaining is that the _reasons_ which he
actually gives for his ethical proposition are fallacious ones so
far as they consist in a definition of right. What I suggest is that
he did not perceive them to be fallacious; that, if he had done so,
he would have been led to seek for other reasons in support of his
Utilitarianism; and that, had he sought for other reasons, he _might_
have found none which he thought to be sufficient. In that case he
would have changed his whole system--a most important consequence. It
is undoubtedly also possible that he would have thought other reasons
to be sufficient, and in that case his ethical system, in its main
results, would still have stood. But, even in this latter case, his
use of the fallacy would be a serious objection to him as an ethical
philosopher. For it is the business of Ethics, I must insist, not only
to obtain true results, but also to find valid reasons for them. The
direct object of Ethics is knowledge and not practice; and any one who
uses the naturalistic fallacy has certainly not fulfilled this first
object, however correct his practical principles may be.
My objections to Naturalism are then, in the first place, that it
offers no reason at all, far less any valid reason, for any ethical
principle whatever; and in this it already fails to satisfy the
requirements of Ethics, as a scientific study. But in the second place
I contend that, though it gives a reason for no ethical principle, it
is a _cause_ of the acceptance of false principles--it deludes the mind
into accepting ethical principles, which are false; and in this it is
contrary to every aim of Ethics. It is easy to see that if we start
with a definition of right conduct as conduct conducive to general
happiness; then, knowing that right conduct is universally conduct
conducive to the good, we very easily arrive at the result that the
good is general happiness. If, on the other hand, we once recognise
that we must start our Ethics without a definition, we shall be much
more apt to look about us, before we adopt any ethical principle
whatever; and the more we look about us, the less likely are we to
adopt a false one. It may be replied to this: Yes, but we shall look
about us just as much, before we settle on our definition, and are
therefore just as likely to be right. But I will try to shew that this
is not the case. If we start with the conviction that a definition of
good can be found, we start with the conviction that good _can mean_
nothing else than some one property of things; and our only business
will then be to discover what that property is. But if we recognise
that, so far as the meaning of good goes, anything whatever may be
good, we start with a much more open mind. Moreover, apart from the
fact that, when we think we have a definition, we cannot logically
defend our ethical principles in any way whatever, we shall also be
much less apt to defend them well, even if illogically. For we shall
start with the conviction that good must mean so and so, and shall
therefore be inclined either to misunderstand our opponent’s arguments
or to cut them short with the reply, ‘This is not an open question: the
very meaning of the word decides it; no one can think otherwise except
through confusion.’
=15.= Our first conclusion as to the subject-matter of Ethics is, then,
that there is a simple, indefinable, unanalysable object of thought by
reference to which it must be defined. By what name we call this unique
object is a matter of indifference, so long as we clearly recognise
what it is and that it does differ from other objects. The words which
are commonly taken as the signs of ethical judgments all do refer to
it; and they are __EXPRESSION__s of ethical judgments solely because they
do so refer. But they may refer to it in two different ways, which
it is very important to distinguish, if we are to have a complete
definition of the range of ethical judgments. Before I proceeded to
argue that there was such an indefinable notion involved in ethical
notions, I stated (§ 4) that it was necessary for Ethics to enumerate
all true universal judgments, asserting that such and such a thing was
good, whenever it occurred. But, although all such judgments do refer
to that unique notion which I have called ‘good,’ they do not all refer
to it in the same way. They may either assert that this unique property
does always attach to the thing in question, or else they may assert
only that the thing in question is _a cause or necessary condition_
for the existence of other things to which this unique property does
attach. The nature of these two species of universal ethical judgments
is extremely different; and a great part of the difficulties, which
are met with in ordinary ethical speculation, are due to the failure
to distinguish them clearly. Their difference has, indeed, received
__EXPRESSION__ in ordinary language by the contrast between the terms ‘good
as means’ and ‘good in itself,’ ‘value as a means’ and ‘intrinsic
value.’ But these terms are apt to be applied correctly only in the
more obvious instances; and this seems to be due to the fact that the
distinction between the conceptions which they denote has not been made
a separate object of investigation. This distinction may be briefly
pointed out as follows.
=16.= Whenever we judge that a thing is ‘good as a means,’ we are
making a judgment with regard to its causal relations: we judge
_both_ that it will have a particular kind of effect, _and_ that that
effect will be good in itself. But to find causal judgments that
are universally true is notoriously a matter of extreme difficulty.
The late date at which most of the physical sciences became exact,
and the comparative fewness of the laws which they have succeeded
in establishing even now, are sufficient proofs of this difficulty.
With regard, then, to what are the most frequent objects of ethical
judgments, namely actions, it is obvious that we cannot be satisfied
that any of our universal causal judgments are true, even in the
sense in which scientific laws are so. We cannot even discover
hypothetical laws of the form ‘Exactly this action will always, under
these conditions, produce exactly that effect.’ But for a correct
ethical judgment with regard to the effects of certain actions we
require more than this in two respects. (1) We require to know
that a given action will produce a certain effect, _under whatever
circumstances it occurs_. But this is certainly impossible. It is
certain that in different circumstances the same action may produce
effects which are utterly different in all respects upon which the
value of the effects depends. Hence we can never be entitled to more
than a _generalisation_--to a proposition of the form ‘This result
_generally_ follows this kind of action’; and even this generalisation
will only be true, if the circumstances under which the action occurs
are generally the same. This is in fact the case, to a great extent,
within any one particular age and state of society. But, when we take
other ages into account, in many most important cases the normal
circumstances of a given kind of action will be so different, that the
generalisation which is true for one will not be true for another.
With regard then to ethical judgments which assert that a certain
kind of action is good as a means to a certain kind of effect, none
will be _universally_ true; and many, though _generally_ true at one
period, will be generally false at others. But (2) we require to know
not only that _one_ good effect will be produced, but that, among all
subsequent events affected by the action in question, the balance
of good will be greater than if any other possible action had been
performed. In other words, to judge that an action is generally a means
to good is to judge not only that it generally does _some_ good, but
that it generally does the greatest good of which the circumstances
admit. In this respect ethical judgments about the effects of action
involve a difficulty and a complication far greater than that involved
in the establishment of scientific laws. For the latter we need only
consider a single effect; for the former it is essential to consider
not only this, but the effects of that effect, and so on as far as our
view into the future can reach. It is, indeed, obvious that our view
can never reach far enough for us to be certain that any action will
produce the best possible effects. We must be content, if the greatest
possible balance of good seems to be produced within a limited period.
But it is important to notice that the whole series of effects within
a period of considerable length is actually taken account of in our
common judgments that an action is good as a means; and that hence
this additional complication, which makes ethical generalisations so
far more difficult to establish than scientific laws, is one which is
involved in actual ethical discussions, and is of practical importance.
The commonest rules of conduct involve such considerations as the
balancing of future bad health against immediate gains; and even if we
can never settle with any certainty how we shall secure the greatest
possible total of good, we try at least to assure ourselves that
probable future evils will not be greater than the immediate good.
=17.= There are, then, judgments which state that certain kinds of
things have good effects; and such judgments, for the reasons just
given, have the important characteristics (1) that they are unlikely to
be true, if they state that the kind of thing in question _always_ has
good effects, and (2) that, even if they only state that it _generally_
has good effects, many of them will only be true of certain periods
in the world’s history. On the other hand there are judgments which
state that certain kinds of things are themselves good; and these
differ from the last in that, if true at all, they are all of them
universally true. It is, therefore, extremely important to distinguish
these two kinds of possible judgments. Both may be expressed in the
same language: in both cases we commonly say ‘Such and such a thing is
good.’ But in the one case ‘good’ will mean ‘good as means,’ _i.e._
merely that the thing is a means to good--will have good effects:
in the other case it will mean ‘good as end’--we shall be judging
that the thing itself has the property which, in the first case, we
asserted only to belong to its effects. It is plain that these are very
different assertions to make about a thing; it is plain that either or
both of them may be made, both truly and falsely, about all manner of
things; and it is certain that unless we are clear as to which of the
two we mean to assert, we shall have a very poor chance of deciding
rightly whether our assertion is true or false. It is precisely this
clearness as to the meaning of the question asked which has hitherto
been almost entirely lacking in ethical speculation. Ethics has always
been predominantly concerned with the investigation of a limited
class of actions. With regard to these we may ask _both_ how far they
are good in themselves _and_ how far they have a general tendency to
produce good results. And the arguments brought forward in ethical
discussion have always been of both classes--both such as would prove
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