A Handbook of Ethical Theory

by George Stuart Fullerton

"The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and, consequently one of the ends of morality." [Footnote: Utilitarianism, chapter iv.]

That happiness is the only ultimate end, Mill regards as established by the argument that other things, for example, virtue, though they come to be valued for themselves, do so only through the fact that, originally valued as means to the attainment of happiness, they become, through association, valued even out of this relation, and thus treated as a part of happiness. [Footnote: Ibid.]

The defects in Mill's argument have made themselves apparent, not merely to the opponents of utilitarianism, but even to its advocates. [Footnote: SIDGWICK, The Methods of Ethics, Book III, chapter xiii, Sec 5] We cannot say that things are desirable in any moral sense, simply because they are desired. In a loose sense of the word, everything that is or has been desired by anyone is desirable—it evidently can be desired. When we say no more than this, we say nothing. But when we call a course of action desirable we mean more than this; and we are compelled to admit that a multitude of desirable things are not generally desired. This is the burden of the lament of every reformer.

Furthermore, it does not appear to follow that, because his own happiness is a good to each member of a community, the happiness of all must likewise be a good to each severally. A community in which every man studies his own interest may conceivably be a community in which no man regards it as desirable to consult the public weal. That the general happiness is desirable, in a loose sense of the word, is palpable fact; it is obvious that it can be desired, for some persons do actually desire it. But that it is desirable in any sense cannot be inferred from the fact that all men desire something else, namely, their own individual happiness.

We must, then, look further for the proof of the utilitarian principle. Henry Sidgwick, that admirable scholar and most judicial mind, falls back upon certain intuitions which, he conceives, present themselves as ultimate and unassailable. He writes:

"Let us reflect upon the clearest and most certain of our moral intuitions. I find that I undoubtedly seem to perceive, as clearly and certainly as I see any axiom in Arithmetic or Geometry, that it is 'right' and 'reasonable' for me to treat others as I should think that I myself ought to be treated under similar conditions, and to do what I believe to be ultimately conducive to universal Good or Happiness."

And again: "The propositions, 'I ought not to prefer a present lesser good to a future greater good,' and 'I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of another,' do present themselves as self- evident; as much (e. g.) as the mathematical axiom that 'if equals be added to equals the wholes are equal.'" [Footnote: The Methods of Ethics, concluding chapter, Sec 5, and Book III, chapter xiii, Sec 3.]

Whether these intuitions will be accepted as furnishing an indisputably sound basis for utilitarianism will depend upon one's attitude toward intuitions in general and the list of intuitions one is inclined to accept. It is significant that Sidgwick does not accept as self-evident such subordinate propositions as, "I ought to speak the truth." He regards their authority as derived from the Greatest Happiness Principle.

109. THE DISTRIBUTION OF HAPPINESS.—The man who accepts the Greatest Happiness Principle as the sole basis of his ethical doctrine is faced with the problem of its application in detail. The "greatest good of the greatest number" is a vague expression. What is properly understood by "the greatest number"? and upon what principle shall "lots" of happiness be assigned to each? Very puzzling questions arise when we approach the problem of the distribution of pleasures and the calculation of their values. Let us look at them.

I. Who should be considered in the Distribution?