(1) Shall we aim directly at the happiness of all men now living? or shall we content ourselves with a smaller number? Certainly, with increasing intelligence and broadening sympathies, men tend toward a more embracing benevolence.
(2) Shall we admit to the circle generations yet unborn? and, if so, how far into the future should we look?
(3) Should we make a deliberate attempt to increase the number of those who may share the common fund of happiness, by striving for an increase in the number of births? This end has been consciously sought for divers reasons. The ancestor-worship of China has made the Chinaman eagerly desirous of leaving behind him those who would devote themselves to him after he has departed this life. Nations ancient and modern have endeavored to strengthen the state by providing for an increase in its population. Shall a similar end be pursued for the ethical purpose of widening the circle of those who shall live and be happy? Most ethical teachers do not appear to have regarded this as a corollary to the doctrine of benevolence.
(4) Shall we enlarge the circle so as to include the lower animals? As Bentham expressed it: The question is not, "Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" [Footnote: Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter xvii, Sec 4.]
II. How should the "lots" of happiness be measured?
(1) Should everybody count as one, and nobody as more than one? in other words, should strict impartiality be aimed at?
Dr. Westermarck's striking reply to the argument for impartiality as urged by Professor Sidgwick has already been quoted. [Footnote: See chapter v, Sec 16.] Let the reader glance at it again.
It must be confessed that to put one's parents, one's children, one's neighbors, strangers, foreigners, the brutes, all upon the same level, is contrary to the moral judgment of savage and civilized alike. It would seem contrary to the sentiments which lie at the root of the family, the community, and the state. Nor have we reason to look forward to any future state of human society in which such lesser groups within the broad circle of humanity will be done away with, though they tend to become less exclusive in their demands upon human sympathy.
(2) Suppose that the greatest sum of happiness on the whole could be best attained by an unequal distribution—by making a limited number very happy at the expense of the rest. Would this be justifiable? It would be in harmony with the Greatest Happiness Principle, though not with the principle of the greatest happiness equally shared.
III. The question of the distribution of happiness in the life of the individual is not one to be ignored. If we are concerned only with the quantity of happiness, may we not take as the ethical precept "a short life and a merry one"—provided the brief span of years be merry enough, and there be no objection to the choice on the score of harm to others?