Ethics

by John Dewey; James Hayden Tufts

§ 2. THE CONCEPTION OF HAPPINESS AS A STANDARD

Utilitarian Method.—Hedonism means that pleasure is the end of human action, because the end of desire. Utilitarianism or universalistic hedonism holds that the pleasure of all affected is the standard for judging the worth of action,—not that conduciveness to happiness is the sole measure actually employed by mankind for judging moral worth, but that it is the sole standard that should be employed. Many other tests may actually be used, sympathy, prejudice, convention, caprice, etc., but "utility" is the one which will enable a person to judge truly what is right or wrong in any proposed course of action. The method laid down by Bentham is as follows: Every proposed act is to be viewed with reference to its probable consequences in (a) intensity of pleasure and pains; (b) their duration; (c) their certainty or uncertainty; (d) their nearness or remoteness; (e) their fecundity—i.e., the tendency of a pleasure to be followed by others, or a pain by other pains; (f) their purity—i.e., the tendency of a pleasure to be followed by pains and vice versa; (g) their extent, that is, the number or range of persons whose happiness is affected—with reference to whose pleasures and pains each one of the first six items ought also in strictness to be calculated! Then sum up all the pleasures which stand to the credit side of the account; add the pains which are the debit items, or liabilities, on the other; then take their algebraic sum, and "the balance of it on the side of pleasure will be the good tendency of the act upon the whole."

Circle in Method.—Bentham's argument depends wholly upon the possibility of both foreseeing and accurately measuring the amount of future pleasures and pains that will follow from the intention if it is carried into effect, and of being able to find their algebraic sum. Our examination will be directed to showing that we have here the same fallacy that we have just discussed; and that Bentham argues in a circle. For the argument purports to measure present disposition or intent by summing up future units of pleasure or pain; but there is no way of estimating amounts of future satisfaction, the relative intensity and weight of future possible pain and pleasure experiences, except upon the basis of present tendencies, the habitual aims and interests, of the person. (1) The only way to estimate the relative amount (bulk, intensity, etc.) of a future "lot" of pleasure or pain, is by seeing how agreeable to present disposition are certain anticipated consequences, themselves not pleasures or pains at all. (2) The only basis upon which we can be sure that there is a right estimate of future satisfactions, is that we already have a good character as a basis and organ for forming judgment.

(1) How Pleasures and Pains are Measured.—If we keep strictly to Bentham's own conception of pleasures as isolated entities, all just alike in quality, but differing in quantity—in the two dimensions of intensity and duration—the scheme he recommends is simply impossible. What does it mean to say that one pleasure, as an external and future fact, is equal to another? What practical sense is there in the notion that a pain may be found which is exactly equal to a pleasure, so that it may just offset it or reduce it to zero? How can one weigh the amount of pain in a jumping and long-continued toothache against, say, the pleasure of some charitable deed performed under conditions which may bring on the toothache? What relevancy has the quantitative comparison to a judgment of moral worth? How many units of pleasure are contained in the fulfillment of the intention to go to war for one's country? How many in the fulfillment of the intention to remain at home with one's family and secure profitable contracts from the government? How shall the pains involved in each set be detected and have their exact numerical force assigned them? How shall one set be measured over against the other? If a man is already a patriot, one set of consequences comes into view and has weight; if one is already a coward and a money-grubber, another set of consequences looms up and its value is measured on a rule of very different scale.

Present Congeniality to Character Measures Importance.—When we analyze what occurs, we find that this process of comparing future possible satisfactions, to see which is the greater, takes place on exactly the opposite basis from that set forth by Bentham. We do not compare results in the way of fixed amounts of pleasures and pains, but we compare objective results, changes to be effected in ourselves, in others, in the whole social situation; during this comparison desires and aversions take more definite form and strength, so that we find the idea of one result more agreeable, more harmonious, to our present character than another. Then we say it is more satisfying, it affords more pleasure than another. The satisfaction now aroused in the mind at the thought of getting even with an enemy may be stronger than the painfulness of the thought of the harm or loss that will come to him or than the thought of danger itself,—then the pleasures to follow from vengeance are esteemed more numerous, stronger, more lasting, etc., than those which would follow from abstinence. Or, to say that satisfactions are about equal means that we are now at a loss to choose between them. But we are not at a loss to choose because certain future pains and pleasures present themselves in and of themselves as fixed amounts irrespective of our own wishes, habits, and plans of life. Similarly we may speak of satisfactions being added to one another and the total sum increased; or of dissatisfaction coming in as offsets and reducing the amount of satisfaction. But this does not mean that pains and pleasures which we expect to arrive in the future are added and subtracted—what intelligible meaning can such a phrase possess? It means that as we think first of this result and then of another, the present happiness found in the anticipation of one is increased by the anticipation of the other; or that the results are so incompatible that the present satisfaction, instead of swelling and expanding as from one thought to another, is chilled and lessened. Thus we might find the thought of revenge sweet (and thus give a high valuation to the units of pleasure to result from it), but be checked by the thought of the meanness of the act, or of how we would feel if some one else, whose good opinion we highly esteem, should hear of it.

(2) Congeniality to a Good Character the Right Measure.—The net outcome of this discussion is that the practical value of our acts is defined to us at any given time by the satisfaction, or displeasure, we take in the ideas of changes we foresee in case the act takes place. The present happiness or distaste, depending upon the harmony between the idea in question and the character, defines for us the value of the future consequences: which is the reverse of saying that a calculation of future pains and pleasures determines for us the value of the act and character. But this applies to any end as it happens to arise, not to the end as we ought to form it; we are still without a standard. What has been said applies to the criminal as well as to the saint; to the miser and the prodigal and the wisely generous alike. The idea of a certain result warms the heart of each, his heart being what it is. The assassin would not be one if the thought of a murder had not been entertained by him and if the thought had not been liked and welcomed—made at home. Only upon the supposition that character is already good can we trust judgment, first, to foresee all the consequences that should be foreseen; and, secondly, to respond to each foreseen consequence with the right emotional stamp of like and dislike, pleasure and pain. The Greeks said it is the object of a moral education to see that the individual finds his pleasure in the thought of noble ends and finds his pain in the contemplation of base ends. Again, as Aristotle said:

"The good man wills the real object of intent, but what the bad man desires may be anything; just as physically those in good condition want things that are wholesome, while the diseased may take anything to be healthful; for the good man judges correctly" (Ethics, Book III., 4, 4). And again: "The good man is apt to go right about pleasure, and the bad man is apt to go wrong" (Book II., 3, 7), and, finally, "It is only to the good man that the good presents itself as good, for vice perverts us and causes us to err about the principle of action" (Book III., 12, 10).

Principle of Quality of Pleasure as Criterion.—Mill, still calling himself a utilitarian, reaches substantially the same result by (a) making the quality of pleasure, not its bulk or intensity, the standard; and (b) referring differences in quality to differences in the characters which experience them.

"It is," he says, "quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and, when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness that does not include their gratification."

The higher the capacity or faculty, the higher in quality the pleasure of its exercise and fulfillment, irrespective of bulk. But how do we know which faculty is higher, and hence what satisfaction is more valuable? By reference to the experience of the man who has had the best opportunity to exercise all the powers in question.