CHAPTER XV
HAPPINESS AND SOCIAL ENDS[139]
In form, the true good is thus an inclusive or expanding end. In substance, the only end which fulfills these conditions is the social good. The utilitarian standard is social consequences. To repeat our earlier quotation from Bentham (above, p. 264):
"The greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question is the right and proper, and the only right and proper and universally desirable end of human action." Mill says, "To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbor as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality." And again: "The happiness which is the Utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned; as between his own happiness and that of others, Utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator." So Sidgwick (Methods of Ethics, p. 379): "By Utilitarianism is here meant the ethical theory, first distinctly formulated by Bentham, that the conduct which under any given circumstances is externally or objectively right is that which produces the greatest amount of happiness on the whole; that is taking into account all whose happiness is affected by the conduct. It would tend to clearness if we might call this principle, and the method based upon it, by some such name as Universalistic hedonism." And finally, Bain (Emotions and Will, p. 303): "Utility is opposed to the selfish principle, for, as propounded, it always implies the good of society generally and the subordination of individual interests to the general good."
Social Purpose of Utilitarianism.—Its aim, then, was the "greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number," a democratic, fraternal aim. In the computation of the elements of this aim, it insisted upon the principle of social and moral equality: "every one to count for one, and only for one." The standard was the well-being of the community conceived as a community of individuals, all of whom had equal rights and none of whom had special privileges or exclusive avenues of access to happiness. In a period in which the democratic spirit in England was asserting itself against vested interests and class-distinctions, against legalized inequalities of all sorts, the utilitarian philosophy became the natural and perhaps indispensable adjunct of the liberal and reforming spirit in law, education, and politics. Every custom, every institution, was cross-questioned; it was not allowed to plead precedent and prior existence as a basis for continued existence. It had to prove that it conduced to the happiness of the community as a whole, or be legislated out of existence or into reform. Bentham's fundamental objection to other types of moral theories than his own was not so much philosophic or theoretic as it was practical. He felt that every intuitional theory tended to dignify prejudice, convention, and fixed customs, and so to consecrate vested interests and inequitable institutions.
Recognition by an Opponent.—The following remarks by T. H. Green are the more noteworthy because coming from a consistent opponent of the theory:
"The chief theory of conduct which in Modern Europe has afforded the conscientious citizen a vantage ground for judging of the competing claims on his obedience, and enabled him to substitute a critical and intelligent for a blind and unquestioning conformity, has no doubt been the Utilitarian. ... Whatever the errors arising from its hedonistic psychology, no other theory has been available for the social or political reformer, combining so much truth with such ready applicability. No other has offered so commanding a point of view from which to criticize the precepts and institutions presented as authoritative."[140]
And again, speaking of the possibility of practical service from theory, he says:
"The form of philosophy which in the modern world has most conspicuously rendered this service has been the Utilitarian, because it has most definitely announced the interest of humanity without distinction of persons or classes, as the end by reference to which all claims upon obedience are ultimately to be measured.... Impartiality of reference to human well-being has been the great lesson which the Utilitarian has had to teach."[141]