Irreconcilable Conflict of Motive and End.—But unfortunately the assertion that the happiness of all concerned is the "universally desirable end," is mixed up by early utilitarianism with an hedonistic psychology, according to which the desired object is private and personal pleasure. What is desirable is thus so different from what is desired as to create an uncrossable chasm between the true end of action—the happiness of all,—and the moving spring of desire and action—private pleasure. That there is a difference between what is naturally desired (meaning by "naturally" what first arouses interest and excites endeavor) and what is morally desirable (understanding by this the consequences which present themselves in adequate deliberation), is certain enough. But the desirable must be capable of becoming desired, or else there is such a contradiction that morality is impossible. If, now, the object of desire is always private pleasure, how can the recognition of the consequences upon the happiness or misery of others ever become an effective competitor with considerations of personal well-being, when the two conflict?[142]
Lack of Harmony among Pleasurable Ends.—If it so happens that the activities which secure the personal pleasure also manage to affect others favorably, so much the better; but since, by the theory, the individual must be moved exclusively by desire for his own pleasure, woe betide others if their happiness happens to stand in the way.[143] It could only be by accident that activities of a large number of individuals all seeking their own private pleasures should coincide in effecting the desirable end of the common happiness. The outcome would, more likely, be a competitive "war of all against all." It is of such a situation that Kant says: "There results a harmony like that which a certain satirical poem depicts as existing between a married couple bent on going to ruin, 'Oh, marvelous harmony! what he wishes, she wishes too'; or like what is said of the pledge of Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V., 'What my brother wants, that I want too' (namely Milan)."[144] The existence already noted of an unperceived and unreconcilable division between happiness in the form of future consequences, and pleasure as object of desire and present moving spring, thus becomes of crucial and, for hedonistic utilitarianism, of catastrophic importance. We shall first discuss the efforts of utilitarianism to deal with the problem.
Mill's Formal Method.—We mention first a purely logical or formal suggestion of Mill's, not because it is of very much significance one way or the other, but because it helps to bring out the problem.
"No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be obtainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which 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."[145]
It clearly does not follow that because the good of A and B and C, etc., is collectively, or aggregately, a good to A and B and C, etc., that therefore the good of A and B and C, etc., or of anybody beyond A himself, is regarded as a good by A—especially when the original premise is that A seeks his own good. Because all men want to be happy themselves, it hardly follows that each wants all to be so. It does follow, perhaps, that that would be the reasonable thing to want. If each man desires happiness for himself, to an outside spectator looking at the matter in the cold light of intelligence, there might be no reason why the happiness of one should be any more precious or desirable than that of another. From a mathematical standpoint, the mere fact that the individual knows he wants happiness, and knows that others are like himself, that they too are individuals who want happiness, might commit each individual, theoretically, to the necessity of regarding the happiness of every other as equally sacred with his own. But the difficulty is that there is no chance, upon the hedonistic psychology of desire, for this rational conviction to get in its work, even if it be intellectually entertained. The intellectual perception and the mechanism of human motivation remain opposed. Mill's statement, in other words, puts the problem which hedonistic utilitarianism has to solve.
Materially, as distinct from this formal statement, utilitarianism has two instrumentalities upon which it relies: one, internal, found in the nature of the individual; the other, external, or in social arrangements.
I. Bentham's View of Sympathetic Pleasures.—In the long list of pleasures moving men to action which Bentham drew up, he included what he called the social and the semi-social. The social are the pleasures of benevolence; the semi-social, the pleasures of amity (peace with one's fellows) and of reputation.
"The pleasures of benevolence are the pleasures resulting from the view of any pleasures supposed to be possessed by the beings who may be the objects of benevolence" (Principles of Morals and Legislation). And if it be asked what motives lying within a man's self he has to consult the happiness of others, "in answer to this, it cannot but be admitted that the only interests which a man at all times and upon all occasions is sure to find adequate motives for consulting are his own. Notwithstanding this there are no occasions on which a man has not some motives for consulting the happiness of other men. In the first place, he has, on all occasions, the purely social motive of sympathy and benevolence; in the next place, he has, on most occasions, the semi-social motives of amity and love of reputation" (Ibid., ch. xix., § 1). So important finally are the sympathetic motives that he says "The Dictates of Utility are neither more nor less than the dictates of the most extensive and enlightened (that is, well advised)[146] benevolence" (Ibid., ch. x., § 4).
In short, we are so constituted that the happiness of others gives us happiness, their misery creates distress in us. We are also so constituted that, even aside from direct penalties imposed upon us by others, we are made to suffer more or less by the knowledge that they have a low opinion of us, or that we are not "popular" with them. The more enlightened our activity, the more we shall see how by sympathy our pleasures are directly bound up with others, so that we shall get more pleasure by encouraging that of others. The same course will also indirectly increase our own, because others will be likely to esteem and honor us just in the degree in which our acts conduce to their pleasure. A wise or enlightened desire for our own pleasure will thus lead us to regard the pleasures of others in our activities.
Limitations of Doctrine.—To state the doctrine is almost to criticize it. It comes practically to saying that a sensible and prudent self-love will make us pay due heed to the effect of our activities upon the welfare of others. We are to be benevolent, but the reason is that we get more pleasure, or get pleasure more surely and easily, that way than in any other. We are to be kind, because upon the whole the net return of pleasure is greater that way. This does not mean that Bentham denied the existence of "disinterested motives" in man's make-up; or that he held that all sympathy is coldly calculating. On the contrary, he held that sympathetic reactions to the well-being and suffering of others are involved in our make-up. But as it relates to motives for action he holds that the sympathetic affections influence us only under the form of desire for our own pleasure: they make us rejoice in the rejoicing of others, and move us to act that others may rejoice so that we may thereby rejoice the more. They do not move us to act as direct interests in the welfare of others for their own sake.[147] We shall find that just as Mill transformed the utilitarian theory of motives by substituting quality of happiness for quantity of pleasures, so he also transformed the earlier Benthamite conception of both the internal and the external methods for relating the happiness of the individual and the welfare of society.