"As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness of every individual as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and, secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole."
The criticism turns upon the fact that unless the intrinsic social idea, already discussed, be emphasized, any association of private and general happiness which law and social arrangements can effect will be external, more or less artificial and arbitrary, and hence dissoluble either by intellectual analysis, or by the intense prepotency of egoistic desire.
Mill's Transformation.—If, however, this idea of inherent social ties and of oneself as a social being is presupposed, the various external agencies have something internal to work upon; and their effect is internal, not external. Their effect is not to establish a mere coincidence (as with Bentham) between pleasure to oneself and pleasure to others, but to protect, strengthen, and foster the sense, otherwise intermittent and feeble, of the social aspects and relations of one's own being. It is for this reason that Mill lays more stress on education than on mere external institutional changes, and, indeed, conceives of the ultimate moral value of the institutional arrangements as itself educative. Their value to him is not that they are contrivances or pieces of machinery for making the behavior of one conduce more or less automatically to the happiness of others, but that they train and exercise the individual in the recognition of the social elements of his own character.
Summary of Previous Discussion.—We have carried on our discussion of the relation between the common good as the standard for measuring rightness, and pleasure as the end and spring of the individual's activity, in terms of Mill's development of Bentham's utilitarianism. But of course our results are general, and they may be detached not only from this particular discussion, but from the truth or falsity of utilitarianism as a technical theory. Put positively, our results are these: (1) Moral quality is an attribute of character, of dispositions and attitudes which express themselves in desires and efforts. (2) Those attitudes and dispositions are morally good which aim at the production, the maintenance, and development of ends in which the agent and others affected alike find satisfaction. There is no difference (such as early utilitarianism made) between good as standard and as aim, because only a voluntary preference for and interest in a social good is capable, otherwise than by coincidence or accident, of producing acts which have common good as their result. Acts which are not motivated by it as aim cannot be trusted to secure it as result; acts which are motived by it as a living and habitual interest are the guarantee, so far as conditions allow, of its realization. Those who care for the general good for its own sake are those who are surest of promoting it.
The Good Moral Character.—The genuinely moral person is one, then, in whom the habit of regarding all capacities and habits of self from the social standpoint is formed and active. Such an one forms his plans, regulates his desires, and hence performs his acts with reference to the effect they have upon the social groups of which he is a part. He is one whose dominant attitudes and interests are bound up with associated activities. Accordingly he will find his happiness or satisfaction in the promotion of these activities irrespective of the particular pains and pleasures that accrue.
Social Interests and Sympathy.—A genuine social interest is then something much broader and deeper than an instinctive sympathetic reaction. Sympathy is a genuine natural instinct, varying in intensity in different individuals. It is a precious instrumentality for the development of social insight and socialized affection; but in and of itself it is upon the same plane as any natural endowment. It may lead to sentimentality or to selfishness; the individual may shrink from scenes of misery just because of the pain they cause him, or may seek jovial companions because of the sympathetic pleasures he gets. Or he may be moved by sympathy to labor for the good of others, but, because of lack of deliberation and thoughtfulness, be quite ignorant of what their good really is, and do a great deal of harm. One may wish to do unto others as he would they should do unto him, but may err egregiously because his conception of what is desirable for himself is radically false; or because he assumes arbitrarily that whatever he likes is good for others, and may thus tyrannically impose his own standards upon them. Again instinctive sympathy is partial; it may attach itself vehemently to those of blood kin or to immediate associates in such a way as to favor them at the expense of others, and lead to positive injustice toward those beyond the charmed circle.[154]
Transformation of Instinctive Sympathies.—It still remains true that the instinctive affectionate reactions in their various forms (parental, filial, sexual, compassionate, sympathetic) are the sole portions of the psychological structure or mechanism of a man which can be relied upon to work the identification of other's ends with one's own interests. What is required is a blending, a fusing of the sympathetic tendencies with all the other impulsive and habitual traits of the self. When interest in power is permeated with an affectionate impulse, it is protected from being a tendency to dominate and tyrannize; it becomes an interest in effectiveness of regard for common ends. When an interest in artistic or scientific objects is similarly fused, it loses the indifferent and coldly impersonal character which marks the specialist as such, and becomes an interest in the adequate æsthetic and intellectual development of the conditions of a common life. Sympathy does not merely associate one of these tendencies with another; still less does it make one a means to the other's end. It so intimately permeates them as to transform them both into a single new and moral interest. This same fusion protects sympathy from sentimentality and narrowness. Blended with interest in power, in science, in art, it is liberalized in quality and broadened in range. In short, the fusion of affectionate reactions with the other dispositions of the self illuminates, gives perspective and body to the former, while it gives social quality and direction to the latter. The result of this reciprocal absorption is the disappearance of the natural tendencies in their original form and the generation of moral, i.e., socialized interests. It is sympathy transformed into a habitual standpoint which satisfies the demand for a standpoint which will render the person interested in foresight of all obscure consequences (ante, p. 262).
1. Social Interest and the Happiness of the Agent.—We now see what is meant by a distinctively moral happiness, and how this happiness is supreme in quality as compared with other satisfactions, irrespective of superior intensity and duration on the part of the latter. It is impossible to draw any fixed line between the content of the moral good and of natural satisfaction. The end, the right and only right end, of man, lies in the fullest and freest realization of powers in their appropriate objects. The good consists of friendship, family and political relations, economic utilization of mechanical resources, science, art, in all their complex and variegated forms and elements. There is no separate and rival moral good; no separate empty and rival "good will."
Nature of Moral Interest and Motivation.—Yet the interest in the social or the common and progressive realization of these interests may properly be called a distinctive moral interest. The degree of actual objective realization or achievement of these ends, depends upon circumstances and accidents over which the agent has little or no control. The more happily situated individual who succeeds in realizing these ends more largely we may call more fortunate; we cannot call him morally better. The interest in all other interests, the voluntary desire to discover and promote them within the range of one's own capacities, one's own material resources, and the limits of one's own surroundings, is, however, under one's control: it is one's moral self. The nature and exercise of this interest constitutes then the distinctively moral quality in all good purposes. They are morally good not so far as objectively accomplished and possessed, but so far as cherished in the dominant affections of the person.
The Moral Interest as Final Happiness.—Consequently the true or final happiness of an individual, the happiness which is not at the mercy of circumstance and change of circumstance, lies not in objective achievement of results, but in the supremacy within character of an alert, sincere, and persistent interest in those habits and institutions which forward common ends among men. Mill insisted that quality of happiness was morally important, not quantity. Well, that quality which is most important is the peace and joy of mind that accompanies the abiding and equable maintenance of socialized interests as central springs of action. To one in whom these interests live (and they live to some extent in every individual not completely pathological) their exercise brings happiness because it fulfills his life. To those in whom it is the supreme interest it brings supreme or final happiness. It is not preferred because it is the greater happiness, but in being preferred as expressing the only kind of self which the agent fundamentally wishes himself to be, it constitutes a kind of happiness with which others cannot be compared. It is unique, final, invaluable.[155]