John Dewey

We have reached a conclusion as to our first inquiry (p. 201), and have decided that the appropriate subject-matter of moral judgment is the disposition of the person as manifested in the tendencies which cause certain consequences, rather than others, to be considered and esteemed—foreseen and desired. Disposition, motive, intent are then judged good or bad according to the consequences they tend to produce. But what are the consequences by which we determine anything to be good or bad? We turn from the locus or residence of the distinctions of good and bad to the nature of the distinctions themselves. What do good and bad mean as terms of voluntary behavior?

Happiness and Misery as the Good and Bad.—There is one answer to this question which is at once so simple and so comprehensive that it has always been professed by some representative ethical theory: the good is happiness, well-being, pleasure; the bad is misery, woe, pain.[134] The agreeableness or disagreeableness attending consequences differentiates them into good and bad; and it is because some deeds are found to lead to pleasure, while others lead to pain, that they are adjudged virtuous or vicious. In its modern form, this theory is known as utilitarianism. Bentham has given it a sweeping and clear formulation.

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne."

"Strictly speaking nothing can be said to be good or bad but either in itself, which is the case only with pain or pleasure; or on account of its effects, which is the case only with things that are the cause or preventive of pain or pleasure." Again: "By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interests are in question."[135] Once more: "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." "Only on the basis of this principle do the words 'right and wrong' and 'ought' have an intelligent meaning as applied to actions; otherwise they have not."

This last statement need not mean, however, that all judgments of right and wrong are as matter of fact derived from a consideration of the results of action in the way of pain and pleasure, but that upon this ground alone should our judgments be formed, since upon this basis alone can they be justified.[136]

Axiomatic Identification of Good with Happiness.—The principle that happiness is the ultimate aim of human action and the ultimate standard of the moral value of that action is generally regarded by the utilitarians as axiomatic and not susceptible of proof. As Bentham says, "that which is used to prove everything else cannot itself be proved. A chain of proofs must have their commencement somewhere." So Bain says (Moral Science, p. 27), "Now there can be no proof offered for the position that happiness is the proper end of all human procedures, the criterion of all right conduct. It is an ultimate or final assumption to be tested by reference to the individual judgments of mankind." Thus also Mill (Utilitarianism): "The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people actually see it. In like manner the sole proof that it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it."[137]

Extreme Opposition to Happiness Theory.—In striking contrast to this view of the self-evident character of happiness as the all-desirable, is the view of those to whom it is equally self-evident that to make pleasure the end of action is destructive of all morality. Carlyle is an interesting illustration of a violent reaction against utilitarianism. His more moderate characterization of it is "mechanical profit and loss" theory. It is "an upholstery and cookery conception of morals." It never gets above the level of considerations of comfort and expediency. More vehemently, it is a "pig philosophy" which regards the universe as a "swine trough" in which virtue is thought of as the attainment of the maximum possible quantity of "pig's wash." Again, apostrophizing man, he says: "Art thou nothing else than a Vulture that flies through the Universe seeking after Somewhat to eat; shrieking dolefully because Carrion enough is not given thee?" Of the attempt to make general happiness the end, he says it proposes the problem of "Given a world of Knaves, to produce honesty from their united action," the term "knave" referring to the individualistic self-seeking character of pleasure and "honesty" to the social outcome desired. As a political theory, he thought that utilitarianism subordinated justice to benevolence, and in that light he referred to it as a "universal syllabub of philanthrophic twaddle."

Ambiguity in Notion of Happiness.—If to some it is self-evident that happiness is the aim of action, and success in achieving it the test both of the act and the disposition from which it proceeds; while to others it is equally obvious that such a view means immorality or at least a base and sordid morality, it is reasonable to suppose that the "happiness" does not mean the same to both parties; that there is some fundamental ambiguity in the notion.

Source of Ambiguity.—The nature of this ambiguity may be inferred from the fact that Bentham himself—and in this he is typical of all the utilitarians—combines in his statement two aspects of happiness, or two views of pleasure. He says it is for pleasure and pain alone to "point out what we ought to do," that they are the only basis upon which our judgments of right and wrong ought to be formed, or upon which they can be justified. Other things may be taken as pointing out what we ought to do; other standards of judgment—caprice, sympathy, dogma—are employed. But they are not the right and proper ones. Consideration of consequences of the act in the way of effect upon the happiness and misery of all concerned, furnishes the only proper way of regulating the formation of right ends. A certain happiness, that of results, is the standard. But this presupposes that, in any case there is some end, and one which may be improper because not in accord with the standard. Yet this end also must be pleasure. Pleasure and pain "determine what we shall do," whether we act for the maximum of pleasures or not. The "chain of causes" as well as the "standard of right" is fastened to them. We act for pleasure, even when we do not act for the pleasures for which we ought to act. Pleasure or happiness thus appears in a double rÔle. Only in the case of right ends, is it the same happiness which serves as a moving spring and as standard of judgment. In other cases, it is one pleasure which is the end in view, and another pleasure, one not in view, or at least not influencing action, which measures rightness. The essence, so to speak, of a wrong act is precisely that the pleasures which produce it are not these pleasures which measure its goodness; the agent is not moved to act by those pleasures and pains which as consequences settle its moral value, but by some pleasure or pain which happens to be strongly felt at the moment of action.

Two Sorts of Good.—Thus, even from Bentham's point of view, there is a difference between real and apparent happiness, between the good which moves to action and that which, being the standard, should move. If the end of all acts is happiness and yet we require a consideration of results to show us what happiness we are justified in seeking, then "happiness" is in a highly ambiguous position. While from one standpoint, it furnishes the standard of right and wrong; from another, it furnishes the moving spring of all wrong action; it is that which so solicits and tempts us that we fail to employ the right standard for the regulation of our action, and hence go astray. It seems to some (as to Carlyle) that this distinction is so fundamental that it is absurd to say that one and the same thing can be the standard of all right action and the moving spring of all wrong action. Hence they insist upon the fundamental opposition of virtue and happiness.

Moreover, from Bentham's own point of view, there is a difference between the good which first presents itself, which first stirs desire and solicits to action, and the good which being formed after and upon the basis of consideration of consequences, is the right good. In calling the latter the right, we mean that it has authority over the end which first appears; and hence has supreme claim over action. So it is again evident that we are using happiness in two quite different senses; so that if we call the first end that presents itself happiness, the right end will be something else; or if we call the consequences which measure the worth of the act happiness, then the first end ought to be called something else. If happiness is the natural end of all desire and endeavor, it is absurd to say that the same happiness ought to be the end. If all objects fall to the ground any way, we do not say they ought to fall. If all our acts are moved any way by pleasure and pain, this fact, just because it applies equally to all acts, throws no lights upon the rightness or wrongness of any one of them. Or, on the other hand, if that for which we should act is a kind of happiness which involves full consideration of consequences, it is misleading to call that happiness from which we act "blindly" or without proper forethought.

If happiness is to be the same as the moral good, it must be after the right kind of happiness has been distinguished; namely, that which commends itself after adequate reflection. Our criticism of Bentham will be directed to showing that, so far as he conceives of happiness as simply a sum of pleasures alike in quality, but differing only in quantity, he cannot make this distinction. As an early critic (Hazlitt) of Bentham said: "Pleasure is that which is so in itself. Good is that which approves itself on reflection, or the idea of which is a source of satisfaction. All pleasure is not, therefore (morally speaking), equally a good; for all pleasure does not equally bear reflecting upon." We shall further try to show that the reason for Bentham's conceiving happiness as simply a sum of pleasures is that he falls into the error already discussed, of separating consequences from the disposition and capacities or active tendencies of the agent. And that, when we correct this error, the proper meaning of happiness turns out to be the satisfaction, realization, or fulfillment of some purpose and power of the agent. Thus we can distinguish between the false and unsatisfactory happiness found in the expression of a more or less isolated and superficial tendency of the self, and the true or genuine good found in the adequate fulfillment of a fundamental and fully related capacity. We shall first take up the discussion under the heads just brought out: I. Happiness as the Natural End or Object of Desire; II. Happiness as Standard of Judgment.

§ 1. THE OBJECT OF DESIRE

Hedonistic Theory of Desire.—That phase of utilitarianism which holds that the object of desire is pleasure, is termed hedonism, or sometimes psychological hedonism to distinguish it from ethical hedonism, the theory that pleasure is the standard for judging acts. The fundamental fallacy of psychological hedonism has been well stated by Green to be supposing that a desire can be aroused or created by the anticipation of its own satisfaction—i.e., in supposing that the idea of the pleasure of exercise arouses desire for it, when in fact the idea of exercise is pleasant only if there be already some desire for it (Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 168). Given a desire already in existence, the idea of an object which is thought of as satisfying that desire will always arouse pleasure, or be thought of as pleasurable. But hedonism fails to consider the radical difference between an object's arousing pleasure, because it is regarded as satisfying desire, and the thought of a pleasure arousing a desire:—although the feeling of agreeableness may intensify the movement towards the object. A hungry man thinks of a beefsteak as that which would satisfy his appetite; his thought is at once clothed with an agreeable tone and the conscious force of the appetite is correspondingly intensified; the miser thinks of gold in a similar way; the benevolent of an act of charity, etc. But in each case the presence of the pleasurable element is dependent upon the thought of an object which is not pleasure—the beefsteak, the gold. The thought of the object precedes the pleasure and excites it because it is felt to promise the satisfaction of a desire.

Pleasure is the Felt Concomitant of Imagining a Desire Realized in Its Appropriate Object.—The object of desire is not pleasure, but some object is pleasurable because it is the congenial terminus of desire. The pleasure felt is a present pleasure, the pleasure which now accompanies the idea of the satisfied desire. It intensifies the desire in its present character, through opposition to the disagreeable tone of the experienced lack and want.

1. Pleasures and Original Appetites.—Biological instincts and appetites exist not for the sake of furnishing pleasure, but as activities needed to maintain life—the life of the individual and the species. Their adequate fulfillment is attended with pleasure. Such is the undoubted biological fact. Now if the animal be gifted with memory and anticipation, this complicates the process, but does not change its nature. The animal in feeling hungry may now consciously anticipate the getting of food and may feel pleasure in the idea of food. The pleasure henceforth attends not merely upon attained satisfaction of appetite, but also upon appetite prior to satisfaction, so far as that anticipates its future satisfaction. But desire is still for the object, for the food. If the desire is healthy, it will not depend for its origin upon the recollection of a prior pleasure; the animal does not happen to recall that it got pleasure from food and thus arouse a desire for more food. The desire springs up naturally from the state of the organism. Only a jaded and unhealthy appetite has to whip itself up by recalling previous pleasures. But if there are many obstacles and discouragements in the way of getting the object which satisfies want, the anticipation of pleasure in its fulfillment may normally intensify the putting forth of energy, may give an extra reËnforcement to flagging effort. In this way, the anticipation of pleasure has a normal place in the effective direction of activities. But in any case, the desire and its own object are primary; the pleasure is secondary.

2. Pleasure and Acquired Desires.—The same point comes out even more clearly when we take into account the so-called higher desires and sentiments—those which usually enter into distinctively moral questions. In these cases it is no longer a matter of the original instincts and appetites of the organism. Their place is taken by acquired habits and dispositions. The object of a benevolent desire is the supplying of another's lack, or the increase of his good. The pleasure which accompanies the doing of a kindness to others is not the object, for the individual thinks of the kindly act as pleasure-giving only because he already has a benevolent character which naturally expresses itself in amiable desires. So far as he is not benevolent, the act will appear repulsive rather than attractive to him; and if it is done, it will be not from a benevolent desire, but from a cowardly or an avaricious desire, the pleasure in that case attending the thought of some other objective consequence, such as escaping unpopularity. In like manner, the aim to behave honestly, or to obey the civil law, or to love one's country, leads to dwelling upon the acts and objects in which these desires and intents may be fulfilled; and those objects which are thought of as affording fulfillment are necessarily put in a favorable and attractive light—they are regarded as sources of happiness. To a patriot the thought even of possible death may arouse a glow of satisfaction as he thinks of this act as strengthening his country's existence. But to suppose that this attendant pleasure is the aim and object of desire is to put the cart before the horse.

3. Happiness and Desire.—All men, then, may be said to desire happiness. But this happiness is not dependent upon prior experiences of pleasure, which, coming up in memory, arouse desire and rivet attention upon themselves. To say that the desire of a man is for happiness is only to say that happiness comes in the fulfillment of desire, the desires arising on their own account as expressions of a state of lack or incompletion in which the person finds himself. Happiness thus conceived is dependent upon the nature of desire and varies with it, while desire varies with the type of character. If the desire is the desire of an honest man, then the prosperous execution of some honorable intent, the payment of a debt, the adequate termination of a trust, is conceived as happiness, as good. If it be the desire of a profligate, then entering upon the riotous course of living now made possible by inheritance of property is taken as happiness—the one consummation greatly to be wished. If we know what any person really finds desirable, what he stakes his happiness upon, we can read his nature. In happiness, as the anticipation of the satisfaction of desire, there is, therefore, no sure or unambiguous quality; for it may be a token of good or of bad character, according to the sort of object which appeals to the person. The present joy found in the idea of the completion of a purpose cannot be the object of desire, for we desire only things absent. But the joy is a mark of the congruity or harmony of the thought of the object, whatever it be—health, dissipation, miserliness, prodigality, conquest, helpfulness—with the character of the agent. It is an evidence of the moving force, the influence, the weight, of the conceived end; it registers the extent in which the end is not a mere intellectual abstraction, but is a motive (see p. 252). But the moral worth of this motive depends upon the character of the end in which the person finds his satisfaction.

4. Confusion of Future and Present Pleasure.—It is the confusion of present pleasure, attendant upon the thought of an object as satisfying desire, with the pleasure that will come when the desire is satisfied, that accounts for the persistence of the idea that pleasure is the object of desire. The fact that the object of desire is now pleasurable is distorted into the statement that we seek for an absent pleasure.[138] A good illustration of the confusion is seen in the following quotation:

"The love of happiness must express the sole possible motive of Judas Iscariot and of his Master; it must explain the conduct of Stylites on his pillar or Tiberius at CaprÆ or À Kempis in his cell or of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory. It must be equally good for saints and martyrs, heroes, cowards, debauchÉs, ascetics, mystics, misers, prodigals, men, women and babes in arms" (Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 44).

This statement is true, as we have just seen, in the sense that different persons find different things good in accordance with their different characters or habitually dominant purposes; that each finds his happiness in whatever he most sets his affections upon. Where a man's heart is, there will his treasure be also, and where that is which a man regards as treasure, there also is the heart. A man's character is revealed by the objects which make him happy, whether anticipated or realized.

Our Ends are Our Happiness, Not a Means to It.—But the fallacy is in the words "love of happiness." They suggest that all alike are seeking for some one and the same thing, some one thing labeled "happiness," identical in all cases, differing in the way they look for it—that saints and martyrs, heroes and cowards, all have just the same objective goal in view—if they only knew it! In so far as it is true that there are certain fundamental conditions of the self which have to be satisfied in order that there shall be a true self and a true satisfaction, happiness is the same for all, and is the ultimate good of all. But this holds only of the standard of happiness which makes any particular conception of happiness right or wrong, not to the conceptions actually entertained. To say that all are consciously and deliberately after the same happiness is to pervert the facts. Happiness as standard means the genuine fulfillment of whatever is necessary to the development and integrity of the self. In this sense, it is what men ought to desire; it is what they do desire so far as they understand themselves and the conditions of their satisfaction. But as natural or psychological end, it means that in which a man happens at a given time to find delectation, depending upon his uppermost wishes and strongest habits. Hence the objection which almost every one, including the hedonists, feels to the statement that happiness is the conscious aim of conduct. It suggests that the objects at which we ordinarily aim are not sought for themselves, but for some ulterior gratification to ourselves. In reality these ends, so far as they correspond to our capacity and intention, are our happiness. All men love happiness—yes, in the sense that, having desires, they are interested in the objects in which the desires may be realized, no matter whether they are worthy or degraded. No; if by this be meant that happiness is something other than and beyond the conditions in which the powers of the person are brought out, and made effective; no, or if it means that all love that which really will bring happiness.

Necessity for Standard.—As many sorts of character, so many sorts of things regarded as satisfactory, as constitutive of good. Not all anticipations when realized are what they were expected to be. The good in prospect may be apples of Sodom, dust and ashes, in attainment. Hence some ends, some forms of happiness, are regarded as unworthy, not as "real" or "true." While they appeared to be happiness during the expectancy of desire, they are not approved as such in later reflection. Hence the demand for some standard good or happiness by which the individual may regulate the formation of his desires and purposes so that the present and the permanent good, the good in desire and in reflection, will coincide—so that the individual will find that to be satisfactory in his present view which will also permanently satisfy him. From happiness as a conceived good we turn to happiness as rightly conceived good; from happiness as result to happiness as standard. As before, we begin with the narrower utilitarian conception.

§ 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:

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.

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.

The net result of our discussion is, then, (1) that happiness consists in the fulfillment in their appropriate objects (or the anticipation of such fulfillment) of the powers of the self manifested in desires, purposes, efforts; (2) true happiness consists in the satisfaction of those powers of the self which are of higher quality; (3) that the man of good character, the one in whom these high powers are already active, is the judge, in the concrete, of happiness and misery. We shall now discuss

§ 3. THE CONSTITUTION OF HAPPINESS

Happiness consists in the agreement, whether anticipated or realized, of the objective conditions brought about by our endeavors with our desires and purposes. This conception of happiness is contrasted with the notion that it is a sum or collection of separate states of sensation or feeling.

1. One View Separates, while the Other Connects, Pleasure and Objective Conditions.—In one case, the agreeable feeling is a kind of psychical entity, supposed to be capable of existence by itself and capable of abstraction from the objective end of action. The pleasant thing is one thing; the pleasure, another; or, rather, the pleasant thing must be analyzed into two independent elements, the pleasure as feeling and the thing with which it happens to be associated. It is the pleasure alone, when dissociated, which is the real end of conduct, an object being at best an external means of securing it. It is the pleasurable feeling which happens to be associated with food, with music, with a landscape, that makes it good; health, art, are not good in themselves. The other view holds that pleasure has no such existence by itself; that it is only a name for the pleasant object; that by pleasure is meant the agreement or congruity which exists between some capacity of the agent and some objective fact in which this capacity is realized. It expresses the way some object meets, fits into, responds to, an activity of the agent. To say that food is agreeable, means that food satisfies an organic function. Music is pleasant because by it certain capacities or demands of the person with respect to rhythm of hearing are fulfilled; a landscape is beautiful because it carries to fulfillment the visual possibilities of the spectator.

2. Qualities of Pleasure Vary with Objects, and with Springs to Action.—When happiness is conceived as an aggregate of states of feeling, these are regarded as homogeneous in quality, differing from one another only in intensity and duration. Their qualitative differences are not intrinsic, but are due to the different objects with which they are associated (as pleasures of hearing, or vision). Hence they disappear when the pleasure is taken by itself as an end. But if agreeableness is precisely the agreeableness or congruousness of some objective condition with some impulse, habit, or tendency of the agent, then, of course, pure pleasure is a myth. Any pleasure is qualitatively unique, being precisely the harmony of one set of conditions with its appropriate activity. The pleasure of eating is one thing; the pleasure of hearing music, another; the pleasure of an amiable act, another; the pleasure of drunkenness or of anger is still another. Hence the possibility of absolutely different moral values attaching to pleasures, according to the type or aspect of character which they express. But if the good is only a sum of pleasures, any pleasure, so far as it goes, is as good as any other—the pleasure of malignity as good as the pleasure of kindliness, simply as pleasure. Accordingly Bentham said, the pleasure of push-pin (a game) is as good as that of poetry. And as he said again, since pleasure is the motive of every act, there is no motive which in itself, and as far as it goes, is not good—it is bad only if it turns out in the end to produce more pain than pleasure. The pleasure of malignant gossip is so far as it is pleasure a mitigation of the badness of the act. Not so, if happiness is the experience into which pleasures enter so far as the tendencies of character that produce them are approved of. An act may bring a pleasure and yet that pleasure be no part of happiness, but rather a blot and blemish. Such would be the case, for example, with the pleasure which one might take in an act of charity because one had thereby put himself in a position superior to that of the recipient. A good man who caught himself feeling pleasure from this phase of the act would not regard this pleasure as a further element of good attained, but as detracting from his happiness. A pleasure may be accepted or reacted against. So far as not acquiesced in it is, from the standpoint of happiness, positively disagreeable. Surrender to a pleasure, taking it to be one's happiness, is one of the surest ways of revealing or discovering what sort of a man one is. On the other hand, the pain which a miserly man feels in his first acts of generosity may be welcomed by him as, under the circumstances, an element in his good, since it is a sign of and factor in the improvement of character.

3. The Unification of Character.—Happiness as a sum of pleasures does not afford a basis for unifying or organizing the various tendencies and capacities of the self. It makes possible at best only a mechanical compromise or external adjustment. Take, for example, the satisfaction attendant upon acting from a benevolent or a malicious impulse. There can be no question that some pleasure is found in giving way to either impulse when it is strongly felt. Now if we regard the pleasure as a fixed state in itself, and good or happiness as a sum of such states, the only moral superiority that can attach to acting benevolently is that, upon the whole, more units of pleasure come from it than from giving way to the opposite spring of action. It is simply a question of greater or less quantity in the long run. Each trait of character, each act, remains morally independent, cut off from others. Its only relation to others is that which arises when its results in the way of units of agreeable or painful feeling are compared, as to bulk, with analogous consequences flowing from some other trait, or act. But if the fundamental thing in happiness is the relation of the desire and intention of the agent to its own successful outlet, there is an inherent connection between our different tendencies. The satisfaction of one tendency strengthens itself, and strengthens allied tendencies, while it weakens others. A man who gives way easily to anger (and finds gratification in it) against the acts of those whom he regards as enemies, nourishes unawares a tendency to irritability in all directions and thus modifies the sources and nature of all satisfaction. The man who cherishes the satisfaction he derives from a landscape may increase his susceptibility to enjoyment from poetry and pictures.

The Final Question.—The final question of happiness, the question which marks off true and right happiness from false and wrong gratification, comes to this: Can there be found ends of action, desirable in themselves, which reËnforce and expand not only the motives from which they directly spring, but also the other tendencies and attitudes which are sources of happiness? Can there be found powers whose exercise confirms ends which are stable and weakens and removes objects which occasion only restless, peevish, or transitory satisfaction, and ultimately thwart and stunt the growth of happiness? Harmony, reËnforcement, expansion are the signs of a true or moral satisfaction. What is the good which while good in direct enjoyment also brings with it fuller and more continuous life?