John Dewey

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]

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.

II. Mill's Criticism.—Mill charges Bentham with overlooking the motive in man which makes him love excellence for its own sake. "Even under the head of sympathy," he says:

"his recognition does not extend to the more complex forms of the feeling—the love of loving, the need of a sympathizing support, or of an object of admiration and reverence."[148] "Self culture, the training by the human being himself of his affections and will ... is a blank in Bentham's system. The other and co-equal part, the regulation of his outward actions, must be altogether halting and imperfect without the first; for how can we judge in what manner many an action will affect the worldly interests of ourselves or others unless we take in, as part of the question, its influence on the regulation of our or their affections and desires?"[149]

In other words, Mill saw that the weakness of Bentham's theory lay in his supposition that the factors of character, the powers and desires which make up disposition, are of value only as moving us to seek pleasure; to Mill they have a worth of their own or are direct sources and ingredients of happiness. So Mill says:

"I regard any considerable increase of human happiness, through mere changes in outward circumstances, unaccompanied by changes in the state of desires, as hopeless."[150] And in his Autobiography speaking of his first reaction against Benthamism, he says: "I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human well-being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circumstances.... The cultivation of the feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed."[151]

The Social Affections as Direct Interest in Others.—The importance of this changed view lies in the fact that it compels us to regard certain desires, affections, and motives as inherently worthy, because intrinsic constituent factors of happiness. Thus it enables us to identify our happiness with the happiness of others, to find our good in their good, not just to seek their happiness as, upon the whole, the most effective way of securing our own. Our social affections are direct interests in the well-being of others; their cultivation and expression is at one and the same time a source of good to ourselves, and, intelligently guided, to others. Taken in this light, it is sympathetic emotion and imagination which make the standard of general happiness not merely the "desirable end," but the desired end, the effectively working object of endeavor.

Intrinsic Motivation of Regard for Others.—If it is asked why the individual should thus regard the well-being of others as an inherent object of desire, there is, according to Mill, but one answer: We cannot think of ourselves save as to some extent social beings. Hence we cannot separate the idea of ourselves and of our own good from our idea of others and of their good. The natural sentiment which is the basis of the utilitarian morality, which gives the idea of the social good weight with us, is the

"desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures.... The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that except in some unusual circumstances or by an effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body.... Any condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of society becomes more and more an inseparable part of every person's conception of the state of things he is born into and which is the destiny of a human being." This strengthening of social ties leads the individual "to identify his feelings more and more with the good" of others. "He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being, who, of course, pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence." This social feeling, finally, however weak, does not present itself "as a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed from without, but as an attribute which it would not be well to be without.... Few but those whose mind is a moral blank could bear to lay out their course of life on the line of paying no regard to others except so far as their own private interest compels."[152]

The transformation is tremendous. It is no longer a question of acting for the general interest because that brings most pleasure or brings it more surely and easily. It is a question of finding one's good in the good of others.

III. The Benthamite External Ties of Private and General Interests.—Aside from sympathy and love of peaceful relations and good repute, Bentham relied upon law, changes in political arrangements, and the play of economic interests which make it worth while for the individual to seek his own pleasure in ways that would also conduce to the pleasure of others. Penal law can at least make it painful for the individual to try to get his own good in ways which bring suffering to others. Civil legislation can at least abolish those vested interests and class privileges which inevitably favor one at the expense of others, and which make it customary and natural to seek and get happiness in ways which disregard the happiness of others. In the industrial life each individual seeks his own advantage under such conditions that he can achieve his end only by rendering service to others, that is, through exchange of commodities or services. The proper end of legislation is then to make political and economic conditions such that the individual while seeking his own good will at least not inflict suffering upon others, and positively, so far as possible, will promote their good.[153]

IV. Mill's Criticism.—Mill's criticism does not turn upon the importance of legislation and of social economic arrangements in promoting the identity of individual and general good. On the contrary, after identifying (in a passage already quoted, ante, p. 286) the ideal of utilitarian morality with love of neighbor, he goes on:

"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]

Identity of the Individual and General Happiness.—No algebraic summing up of sympathetic pleasures, utilities of friendship, advantages of popularity and esteem, profits of economic exchange among equals, over against pains from legal penalties and disapproving public opinion, and lack of sympathetic support by others, can ever make it even approximately certain that an individual's own interest, in terms of quantity of pleasures and pains, is to regard the interest of others.[156] Such a demonstration, moreover, if possible, would not support but would weaken the moral life. It would reduce the manifestation of character to selecting greater rather than less amounts of homogeneous ends. It would degrade reflection and consideration to ingenuity in detecting where larger quantities of pleasures lie, and to skill in performing sums of addition and subtraction. Even if such a scheme could be demonstrated, every one except the most languid and phlegmatic of pleasure-seekers would reject a life built upon it. Not only the "good," but the more vigorous and hearty of the "bad," would scorn a life in which character, selfhood, had no significance, and where the experimental discovery and testing of destiny had no place. The identity of individual and general happiness is a moral matter; it depends, that is, upon the reflective and intentional development of that type of character which identifies itself with common ends, and which is happy in these ends just because it has made them its own.

2. Social Ends and the Happiness of Others.—The same principle holds of the happiness of others. Happiness means the expression of the active tendencies of a self in their appropriate objects. Moral happiness means the satisfaction which comes when the dominant active tendencies are made interests in the maintenance and propagation of the things that make life worth living. Others, also, can be happy and should be happy only upon the same terms. Regard for the happiness of others means regard for those conditions and objects which permit others freely to exercise their own powers from their own initiative, reflection, and choice. Regard for their final happiness (i.e., for a happiness whose quality is such that it cannot be externally added to or subtracted from) demands that these others shall find the controlling objects of preference, resolution, and endeavor in the things that are worth while.

3. Happiness and Common Ends.—For all alike, in short, the chief thing is the discovery and promotion of those activities and active relationships in which the capacities of all concerned are effectively evoked, exercised, and put to the test. It is difficult for a man to attain a point of view from which steadily to apprehend how his own activities affect and modify those of others. It is hard, that is, to learn to accommodate one's ends to those of others; to adjust, to give way here, and fit in there with respect to our aims. But difficult as this is, it is easy compared with the difficulty of acting in such a way for ends which are helpful to others as will call out and make effective their activities.

Moral Democracy.—If the vice of the criminal, and of the coarsely selfish man is to disturb the aims and the good of others; if the vice of the ordinary egoist, and of every man, upon his egoistic side, is to neglect the interests of others; the vice of the social leader, of the reformer, of the philanthropist and the specialist in every worthy cause of science, or art, or politics, is to seek ends which promote the social welfare in ways which fail to engage the active interest and coÖperation of others.[157] The conception of conferring the good upon others, or at least of attaining it for them, which is our inheritance from the aristocratic civilization of the past, is so deeply embodied in religious, political, and charitable institutions and in moral teachings, that it dies hard. Many a man, feeling himself justified by the social character of his ultimate aim (it may be economic, or educational, or political), is genuinely confused or exasperated by the increasing antagonism and resentment which he evokes, because he has not enlisted in his pursuit of the "common" end the freely coÖperative activities of others. This coÖperation must be the root principle of the morals of democracy. It must be confessed, however, that it has as yet made little progress.

Our traditional conceptions of the morally great man, the moral hero and leader, the exceptionally good social and political character, all work against the recognition of this principle either in practice or theory. They foster the notion that it is somebody's particular business to reach by his more or less isolated efforts (with "following," or obedience, or unreflective subordination on the part of others) a needed social good. Some genius is to lead the way; others are to adopt and imitate. Moreover, the method of awakening and enlisting the activities of all concerned in pursuit of the end seems slow; it seems to postpone accomplishment indefinitely. But in truth a common end which is not made such by common, free voluntary coÖperation in process of achievement is common in name only. It has no support and guarantee in the activities which it is supposed to benefit, because it is not the fruit of those activities. Hence, it does not stay put. It has to be continually buttressed by appeal to external, not voluntary, considerations; bribes of pleasure, threats of harm, use of force. It has to be undone and done over. There is no way to escape or evade this law of happiness, that it resides in the exercise of the active capacities of a voluntary agent; and hence no way to escape or evade the law of a common happiness, that it must reside in the congruous exercise of the voluntary activities of all concerned. The inherent irony and tragedy of much that passes for a high kind of socialized activity is precisely that it seeks a common good by methods which forbid its being either common or a good.