have we given up the greatest amount theory, but we have thrown over Hedonism altogether.[1]
Let us drop the word higher then, as we must. The end is pleasures in order, as they are preferred by men who know them. The objection which at once arises (p. 14) is, Is there not any difference of opinion? Do not different men, and does not even the same man at different times, prefer different pleasures? What is the answer? It is not very intelligible, and is too long to quote (pp. 14, 15). What it comes to would appear however to be either Yes, or No. Let us consider these alternatives one at a time.
(1) If we say ‘Yes, not only do different men prefer different pleasures, but so does the same man at different times’; then what basis have we left for a moral system? Merely this. Most men at most times do prefer one sort of pleasure to another; and from this we have to show that I ought to prefer one sort of pleasure to others at all times. We need not ask how the transition is to be made from what most men do to what I am to do. I think it can be made on no view of human nature, and I am quite sure it can not be made on Mill’s view. Supposing then that in Mill’s mouth moral obligation had a meaning, yet there is no reason why it should attach itself to the average pleasures of the average man.
(2) And if we say No, if having accepted the Platonic doctrine that the judge of pleasures is he who knows them all, we go further and assert with Sokrates that no man is willingly evil, that you can not prefer bad to good, that, if you take the bad, it is because you never have known or now do not know the good,
- ↑ Mill is unaware that he has done so, because of the various senses in which he uses the word happiness. Happiness is (pp. 8, 10) simply identified with pleasure. Then (13, 14) appears the doctrine that happiness may exist without contentment, and (I suppose) contentment without happiness. We hear (13) that the ‘sense of dignity’ is ‘part’ of happiness, and (19) we see happiness means a desirable kind of life. It is a ‘concrete whole,’ with ‘parts’ (55). It has ‘ingredients’ (53), and appears not to be a mere ‘aggregate’ or ‘collective something.’ Instead of pleasure, it has plainly come to mean something like the life we prefer, and hence greatest happiness will stand for the widest and intensest realization of such an ideal. This is to leave Hedonism altogether. [My references throughout are to Utilitarianism, ed. i., the only one I have at hand.]
