 Chapter 2, Part 1 of Principia Ethica. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Fredrik Karlsson. Principia Ethica by G. E. Moore. Chapter 2, Naturalistic Ethics. 24. It results from the conclusions of Chapter 1 that all ethical questions fall under one or other of three classes. The first class contains but one question. The question, what is the nature of that particular predicate, the relation of which to other things constitutes the object of all other ethical investigations? Or in other words, what is meant by good? This first question I have already attempted to answer. The peculiar predicate, by reference to which the sphere of ethics must be defined, is simple, unanalysable, indefinable. There remain two classes, questions with regard to the relation of this predicate to other things. We may ask either one, to what things and in what degree does this predicate directly attach? What things are good in themselves? Or two, by what means shall we be able to make what exists in the world as good as possible? What causal relations hold between what is best in itself and other causal relations hold between what is best in itself and other things? In this and the two following chapters I propose to discuss certain theories which offer us an answer to the question, what is good in itself? I say, advisedly, an answer, for these theories are all characterized by the fact that, if true, they would simplify the study of ethics very much. They all hold that there is only one kind of fact, or which the existence has any value at all. But they all possess another characteristic, which is my reason for grouping them together and treating them first. Namely, that the main reason why the single kind of fact they name has been held to define the sole good, is that it has been held to define what is meant by good itself. In other words, they are all theories of the end or ideal, the adoption of which has been chiefly caused by the commission of what I have called a naturalistic fallacy. They all confuse the first and second of the three possible questions which ethics can ask. It is indeed this fact which explains the contention that only a single kind of thing is good. That a thing should be good, it has been thought, means that it possesses this single property, and hence it is thought, only what possesses this property is good. The inference seems very natural, and yet what is meant by it is self-contradictory. For those who make it fail to perceive that their conclusion, what possesses this property is good, is a significant proposition. That it does not mean either what possesses this property, possesses this property, or the word good denotes that a thing possesses this property. And yet, if it does not mean one or other of these two things, the inference contradicts its own premise. I propose therefore to discuss certain theories of what is good in itself, which are based on the naturalistic fallacy, in the sense that the commission of this fallacy has been the main cause of their wide acceptance. The discussion will be designed both, one, further to illustrate the fact that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy, or in other words, that we are all aware of a certain simple quality which, and not anything else, is what we mainly mean by the term good. And two, to show that not one but many different things possess this property. For I cannot hope to recommend the doctrine that things which are good do not owe their goodness to their common possession of any other property, without a criticism of the main doctrine as opposed to this, whose power to recommend themselves is proved by their wide prevalence. 25. The theories I propose to discuss may be conveniently divided into two groups. The naturalistic fallacy always implies that when we think this is good, what we are thinking is that the thing in question bears a definite relation to some one other thing. But this one thing by reference to which good is defined may be either what I may call a natural object, something of which the existence is admittedly an object of experience, or else it may be an object which is only inferred to exist in a super-sensible real world. These two types of ethical theory are proposed to treat separately. Theories of the second type may conveniently be called metaphysical, and I shall postpone consideration of them till chapter 4. In this and the following chapter on the other hand, I shall deal with theories which owe their prevalence to the supposition that good can be defined by reference to a natural object. And these are what I mean by the name which gives the title to this chapter, Naturalistic Ethics. It should be observed that the fallacy by reference to which I defined a metaphysical ethics is the same in kind, and I give it but one name, the naturalistic fallacy. But when we regard the ethical theories recommended by this fallacy, it seems convenient to distinguish those which consider goodness to consist in relation to something which exists here and now, from those which do not. According to the former, ethics is an empirical and positive science. Its conclusions should be all established by means of empirical observation and induction. But this is not the case with metaphysical ethics. There is therefore a marked distinction between these two groups of ethical theories based on the same fallacy, and within naturalistic theories too a convenient division may also be made. There is one natural object, namely pleasure, which has perhaps been as frequently held to be the sole good as all the rest put together. And there is, moreover, a further reason for treating hedonism separately. That doctrine has, I think, as plainly as any other, owed its prevalence to the naturalistic fallacy, but it has had a singular fate in that the writer, who first clearly exposed the fallacy of the naturalistic arguments by which it had been attempted to prove that pleasure was the sole good, has maintained that nevertheless it is the sole good. I propose therefore to divide my discussion of hedonism from that of other naturalistic theories, treating of naturalistic ethics in general in this chapter and of hedonism in particular in the next. 26. The subject of the present chapter is, then, ethical theories which declare that no intrinsic value is to be found except in the possession of some one natural property other than pleasure, and which declare this because it is supposed that to be good means to possess the property in question. Such theories I call naturalistic. I have thus appropriated the name naturalism to a particular method of approaching ethics, a method which strictly understood is inconsistent with the possibility of any ethics whatsoever. This method consists in substituting for good some one property of a natural object or of a collection of natural objects, and in thus replacing ethics by some one of the natural sciences. In general, the sciences thus substituted is one of the sciences specially concerned with man owing to the general mistake, for such I hold it to be, of regarding the matter of ethics as confined to human conduct. In general, psychology has been the science substituted as by J. S. Mill or sociology as by Professor Clifford and other modern writers. But any other science might equally well be substituted. It is the same fallacy which is implied when Professor Tyndall recommends us to conform to the laws of matter, and here the science which is proposed to substitute for ethics is simply physics. The name then is perfectly general, for no matter what the something is that good is held to mean, the theory is still naturalism. Whether good be defined as yellow or green or blue, as loud or soft, as round or square, as sweet or bitter, as productive of life or productive of pleasure, as willed or desired or felt, whichever of these or of any other object in the world good may be held to mean, the theory which hold it to mean them will be a naturalistic theory. I have called such theories naturalistic because all of these terms denote properties, simple or complex, or some simple or complex natural object, and before I proceed to consider them, it will be well to define what is meant by nature and by natural objects. By nature, then, I do mean and have meant that which is the subject matter of the natural sciences and also of psychology. It may be said to include all that has existed, does exist or will exist in time. If we consider whether any object is of such a nature that it may be said to exist now, to have existed or to be about to exist, then we may know that that object is a natural object and that nothing of which this is not true is a natural object. Thus, for instance, of our minds we should say that they did exist yesterday and that they do exist today and probably will exist in a minute or two. We shall say that we had thoughts yesterday which have ceased to exist now, although their effects may remain, and insofar as those thoughts did exist, they too are natural objects. There is, indeed, no difficulty about the objects themselves in the sense in which I have just used the term. It is easy to say which of them are natural and which, if any, are not natural. But when we begin to consider the properties of objects, then I fear the problem is more difficult. Which among the properties of natural objects are natural properties and which are not? For I do not deny that good is a property of certain natural objects. Certain of them, I think, are good, and yet I have said that good itself is not a natural property. Well, my test for these two also concerns their existence in time. Can we imagine good as existing by itself in time and not merely as a property of some natural object? For myself, I cannot so imagine it, whereas with a greater number of properties of objects, those which I call the natural properties, their existence does seem to me to be independent of the existence of those objects. They are, in fact, rather parts of which the object is made up than mere predicates which attach to it. If they were all taken away, no object would be left, not even a bare substance. For they are in themselves substantial and give to the object all the substance that it has. But this is not so with good. If indeed good were a feeling, as some would have us believe, then it would exist in time. But that is why to call it so is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. It will always remain pertinent to ask whether the feeling itself is good. And if so, then good cannot itself be identical with any feeling. 27. Those theories of ethics, then, are naturalistic, which declare the so good to consist in some one property of things which exist in time and which do so because they suppose that good itself can be defined by reference to such a property, and we may now proceed to consider such theories. And first of all, one of the most famous of ethical maxims is that which recommends a life according to nature. That was the principle of the Stoic Ethics. But since their ethics has some claim to be called metaphysical, I shall not attempt to deal with it here. But the same phrase reappears in Rousseau, and it is not unfrequently maintained even now that what we ought to do is live naturally. Now, let us examine this contention in its general form. It is obvious in the first place that we cannot say that everything natural is good, except perhaps in virtue of some metaphysical theory, such as I shall deal with later. If anything natural is equally good, then certainly ethics, as it is ordinarily understood, disappears. For nothing is more certain from an ethical point of view than that some things are bad and others good. The object of ethics is indeed in chief part to give you general rules whereby you may avoid the one and secure the other. What then does natural mean in this advice to live naturally, since it obviously cannot apply to everything that is natural? The phrase seems to point to a vague notion that there is some such thing as natural good. To a belief that nature may be said to fix and decide what shall be good, just as she fixes and decides what shall exist. For instance, it may be supposed that health is susceptible of a natural definition, that nature has fixed what health shall be, and health, it may be said, is obviously good. Hence, in this case, nature has decided the matter. We have only to go to her and ask her what health is, and we shall know what is good. We shall have base and ethics up in science. But what is this natural definition of health? I can only conceive that health should be defined in natural terms as the normal state of an organism, for undoubtedly disease is also a natural product. To say that health is what is preserved by evolution, what itself tends to preserve in the struggle for existence, the organism which possesses it, comes to the same thing. For the point of evolution is that it pretends to give a causal explanation of why some forms of life are normal and others are abnormal. It explains the origin of species. When therefore we are told that health is natural, we may presume that what is meant is that it is normal, and that when we are told to pursue health as a natural end, what is implied is that the normal must be good. But is it so obvious that the natural must be good? Is it really obvious that health, for instance, is good? Was the excellence of Socrates or of Shakespeare normal? Was it rather not abnormal? Extraordinary. It is, I think, obvious in the first place that not all that is good is normal. On the contrary, the abnormal is often better than the normal. Peculiar excellence, as well as peculiar viciousness, must obviously be not normal, but abnormal. Yet it may be said that nevertheless the normal is good, and I myself am not prepared to dispute that health is good. What I contend is that this must not be taken to be obvious, that it must be regarded as an open question. To declare it to be obvious is to suggest the naturalistic fallacy, just as in some recent books a proof that genius is diseased, abnormal, has been used to suggest that genius ought not to be encouraged. Such reasoning is fallacious and dangerously fallacious. The fact is that in the very words health and disease we do commonly include the notion that the one is good and the other bad. But when a so-called scientific definition of them is attempted, a definition in natural terms, the only one possible is that by way of normal and abnormal. Now it is easy to prove that some things commonly thought excellent are abnormal, and it follows that they are diseased. But it does not follow except by virtue of the naturalistic fallacy that those things commonly thought good are therefore bad. All that has really been shown is that in some cases there is a conflict between the common judgment that genius is good and the common judgment that health is good. It is not sufficiently recognized that the latter judgment has not a wit more warrant for its truth than the former, that both are perfectly open questions. It may be true indeed that by healthy we do commonly imply good, but that only shows that when we so use the word we do not mean the same thing by it as the thing which is meant in medical science. That health, when the word is used to denote something good, is good, because no way at all to show that health when the word is used to denote something normal is also good. We might as well say that because bull denotes an Irish joke and also a certain animal the joke and the animal must be the same thing. We must not therefore be frightened by the assertion that a thing is natural into the admission that it is good. Good does not by definition mean anything that is natural and it is therefore always an open question whether anything that is natural is good. 28. But there is another slightly different sense in which the word natural is used with an implication that it denotes something good. This is when we speak of natural affections or unnatural crimes and vices. Here the meaning seems to be not so much that the action or feeling in question is normal or abnormal as that it is necessary. It is in this connection that we are advised to imitate savages and beasts. Curious advice certainly, but of course there may be something in it. I am not here concerned to inquire under what circumstances some of us might with advantage take a lesson from the cow. I have really no doubt that such exist. What I am concerned with is a certain kind of reason which I think is sometimes used to support this doctrine, a naturalistic reason. The notion sometimes lying at the bottom of the minds of preachers of this gospel is that we cannot improve our nature. This notion is certainly true in the sense that anything we can do will be a natural product. But that is not what is meant by this phrase. Nature is again used to mean a mere part of nature. Only this time the partment is not so much the normal as an arbitrary minimum of what is necessary for life. And when this minimum is recommended as natural as the way of life to which nature points her finger, then the naturalistic fallacy is used. Against this position I wish only to point out that though the performance of certain acts not in themselves desirable may be excused as necessary means to the preservation of life, that is no reason for praising them or advising us to limit ourselves to those simple actions which are necessary if it is possible for us to improve our condition even at the expense of doing what is in this sense unnecessary. Nature does indeed set limits to what is possible. She does control the means we have at our disposal for obtaining what is good. And of this fact practical ethics as we shall see later must certainly take account. But when she is supposed to have a preference for what is necessary, what is necessary means only what is necessary to obtain a certain end, presupposed as the highest good. And what the highest good is, nature cannot determine. Why should we suppose that what is merely necessary to life is if so factor better than what is necessary to the study of metaphysics, useless as that study may appear? It may be that life is only worth living because it enables us to study metaphysics. Is a necessary means there too? The fallacy of this argument from nature has been discovered as long as Lucian. I was almost inclined to laugh, says Calicratidas in one of the dialogues imputed to him, just now when Caracles was praising irrational brutes in the savagery of the Scythians. In the heat of this argument he was almost repenting that he was born a Greek. What wonder if lions and bears and pigs do not act as I was proposing? That which reason would fairly lead a man to choose cannot be had by creatures that do not reason, simply because they are so stupid. If Prometheus or some other god had given each of them the intelligence of a man, then they would not have lived in deserts and mountains nor fed on one another. They would have built temples just as we do. Each would have lived in the centre of his family and they would have formed a nation bound by mutual laws. Is it anything surprising that brutes who have had the misfortune to be unable to obtain by forethought any of the goods with which reasoning provides us should have missed love too? Lions do not love, but neither do they philosophize. Bears do not love, but the reason is they do not know the sweets of friendship. It is only men who, by their wisdom and knowledge of the many trials, have chosen what is best. 29. To argue that a thing is good because it is natural or bad because it is unnatural in these common senses of the term is therefore certainly fallacious, and yet such arguments are very frequently used, but they do not commonly pretend to give a systematic theory of ethics among attempts to systematize and appeal to nature that which is now most prevalent is to be found in the application to ethical questions of the term evolution, in the ethical doctrines which have been called evolutionistic. These doctrines are those which maintain that the course of evolution while it chooses the direction in which we are developing, thereby and for that reason chooses the direction in which we ought to develop. Writers who maintain such a doctrine are at present very numerous and very popular and I propose to take as my example the writer who is perhaps best known of them all, Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr. Spencer's doctrine, it must be owned, does not offer the clearest example of the naturalistic fallacy as used in support of evolutionistic ethics. A clear example might be found in Guyaud, a writer who has lately had considered Vogue in France but who is not so well known as Spencer. Guyaud might almost be called a disciple of Spencer. He is frankly evolutionistic and frankly naturalistic and I may mention that he does not seem to think that he differs from Spencer by reason of his naturalism. The point in which he has criticized Spencer concerns the question how far the ends of pleasure and of increased life coincide as motives and means to the attainment of the ideal. He does not seem to think that it differs from Spencer in the fundamental principle that the ideal is quantity of life measured in breadth as well as in length, or as Guyaud says, expansion and intensity of life, nor in the naturalistic reason which he gives for this principle. And I am not sure that he does differ from Spencer in these points. Spencer does, as I shall show, use the naturalistic fallacy in details but with regard to his fundamental principles the following doubts occur. Is he fundamentally a hedonist? And if so, is he a naturalistic hedonist? In that case he would better have been treated in my next chapter. Does he hold that a tendency to increase quantity of life is merely a criterion of good conduct? Or does he hold that such increase of life is marked out by nature as an end at which we ought to aim? I think his language in various places would give color to all these hypotheses, though some of them are mutually inconsistent. I will try to discuss the main points. 30. The modern vogue of evolution is chiefly owing to Darwin's investigations as to the original species. Darwin formed a strictly biological hypothesis as to the manner in which certain forms of animal life became established while others died out and disappeared. His theory was that this might be counted for partly at least in the following way. When certain varieties occurred the cause of their occurrence is still in the main unknown. It might be that some of the points in which they have varied from their parent species or from other species than existing made them better able to persist in the environment in which they found themselves less liable to be killed off. They might, for instance, be better able to endure the cold or heat or change of the climate, better able to find nourishment from what surrounded them, better able to escape from or resist other species which fed upon them, better fitted to attract or master the other sex. Being thus liable to die, their numbers relatively to other species would increase and that very increase in their number might tend towards the extinction of those other species. This theory to which Darwin gave the name natural selection was also called the theory of survival of the fittest. The natural process which is thus described was called evolution. It was very natural to suppose that evolution meant evolution from what was lower into what was higher. In fact, it was observed that at least one species, commonly called higher, the species man, had so survived and among men again it was supposed that the higher races, ourselves for example, had shown a tendency to survive the lower such as the North American Indians. We can kill them more easily than they can kill us. Thus, the doctrine of evolution was then represented as an explanation of how the higher species survives the lower. Spencer, for example, constantly uses more evolved as equivalent to higher, but it is to be noted that this forms no part of Darwin's scientific theory. That theory will explain equally well how by an alteration in the environment the gradual cooling of the earth, for example, quite a different species for man, are species which we think infinitely lower might survive us. The survival of the fittest does not mean, as one might suppose, the survival of what is fittest to fulfill a good purpose, best adapted to a good end. At the last it means merely the survival of the fittest to survive and the value of the scientific theory, and it is a theory of great value. Just consists in chewing what are the causes which produce certain biological effects. Whether these effects are good or bad, it cannot pretend to judge. End of Chapter 2, Part 1. Chapter 2, Part 2 of Principia Ethica. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Fredrik Carlson. Principia Ethica by G. E. Moore. 31. But now let us hear what Mr. Spencer says about the application of evolution to ethics. I recur, he says, to the main propositions that force these two chapters which has, I think, been fully justified. Guided by the truth that as the conduct with which ethics deals is part of conduct at large, conduct at large must be generally understood before this part can be specially understood. And guided by the further truth that to understand conduct at large we must understand the evolution of conduct. We have been led to see that ethics has, for its subject matter, that form which universal conduct assumes during the last stages of its evolution. We have also concluded that these last stages in the evolution of conduct are those displayed by the highest type of being when he is forced by increase of numbers to live more and more in presence of his fellows. And there has followed the corollary that conduct gains ethical sanction in proportion as the activities becoming less and less militant and more and more industrial are such as do not necessitate mutual injury or hindrance, but consist with and are furthered by cooperation and mutual aid. These implications of the evolution hypothesis we shall now see harmonize with the leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached. Now, if we are to take the last sentence strictly if the propositions which preceded are really thought by Mr. Spencer to be implications of the evolution hypothesis there can be no doubt that Mr. Spencer has committed the naturalistic fallacy. All that the evolution hypothesis tells us is that certain kinds of conduct are more evolved than others. And this is, in fact, all that Mr. Spencer has attempted to prove in the two chapters concerned. Yet it tells us that one of the things it has proved is that conduct gains ethical sanction in proportion as it displays certain characteristics. What he has tried to prove is only that in proportion as it displays those characteristics it is more evolved. It is plain then that Mr. Spencer identifies the gaining of ethical sanction with the being more evolved. This follows strictly from his words. But Mr. Spencer's language is extremely loose and we shall presently see that he seems to regard the view it here implies as false. We cannot therefore take it as Mr. Spencer's definite view that better means nothing but more evolved or even that what is more evolved is therefore better. But we are entitled to urge that he is influenced by these views and therefore by the naturalistic fallacy. It is only by the assumption of such influence that we can explain his confusion as to what he has really proved and the absence of any attempt to prove what he says he has proved that conduct which is more evolved is better. We shall look in vain for any attempt to show that ethical sanction is in proportion to evolution or that it is the highest type of being which displays the most evolved conduct. Yet Mr. Spencer concludes that this is the case. It is only fair to assume that he is not sufficiently conscious how much these propositions stand in need of proof. What a very different thing is being more evolved from being higher or better. It may of course be true that what is more evolved is also higher and better. But Mr. Spencer does not seem aware that to assert the one is in any case not the same thing as to assert the other. He argues at length that certain kinds of conduct are more evolved and then he forms us that he has proved them to gain ethical sanction in proportion without any warning that he has omitted the most essential step in such a proof. Surely this is sufficient evidence that he does not see how essential that step is. 32. Whatever be the degree of Mr. Spencer's own guilt what has just been said will serve to illustrate the kind of fallacy which is constantly committed by those who profess to base ethics on evolution. But we must hasten to add that the view which Mr. Spencer's elsewhere most empathetically recommends is an utterly different one. It will be useful briefly to deal with this in order that no injustice may be done to Mr. Spencer. The discussion will be instructive partly from the lack of clearness which Mr. Spencer displays as to the relation of this view to the evolutionistic one just described and partly because there is reason to suspect that in this view also he is influenced by the naturalistic fallacy. We have seen that at the end of his second chapter Mr. Spencer seems to announce that he has already proved certain characteristics of conduct to be a measure of its ethical value. He seems to think that he has proved this merely by considering the evolution of conduct and he has certainly not given any such proof unless we are to understand that more evolved is a mere synonym for ethically better. He now promises merely to confirm this certain conclusion by showing that it harmonizes with the leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached. But when we turn to his third chapter we find that what he actually does is something quite different. He here asserts that to establish the conclusion conduct is better in proportion as it is more evolved and entirely new proof is necessary. That conclusion will be false unless a certain proposition of which we have heard nothing so far is true unless it is true that life is pleasant on the whole. And the ethical proposition for which he claims the support of the leading moral ideas of mankind turns out to be that life is good or bad according as it does or does not bring a surplus of agreeable feeling. Here, then, Mrs. Spencer appears not as an evolutionist but as a hedonist in ethics. No conduct is better because it is more evolved. Degree of evolution cannot most be a criterion of ethical value and it will only be that if we can prove the extremely difficult generalization that the more evolved is always on the whole the pleasanter. It is plain that Mrs. Spencer here rejects the naturalistic identification of better with more evolved but it is possible that he is influenced by another naturalistic identification that of good with pleasant. It is possible that Mrs. Spencer is a naturalistic hedonist. 33. Let us examine Mrs. Spencer's own words. He begins this third chapter by the attempt to show that we call good the acts conducive to life in self or others and bad those which directly or indirectly tend towards death special or general. And then he asks, is there any assumption made in so calling them? Yes, he answers. An assumption of extreme significance has been made an assumption underlying all moral estimates. The question to be definitely raised and answered before entering on any ethical discussion is the question of late much agitated. Is life worth living? Shall we take the pessimist view? Or shall we take the optimist view? On the answer to this question depends every decision concerning the goodness or badness of conduct. But Mrs. Spencer does not immediately proceed to give the answer. Instead of this he asks another question. But now, have these irreconcilable opinions, pessimist and optimist anything in common? And this question he immediately answered by the statement, yes, there is one postulate in which pessimists and optimists agree. Both their arguments assume it to be self-evident that life is good or bad according as it does or does not bring a surplus of agreeable feeling. It is to the defence of this statement that the rest of the chapter is devoted and at the end Mrs. Spencer formulates his conclusion in the following words. No school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable state of feeling called by whatever name gratification enjoyment happiness. Pleasure somewhere at some time to some being or beings is an inexpungable element of the conception. Now in all this there are two points to which I wish to call attention. The first is that Mr. Spencer does not after all tell us clearly what he takes to be the relation of pleasure and evolution in ethical theory. Obviously it could mean that pleasure is the only intrinsically desirable thing. That other good things are good only in the sense that there are means to its existence. Nothing but this can probably be meant by asserting it to be the ultimate moral aim or as he subsequently says the ultimately supreme end. And if this were so it would follow that the more evolved conduct was better than the less evolved only because and in proportion as it gave more pleasure. But Mrs. Spencer tells us that two conditions are taken together sufficient to prove the more evolved conduct better. One that it should tend to produce more life. Two that life should be worth living or contain a balance of pleasure. And the point I wish to emphasize is that if these conditions are sufficient then pleasure cannot be the sole good. For though to produce more life is if the second of Mrs. Spencer's propositions be correct one way of producing more pleasure it is not the only way. It is quite possible that a small quantity of life which was more intensely and uniformly present should give a greater quantity of pleasure than the greatest possible quantity of life that was only just worth living. And in that case on the hedonistic supposition that pleasure is the only thing worth having we should have to prefer the smaller quantity of life and therefore according to Mrs. Spencer the less evolved conduct. Accordingly if Mrs. Spencer is a true hedonist the fact that life gives a balance of pleasure is not it seems to think sufficient to prove that the more evolved conduct is the better. If Mrs. Spencer means us to understand that it is sufficient then his view about pleasure can only be not that it is the sole good or ultimately supreme end but that a balance of it is a necessary constituent of the supreme end. In short Mrs. Spencer seems to maintain that more life is decidedly better than less if only it give a balance of pleasure and that contention is inconsistent with the position that pleasure is the ultimate moral aim. Mrs. Spencer implies that of two quantities of life which gave an equal amount of pleasure the larger would nevertheless be preferable to the less and if this be so then he must maintain that quantity of life or degree of evolution is itself an ultimate condition of value. He leaves us therefore in doubt that he is not still retaining the evolutionistic proposition that the more evolved is better simply because it is more evolved alongside the hedonistic proposition that the more pleasant is better simply because it is more pleasant. But the second question which we have to ask is what reason has Mr. Spencer for assigning to pleasure the position which he does assign to it he tells us we saw that the arguments both of pessimists and of optimists assume to be self-evident that life is good or bad according as it does or does not bring a surplus of agreeable feeling and he betters this later by telling us that since avowed or implied pessimists and optimists of one or other shade taken together constitute all men it results that this postulate is universally accepted. That these statements are absolutely false is of course quite obvious. But why does Mr. Spencer think them true? And what is more important a question which Mr. Spencer does not distinguish too clearly from the last why does he think the postulate itself to be true? Mr. Spencer himself tells us his proof is that reversing the application of the words good and bad applying the word good to conduct the aggregate result of which are painful and the word bad to conduct of which the aggregate results are pleasurable creates absurdities. He does not say whether this is because it is absurd to think that the quality which we mean by the word good really applies to what is painful. Even however if we assume him to mean this and if we assume that absurdities are thus created it is plain he would only prove that what is painful is properly thought to be so far bad and what is pleasant to be so far good. He would not prove at all that pleasure is the supreme end. There is however reason to think that part of what Mr. Spencer means is the naturalistic fallacy that he imagines pleasant or productive or pleasure is the very meaning of the word good and that the absurdity is due to this. It is at all events certain that he does not distinguish this possible meaning from that which would admit that good denotes a unique indefinable quality. The doctrine of naturalistic hedonism is indeed quite strictly implied in this statement that virtue cannot be defined otherwise than in terms of happiness and though as I remarked before we cannot insist upon Mr. Spencer's words as a certain clue to any definite meaning. That is only because he generally expresses by them several inconsistent alternatives. The naturalistic fallacy being in this case one such alternative. It is certainly impossible to find any further reason given by Mr. Spencer for his conviction that pleasure both is the supreme end and is universally admitted to be so. He seems to assume throughout that we must mean by good conduct what is productive of pleasure and by bad what is productive of pain. So far then as he is a hedonist he would seem to be a naturalistic hedonist. So much for Mr. Spencer. It is of course quite possible that his treatment of ethics contained many interesting and instructive remarks. It would seem indeed that Mr. Spencer's main view that of which he is most clearly and most often conscious is that pleasure is the sole good and that to consider the direction of evolution is by far the best criterion of the way in which we shall get most of it and this theory if he could establish that amount of pleasure is always in direct proportion to amount of evolution and also that it was plain what conduct was more evolved would be a very valuable contribution to the science of sociology. It would even if pleasure were the sole good be a valuable contribution to ethics. But the above discussion should have made it plain that if what we want from an ethical philosopher is a scientific and systematic ethics, not merely in ethics professedly based on science if what we want is a clear discussion of the fundamental principles of ethics and a statement of the ultimate reason why one way of acting should be considered better than another, then Mr. Spencer's data of ethics is immeasurably far from satisfying these demands. 34. It remains only to state clearly what is definitely fallacious in the relevant views as to the relation of evolution to ethics. In those views with regard to which it seems so uncertain how farmers dispensing tends to encourage them. I propose to confine the term evolutionistic ethics to the view that we need only to consider the tendency of evolution in order to discover the direction in which we ought to do. This view must be carefully distinguished from certain others which may be commonly confused with it. 35. The direction in which living things have himhere to developed is, as a matter of fact, the direction of progress. It might be held that the more evolved is, as a matter of fact, also better. And in such a view, no fallacy is involved. But, if it is to give us any guidance as to how we ought to act in the future, it does involve a long and painful investigation that persists. We cannot assume that because evolution is progress on the whole, therefore every point in which the more evolved differs from the less is a point in which it is better than the less. A simple consideration of the course of evolution will therefore, on this view, by no means suffice to inform us of the course we ought to pursue. We shall have to employ all the resources of a strictly ethical and the different results of evolution to distinguish the more valuable from the less valuable, and both from those which are no better than their courses, or perhaps even worse. In fact, it is difficult to see how, on this view, if all that be ment is that evolution has on the whole been a progress, the theory of evolution can give any assistance to ethics at all. The judgment that evolution has been a progress is itself an independent ethical judgment, and even if we take it to be more certain and obvious than any of the detailed judgment upon which it must logically depend for confirmation, we certainly cannot use it as a datum from which to infer details. It is at all events certain that if this had been the only relation held to exist between evolution and ethics, no such importance would have been attached to the bearing of evolution on ethics as we actually find plain for it. The view which, as I have said seems to be Mr. Spencer's main view, may also be held without fallacy. It may be held that the more evolved, though not itself the better, is a criterion because are concomitant of the better. But this view also obviously involves an exhaustive preliminary discussion of the fundamental ethical question what, after all, is better. That Mr. Spencer entirely dispenses with such discussion in support of his contention that pleasure is so good, I have pointed out. And that if we tend such a discussion we shall arrive at no such simple result, I shall presently try to shoe. If, however, the good is not simple, it is by no means likely that we shall be able to discover evolution to be a criterion of it. We shall have to establish a relation between two highly complicated sets of data and, moreover, if we had once settled what were goods and what their comparative values it is extremely unlikely that we should need to call in the aid of evolution as a criterion of how to get the most. It is plain then, again, that if this were the only relation imagined to exist between evolution and ethics, it could hardly have been thought to justify the assignment of any importance in ethics to the theory of evolution. Finally, 3. It may be held that though evolution gives us no help in discovering what results of our efforts will be best, it does give some help in discovering what it is possible to attain and what are the means to its attainment. That the theory really may be of service to ethics in this way cannot be denied. But it is certainly not common to find this humble, ancillary bearing clearly and exclusively assigned to it. In the mere fact, then, that these non-fallacious views of the direction of evolution to ethics would give so very little importance to that relation. We have evidence that what is typical in the coupling of the two names is the fallacious view to which I propose to restrict the name evolutionistic ethics. This is the view that we ought to move in the direction of evolution simply because it is the direction of evolution. That the forces of nature of working on that side is taking as a presumption that the right side. That such a view, apart from metaphysical presuppositions with which I shall presently deal is simplifalacious, I have tried to shoe. It can only rest on a confused belief that somehow the good simply means the side on which nature is working. And it thus involves another confused belief which is very marked in Mr. Spence's whole treatment of evolution. For, after all, evolution the side on which nature is working. In the sense which Mr. Spence gives to the term and in any sense in which it can be regarded as a fact that the more evolved is higher evolution denotes only a temporary historical process. That things will permanently continue to involve in the future or that they have always evolved in the past, we have not the smallest reason to believe. For, evolution does not in this sense denote a natural law, like the law of gravity. Darwin's theory of natural selection does indeed state a natural law. It states that, given certain conditions, certain results will always happen. But evolution as Mr. Spence understands it and as it is commonly understood denotes something very different. It denotes only a process which has actually occurred at a given time because the conditions at the beginning of that time happen to be of a certain nature. That such conditions will always be given or have always been given cannot be assumed. And it is only the process which according to natural law must follow from these conditions and no others. That appears to be also on the whole a progress. Precisely the same natural laws Darwin's for instance would under other conditions render inevitable not evolution not a development from lower to higher but the converse process which has been called involution. Yet Mr. Spence constantly speaks of the process which is exemplified by the development of man as if it had all the augustness of a universal law of nature. Whereas we have no reason to believe it other than a contemporary accident requiring not only certain universal natural laws but also the existence of a certain state of things at a certain time. The only laws concerned in the matter are certainly such as under other circumstances would allow us to infer not the development but the extinction of man. And that circumstances will always be favorable to further development. That nature will always work on the side of evolution we have no reason whatever to believe. Thus the idea that evolution throws important light on ethics seems to be due to a double confusion. Our respect for the process is enlisted by the representation of it as the law of nature. But on the other hand our respect for laws of nature would be speedily diminished did we not imagine that this desirable process was one of them. To suppose that a law of nature is therefore respectable is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. But no one probably would be tempted to commit it unless something which is respectable were represented as a law of nature. It were clearly recognized that there is no evidence for supposing nature to be on the side of the good there would probably be less tendency to hold the opinion which on other grounds is demonstrably false that no such evidence is required. And if both false opinions were clearly seen to be false it would be plain that evolution has very little indeed to say to ethics. 35 In this chapter I have done the criticism of certain ethical views which seem to owe their influence mainly to the naturalistic fallacy the fallacy which consists in identifying the simple notion which we mean by good with some other notion. They are views which profess to tell us what is good in itself. And my criticism of them is mainly directed one to bring out the negative result that we have no reason to suppose that which they declare to be the sole good really to be so. Two to illustrate further the positive result already established in chapter 1 that the fundamental principle of ethics must be synthetic propositions declaring what things and in what degree possess a simple and unanalyzable property which may be called intrinsic value or goodness. The chapter began one by dividing the views to be criticized into a those which supposing good to be defined by reference to some super sensible reality conclude that sole good is to be found in such a reality and may therefore be called metaphysical. B. those which assign a similar position to some natural object and may therefore be called naturalistic. Of naturalistic views that which regards pleasure as the sole good has received far the fullest and most serious treatment or reserved for chapter 3. All other forms of naturalism may be first dismissed by taking typical examples. 2. As typical of naturalistic views other than hedonism there was first taking the popular accommodation of what is natural. It was pointed out that by natural there might here be meant either normal or necessary and that neither normal nor the necessary could be seriously supposed either always good or the only good things. 3. But a more important type because on which claims to be capable of system is to be found in evolutionistic ethics. The influence of the fallacious opinion that to be better means to be more evolved was illustrated by an examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's ethics and it was pointed out that but for the influence of this opinion evolution could have been supposed to have any important bearing on ethics. End of chapter 2. Chapter 3 Part 1 of Principia Ethica this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Fredrik Carlson. Principia Ethica by G. E. Moore. Chapter 3 Hedonism 36. In this chapter we have to deal with what is perhaps the most famous widely held of all ethical principles. The principle that nothing is good but pleasure. My chief reason for treating of this principle in this place is as I said that hedonism appears in the main to be a form of naturalistic ethics. In other words that pleasure has been so generally held to be the so good is almost entirely due to the fact that it has seemed to be somehow involved in the definition of good to be pointed out by the very meaning of the word. If this is so then the prevalence of hedonism has been mainly due to what I have called a naturalistic fallacy the failure to distinguish clearly that unique and indefinable quality which we mean by good. And that it is so we have very strong evidence in the fact that of all hedonistic writers, Professor Sitchwick alone has clearly recognized that by good we do mean something unanalysable and has alone been led thereby to emphasize the fact that if hedonism be true its claims to be so must be rested solely on itself evidence. That we must maintain pleasure is the so good to be mere intuition. It appears to Professor Sitchwick as a new discovery that what he calls the method of intuitionism must be retained as valid alongside of and indeed the foundation of what he calls the alternative methods of utilitarianism and egoism. And that it was a new discovery can hardly be doubted. In previous hedonists we find no clear and consistent recognition of the fact that their fundamental proposition involves the assumption that a certain unique predicate can be directly seen to belong to pleasure alone among existence. They do not emphasize as they hardly have failed to have done had they perceived it how utterly independent of all other truths this truth must be. Moreover it is easy to see how this unique position should have been assigned to pleasure without any clear consciousness of the assumption involved. Hedonism is, for a sufficiently obvious reason, the first conclusion at which anyone who begins to reflect upon ethics naturally arrives. It is very easy to notice the fact that we are pleased with things. The things we enjoy and the things we do not form two unmistakable classes to which our attention is constantly directed. But it is comparatively difficult to distinguish the fact that we approve a thing from the fact that we are pleased with it. Although if we look at the two states of mind we must see that they are different even though they generally go together it is very difficult to see in what aspect they are different or that the difference can in any connection be of more importance than the many other differences which are so patent and yet so difficult to analyze between one kind of enjoyment and another. It is very difficult to see that by approving of a thing we mean feeling that it has a certain predicate. The predicate namely which defines the peculiar sphere of ethics whereas in the enjoyment of a thing no such unique object of thought is involved. Nothing is more natural than the vulgar mistake which we find expressed in a recent book on ethics. The primary ethical fact is, we have said that something is approved or disapproved that is in other words the ideal representation of certain events in the way of sensation perception or idea is attended with a feeling of pleasure or of pain in ordinary speech I want this I like this I care about this are constantly used as equivalence for I think this good and in this way it is very natural to be led to suppose that there is no distinct class of ethical judgments but only the class things enjoyed in spite of the fact which is very clear if not very common that we do not always approve what we enjoy it is of course very obvious from the opposition that I think this good is identical with I am pleased with this it cannot be logically inferred that pleasure alone is good but on the other hand it is very difficult to see what could be logically inferred from such a supposition and it seems natural enough that such an inference should suggest itself a very little examination of what is commonly written on this subject will suffice to show that a logical confusion of this nature is very common moreover the very commission of the naturalistic fallacy involves that those who committed should not recognize clearly the meaning of the proposition this is good that they should not be able to distinguish this from other propositions which seem to resemble it and where this is so it is of course impossible that the logical relations should be clearly perceived 37 there is therefore ample reason to suppose that hedonism is in general a form of naturalism that its acceptance is generally due to the naturalistic fallacy it is indeed only when we have detected this fallacy when we have become clearly aware of the unique object which is meant by good hedonism the precise definition used above nothing is good but pleasure and it may therefore be objected that in attacking this doctrine under the name of hedonism I am attacking a doctrine which has never really been held but it is very common to hold a doctrine without being clearly aware what it is you hold and though when hedonists argue in favor of what they call hedonism I admit that in order to suppose their arguments valid they must have before their minds something other than the doctrine I have defined yet in order to draw the conclusions that they draw it is necessary that they should also have before their minds this doctrine in fact my justification for supposing that I shall have refuted historical hedonism if I refute the proposition nothing is good but pleasure is that although hedonists have rarely stated their principle in this form and though its truth in this form will certainly not follow from their arguments yet their ethical method will follow logically from nothing else any pretense of hedonistic method to discover to us practical truths which we should not otherwise have known is founded on the principle that the course of action which will bring the greatest balance of pleasure is certainly the right one and failing an absolute proof that the greatest balance of pleasure always coincides with the greatest balance of other goods which it is not generally tempted to give this principle can only be justified if pleasure be the sole good indeed it can hardly be doubted that hedonists are distinguished by arguing in disputed practical questions as if pleasure were the sole good and that it is justifiable for this among other reasons to take this as the ethical principle of hedonism will I hope be made further evident by the whole discussion of this chapter by hedonism then I mean the doctrine that pleasure alone is good as an end good in the sense which I have tried to point out as indefinable the doctrine that pleasure among other things is good as an end is not hedonism and I shall not dispute its truth nor again is the doctrine that other things beside pleasure are good as means at all inconsistent with hedonism the hedonist is not bound to maintain that pleasure alone is good if under good he includes as we generally do what is good as means to an end as well as the end itself in attacking hedonism I am therefore simply and solely attacking the doctrine that pleasure alone is good as an end or in itself I am not attacking the doctrine that pleasure is good as an end or in itself nor am I attacking any doctrine whatever as to what are the best means we can take in order to obtain pleasure or any other end hedonists do in general recommend a course of conduct which is very similar to that which I should recommend I do not quarrel with them about practical conclusions I quarrel only with the reasons by which they seem to think their conclusions can be supported and I do empathetically deny that the correctness of their conclusions is any ground for inferring the correctness of their principles a correct conclusion may always be obtained by a fallacious reasoning and the good life or virtuous maximum of a hedonist affords absolutely no presumption that his ethical philosophy is also good it is his ethical philosophy alone with which I am concerned what I dispute is the excellence of his reasoning not the excellence of his character as a man or even as moral teacher it may be thought that my contention is unimportant but that is no ground for thinking that I am not in the right what I am concerned with is knowledge only that we should think correctly and so far arrive at some truth however unimportant I do not say that such knowledge will make us more useful members of society if anyone does not care for knowledge for its own sake then I have nothing to say to him only it should not be thought that a lack of interest in what I have to say is any ground for holding it untrue 38 hedonists then hold that all other things but pleasure, whether conduct or virtue or knowledge, whether life or nature or beauty are only good as means to pleasure or for the sake of pleasure, never for their own sakes or as ends in themselves this view was held by Aristipus the disciple of Socrates and by the Syronaic school which he founded it is associated with Epicurus and the Epicurians and it has been held in modern times chiefly by those philosophers called utilitarians by Bentham and by Mill for instance Herbert Spencer as we have seen also says that he holds it and Professor Sitchwick as we shall see holds it too yet all these philosophers as has been said differ from one another more or less both as what they mean by hedonism and as to the reason for which it is to be accepted as a true doctrine the matter is therefore obviously not quite so simple as it might at first appear my own object will be to show quite clearly what the theory must imply if it is made precise if all confusions and inconsistencies are removed from the conception of it and when this is done I think it will appear that all the various reasons given for holding it to be true are really quite inadequate that they are not reasons for holding hedonism but only for holding some other doctrine which is confused therewith in order to attain this object I propose to take first Mill's doctrine as set forth in his book called utilitarianism we shall find in Mill a conception of hedonism and arguments in its favor which fairly represent those of a large class of hedonistic writers to these representative conceptions and arguments grave objections objections which appear to me to be conclusive have been urged by Professor Sitchwick these I shall try to give in my own words and shall then proceed to consider and refute Professor Sitchwick's own much more precise conceptions and arguments. With this I think we shall have traversed the whole field of hedonistic doctrine it will appear from the discussion that the task of deciding what is or is not good in itself is by no means an easy one and in this way the discussion will afford a good example of the method which it is necessary to pursue in attempting to arrive at the truth with regard to this primary class of ethical principles in particular it will appear that the two principles of method must be constantly kept in mind one that the naturalistic fallacy must not be committed two that a distinction between means and ends must be observed 39 I propose then to begin by an explanation of Mill's utilitarianism that is a book which contains an admirably clear and fair discussion of many ethical principles and methods Mill exposes not a few simple mistakes which are very likely to be made by those who approach ethical problems without much previous reflection but what I am concerned with is the mistakes which Mill himself appears to have made and these only so far as they concern the hedonistic principles let me repeat what that principle is it is I have said that pleasure is the only thing at which we ought to aim the only thing that is good as an end and for its own sake and now let us turn to Mill and see whether he accepts this description of the question at issue pleasure he says at the outset and again at the end of his argument to think of an object as desirable unless for the sake of its consequences and to think of it as pleasant are one and the same thing these statements taken together and apart from certain confusions which are obvious in them seem to imply the principle I have stated and if I succeed in showing that Mill's reason for them do not prove them it must at least be the reason for them to be the reason for them to not prove them it must at least be admitted that I have not been fighting with shadows or demolishing a man of straw it will be observed that Mill adds absence of pain to pleasure in his first statement though not in his second there is in this a confusion with which however we need not deal I shall talk of pleasure alone for the sake of conciseness but all my arguments will apply a fortiori to absence of pain it is easy to make the necessary substitutions Mill holds then that happiness is desirable and the only thing desirable as an end all other things being only desirable as means to that end happiness he has already defined as pleasure and the absence of pain he does not pretend that this is more than an arbitrary verbal definition and as such I have not a word to say against it his principle then is pleasure is the only thing desirable if I may be alone when I say pleasure to include in that word so far as necessary absence of pain and now what are his reasons for holding that principle to be true he has already told us that questions of ultimate ends are not amendable to direct proof whatever can be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be a good without proof with this I perfectly agree indeed the chief object of my first chapter was to show that this is so anything which is good as an end must be admitted to be good without proof we are agreed so far Mill even uses the same examples which are used in my second chapter how he says is it possible to prove that health is good what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good well in chapter 4 in which he deals with the proof of his utilitarian principle Mill repeats the above statements in these words it has already been remarked that questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof in the ordinary exception of the term questions about ends he goes on with the same passage or in other words questions what things are desirable I am quoting these repetitions because they make it plain what otherwise might have been doubted that Mill is using the words desirable or desirable as an end as absolute and precisely equivalent to the words good as an end we are then now to hear what reasons he advances for this doctrine chapter alone is good as an end 40 questions about ends he says or in other words questions about what things are desirable the utilitarian doctrine is that happiness is desirable and the only thing desirable as an end all other things being only desirable as means to that end what ought to be required of this doctrine what conditions is it requested that the doctrine should fulfill to make good its claim to be believed the only proof capable of being given that a thing is visible is that people actually see it the only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it and so of the other sources of our experience in like manner I apprehend the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it if the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not in theory any practice acknowledged to be an end nothing could ever convince any person that it was so no reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable except that each person so far as he believes it to be attainable desires his own happiness this however being the 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 happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct and consequently one of the criteria of morality there that is enough that is my first point mill has made as naive and artless a use of the naturalistic fallacy as anybody could desire good it tells us means desirable and you can only find out what is desirable by seeking to find out what is actually desired this is of course only one step towards the proof of hedonism for it may be as mill goes on to say that other things beside pleasure are desired whether or not pleasure is the only thing desired is as mill himself admits a psychological question to which we shall presently proceed the important step for ethics is this one just taking the step which pretends to prove that good means desired well fallacy in this step is so obvious that it is quite wonderful how mill failed to see it the fact is that desirable does not mean able to be desired or visible means able to be seen the desirable means simply what ought to be desired or deserves to be desired just as the testable means not what can be but what ought to be detested and the damnable what deserves to be damned mill has then smuggled in undercover of the word desirable the very notion about which he ought to be quite clear desirable does indeed mean what it is good to desire but when this is understood it is no longer plausible to say that our only test of that is what is actually desired is it merely a totology when the prayer book talks of good desires are not bad desires also possible nay, we find mill himself talking of a better and nobler object of desire as if after all what is desired were not ifsofacto good and good in proportion to the amount it is desired moreover if the desired is ifsofacto the good then the good is ifsofacto the motive of our actions and there can be no question of finding motives for doing it as mill is at such pains to do if mill's explanation of desirable be true then his statement that the rule of action may be confounded with the motive of it is untrue for the motive of action will then be according to him ifsofacto its rule there can be no distinction between the two and therefore no confusion and thus he has contradicted himself flatly these are specimens of the contradictions which as I have tried to shoe must always follow from the use of the naturalistic fallacy and I hope I need now say no more about the matter 41 well then the first step by which mill has attempted to establish his hedonism is simply fallacious he has attempted to establish the identity of the good with the desired by confusing the proper sense of desirable in which it denotes that which it is good to desire with the sense which it would bear if it were analogous to such words as visible if desirable is to be identical with good then it must bear one sense and if it is to be identical with desired then it must bear quite another sense and yet to mill's contention that the desired is necessarily good it is quite essential that these two senses of desirable should be the same if he holds they are the same then he has contradicted himself elsewhere if he holds that they are not the same then the first step in his proof of hedonism is absolutely worthless but now we must deal with the second step having proved as he thinks that the good means the desired mill recognizes that if he is further to maintain that pleasure alone is good he must prove that pleasure alone is really desired this doctrine that pleasure alone is the object of all our desires is the doctrine which professor Sitchwick has called psychological hedonism and it is a doctrine which most evident psychologists are now agreed in rejecting but it is a necessary step in the proof of any such naturalistic hedonism as mill's and it is so commonly held by people not expert either in psychology or in philosophy that I wish to treat it as some length it will be seen that mill does not hold it in its bare form he admits that other things than pleasure are desired and this admission is at once a contradiction of his hedonism one of the shifts by which he seeks to evade this contradiction we shall afterwards consider but some may think that no such shifts are needed they may say of mill what Calakles says of Paulus in the Gorgias that he has made the fatal admission through a most unworthy fear of appearing paradoxical that they on the other hand will have the courage of their convictions and will not be ashamed to go to any lengths of paradox in defense of what they hold to be the truth 42 proposing it held that pleasure is the object of all desire that it is the universal end of all human activity now I suppose it will not be denied that people are commonly said to desire other things for instance we usually talk of desiring food and drink of desiring money, approbation, fame the question then must be of what is meant by desire and by the object of desire of unnecessary or universal relation between something which is called desire and another thing which is called pleasure the question is of what sort this relation is whether in conjunction with a naturalistic fallacy above mentioned it will justify hedonism now I am not prepared to deny that there is some universal relation between pleasure and desire but I hope to show that if there is of such sort as will rather make against than for hedonism it is urged that pleasure is always the object of desire and I am ready to admit that pleasure is always in part at least the cause of desire but this distinction is very important both views might be expressed in the same language both might be said to hold that whenever we desire we always desire because of some pleasure if I asked my supposed hedonist why do you desire that he might answer quite consistently with his contention because there is pleasure there and if he is asked me the same question I might answer equally consistently with my contention because there is pleasure here only our two answers will not mean the same thing it is this use of the same language to denote quite different facts which I believe to be the chief cause why psychological hedonism is so often held just as it was also the cause of Mills naturalistic fallacy let us try to analyze the psychological state which is called desire that name is usually confined to a state of mind in which the idea of some object or event not yet existing is present to us suppose for instance I am desiring a glass of port wine I have the idea of drinking such a glass before my mind although I am not yet drinking it well how does pleasure enter into this relation my theory is that it enters in this way the idea of drinking causes a feeling of pleasure in my mind which helps to produce that state of incipient activity which is called desire it is therefore because of a pleasure which I already have the pleasure excited by a mere idea that I desire the wine which I have not and I am ready to admit that a pleasure of this kind an actual pleasure is always among the causes of every desire and not only of every desire but of every mental activity whether conscious or subconscious I am ready to admit this I say I cannot vote that it is the true psychological doctrine but at all events it is not prima facie quite absurd and now what is the other doctrine the doctrine which I am supposing held and which is at all events essential to Milt's argument it is this that when I desire the wine it is not the wine which I desire but the pleasure which I expect to get from it in other words the doctrine is that the idea of a pleasure not actual is always necessary to cause desire it is these two different theories which I suppose the psychological hedonists to confuse the confusion is as Mr Bradley puts it between a pleasant thought and the thought of a pleasure it is in fact only where the latter the thought of a pleasure is present that pleasure can be said to be the object of desire or the motive to action on the other hand when only a pleasant thought is present as I admit may always be the case then it is the object of the thought that which we are thinking about which is the object of desire and the motive to action and the pleasure which that thought excites may indeed cause our desire or move us to action but it is not our end or object nor our motive well I hope this distinction is sufficiently clear now let us see how it bears upon ethical hedonism I assume it to be perfectly obvious that the idea of the object of desire is not always and only the idea of a pleasure in the first place plainly we are not always conscious of expecting pleasure when we desire a thing we may be only conscious of the thing which we desire and may be impaled to make it at once without any calculation as to whether it will bring us pleasure or pain and in the second place even when we do expect pleasure it can certainly be very rarely pleasure only which we desire for instance granted that when I desire my glass of port wine I have also an idea of the pleasure I expect from it plainly that pleasure cannot be the only object of my desire the port wine must be included in my object else I might be led by my desire to take wormwood instead of wine if the desire were directed solely towards the pleasure it could not lead me to take if it is to take a definite direction it is absolutely necessary that the idea of the object from which the pleasure is expected should also be present and should control my activity the theory then that what is desired is always and only pleasure must break down it is impossible to prove that pleasure alone is good by that line of argument but if we substitute for this theory that other true theory that pleasure is always the cause of desire then all the possibility our ethical doctrine that pleasure alone is good straight away disappears for in this case pleasure is not what I desire it is not what I want it is something which I already have before I can want something and can anyone feel inclined to maintain that which I already have while I am still requiring something else is always and alone the good end of chapter 3 part 1