Common-Sense Ethics

C. E. M. Joad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000051469
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Originally published in 1921, this book makes philosophical ethics accessible to the non-philosopher and applies them to problems of everyday life. The author maintains that morality is the rationalization of the impulse to blame and emphases the importance of impulses. He illustrates how modern society conspires to suppress impulses and restrict their operation.

COMMON-SENSE ETHICS

PART I

PHILOSOPHICAL OR TRADITIONAL ETHICS

CHAPTER I

UTILITARIANISM AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE

§ I. WHAT THE UTILITARIANS BELIEVED

IPROPOSE in this and the two following chapters to describe and to discuss some of the main theories about Ethics that have been propounded by philosophers.

In this chapter I shall deal with the group of theories which hold, in the first place, that actions are to be judged as right or wrong according to their consequences; and in the second, that in assessing those consequences pleasure or happiness is the only thing which can properly be regarded as valuable. It is clear that the second proposition, namely that pleasure is the only thing of value, does not necessarily follow from the first, namely that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on their consequences, and that it is possible for the one proposition to be true although the other is untrue. Philosophers who have held the first position have, however, as a general rule subscribed to the second, and it will therefore be convenient to consider them together.

The theories in question have been very popular among ethical writers, from the early Greek thinkers down to our own day. John Stuart Mill may, however, be regarded as perhaps the most typical exponent of this school of thought, and I propose therefore to examine the theories chiefly in the form in which they were propounded by him. He called his doctrine Utilitarianism, or the Theory of Utility, and he states it as follows: “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.” “Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends.” When we ask the question, whose happiness and whose pain are meant, the answer is the happiness and pain of the greatest number.

In this connection Mill refers us to Bentham’s famous maxim, to the effect that “Everybody should count as one, and nobody as more than one.”

Those actions therefore are “right” or “ought” to be performed which produce the best consequences, and the best consequences are the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

In addition to the above doctrine, Mill adopted a peculiar psychological view with regard to the nature of pleasure. Not only does he hold as a matter of ethics that pleasure ought to be pursued, but as a matter of psychology he holds that nothing but pleasure can be desired, and that nothing but pleasure can therefore be pursued.

When pressed for a proof of this theory, he points out quite rightly that questions of ultimate ends are incapable of proof in the ordinary sense of the word, for whatever can be proved to be good can only be so proved by being shown to be a means to something which is recognized as good without proof. “The medical art is proved to be good by its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove that health is good ? “The only way therefore in which we can show something ultimate to be good, is by looking into our consciousness and seeing whether we really think it so. When desiring to prove his theory that pleasure is the only good, Mill has recourse therefore to the methods of practised self-consciousness and self-observation.

These methods lead him to the following conclusion: “Desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact: to think of an object as desirable . . . and to think of it as pleasant are one and the same thing: and to desire anything except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant is a physical and metaphysical impossibility.”

These quotations are sufficient to give a brief summary of the Utilitarian doctrine. It will be seen that it divides itself into two distinct parts: (1) That the rightness and wrongness of actions must be judged by their consequences, and (2) that of these consequences, pleasure alone is good and pleasure alone ought to be promoted.

In this chapter I propose only to consider the second of these tenets, namely that pleasure alone is good, and to assume that the first is correct. Consideration will be given to the first position, namely that actions must be judged and assessed by their consequences and only by their consequences in the second chapter, in which I propose to discuss Intuitionist theories.

The view that pleasure is the only good is held in two distinct forms. (A) That as a matter of psychological fact only pleasure can be desired. (B) That other things can in point of fact be desired, but only pleasure ought to be desired.

§ 2. PLEASURE AS THE SOLE OBJECT OF DESIRE

(A) The first of these views, which is usually called hedonism from the Greek word ἡδονή (pleasure), is as old as the Greeks if not older. It was the doctrine of the Cyrenaic school of Greek Philosophy, and was expounded with great force of dialectic by a philosopher called Aristippus. It has a disarming and specious simplicity which attaches to all extreme theories, and may be propounded with overwhelming effect by young libertines and revolutionaries anxious to discredit the canons of orthodox morality for their own purposes. The plausibility of the theory in fact renders it particularly attractive to those who have reflected for the first time upon ethics, and it is always a little disappointing to find, on deeper reflection, that truth really is not as simple as all that. The theory derives this plausibility from the fact that there is no class of actions which cannot be shown by very good arguments to have been performed with the object of producing pleasure for the doer, and solely with that object.

Let us consider an instance of an apparently unselfish action performed from so-called altruistic motives. A has ten shillings at Christmas and spends it on presents for himself, whereas B, also having, ten shillings, spends it on presents for his little brothers and sisters; it might appear at first sight that whereas A was being selfish and acting only for his own pleasure, B was being unselfish and acting for the pleasure of others.

“Not a bit of it,” says the hedonist! “B’s action exemplifies my theory as much as A’s, for B is aiming at his own pleasure just as much as A, only B happens to get his pleasure in a different way. “Whereas A obtains most pleasure from things which indulge his appetites and satisfy his acquisitive desires, B obtains it by indulging his impulses towards generosity which secure for him the approbation of his conscience and the gratitude of his brothers and sisters to boot. People like B are so constituted that they get most pleasure by giving pleasure to other people. Thus they choose to indulge their tendencies to self-denial and their instincts of generosity. The result is that they benefit their fellows, who naturally call them unselfish, whereas they call people like A selfish; but this does not mean that the B’s are not thorough-going hedonists all the same, and aiming all the time at the pleasure which pleases them, just as their opposites secure by more direct means the pleasure to which they are attracted. Similarly it may be shown that any course of action, such as voluntary martyrdom at the stake, is undertaken solely because the agent thinks that by its means he will secure the maximum of pleasure in the long run: otherwise of course he would not act in that way.”

Any virtue may be completely shown up by these methods. Temperance is simply the exercise of our faculties in such a way as to combine the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of pain: Charity is a proposal by A that B should relieve C: Patriotism is a love of country, other people’s preferred: the only sin is to get found out and so on.

This theory is not only plausible but it is logically irrefutable. It is not possible to prove that people’s actions are not dictated solely by the desire to secure pleasure for themselves. On the other hand there is not the least reason to suppose it to be true.

The best means of disproving it is to look into one’s own consciousness and to find out whether one is in fact actuated by desire for pleasure, either present pleasure or pleasure in the long run in every action one undertakes. Does the theory, in short, square with the facts of consciousness?

When a man rushes into the street to save a child from falling under the wheels of a passing motor-car at the risk of his own life, does he stop to calculate that by doing so he will obtain more pleasure than by staying where he is, or does he act from an unthinking impulse to save the child’s life ? To me at least it is clear that he acts from impulse only. Many actions are purely impulsive, in the sense that the agent has no thought of any ulterior end to be gained by the action. Such actions are the result of the prompting of impulse, and no calculation on the part of mind influences the performance of the action. Acts of passion and anger are of this character. The man who beats his wife does not do so because he calculates that he will get the most pleasure by doing so, but because he is annoyed with his wife and wishes to vent his annoyance by beating her. This does not mean that he may not get pleasure by beating his wife; he probably will, the satisfaction of any impulse being a source of pleasure; but it does mean that the desire for pleasure was not the motive of the act.

Two distinct truths do in point of fact lie at the basis of the hedonist philosophy. It is true in the first place that the satisfaction of every impulse or desire is attended by pleasure. It is true in the second place that nothing can be regarded as ethically valuable in practice, except with reference to its effect upon human consciousness. Thus if an exhibition of unselfishness could be imagined to take place in a world devoid of conscious beings, such an exhibition, just because it would have no reference to any form of consciousness, would from the practical point of view be of no value. It would not help anybody to be good, nor would anybody feel it to be good.¹

¹ For the intrinsic as opposed to the practical value of non-apprehended goodness see Chapter III, page 79.

These truths, the truth that satisfaction of desire brings pleasure, and the truth that the practical value of actions is to be sought ultimately in their effect upon some human consciousness, have been distorted into the theory that the pursuit of pleasure is the end of all our actions.

But to say that, because only consciousness is practically valuable, and because all satisfaction of desire brings pleasure to consciousness, it follows that the desire for pleasure is the mainspring of all our actions, is to put the cart before the horse.

What happens as a matter of psychology is that we desire specific things, and we obey specific impulses without actually thinking about pleasure or the chances of getting it one way or the other. Pleasure comes and clothes our mental state when we have acquired the thing, or satisfied the impulse, but that does not mean that the pleasure which came later was the motive which inspired our action to begin with.

The theory in fact becomes ludicrous when applied to primitive and impulsive actions, such as the blows a man strikes in anger, the inevitable flinching of countenance when a man shakes his fist under your nose, or the turning aside of the face to avoid a rapidly flying hockey ball. In all these cases we act purely impulsively without reflection.

To take an instance given by Canon Rashdall. “If the hedonistic psychology were true, every one must have been starved in early infancy. A young animal could not survive without sucking, and it would never on this theory have begun to suck, unless it had some reason to suppose that sucking would be a source of pleasure. Such knowledge it could only obtain from experience, and such experience it could not possibly possess a few hours after its birth.”

It is clear that the first act of sucking is the result of an impulse of which absolutely no account can be given except the statement that it exists, and although the infant may suck at a later stage because it finds by experience that sucking produces pleasure, it is obvious that it did not suck with that motive to begin with.

Pleasure, then, though it may be attendant upon the satisfaction of every desire, is not the object of absolutely every desire, and some actions could never have been performed at all if pleasure was in fact the only possible object of desire.

So far is the hedonistic view from being the true one that we may notice as a matter of psychological interest, that desire for pleasure as opposed to desire for specific things is the most unsatisfactory form of desire, inasmuch as it constantly fails to attain its object, pleasure if pursued directly having a curious habit of eluding the pursuer. Thus entertainments which we attend because we desire pleasure, nourishing, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, an invincible belief that they will produce it for us, are notoriously incapable of providing either intense or lasting pleasure.

That life would be tolerable but for its amusements, is a despairing commentary upon the Nemesis that appears to overtake the majority of our efforts to capture pleasure, by attending amusements and other functions which purport to supply it.

Pleasure, like beauty, cannot be taken by storm. It may not be pursued directly, but comes indirectly to invest our consciousness only when we have been actively engaged in pursuing and achieving something else. In particular it is wont to manifest itself when our faculties are fully developed, and are called into the fullest activity of which they are capable. This is the gist of Aristotle’s famous account of pleasure in the tenth book of the Ethics, as of a something added when the activity of the best faculty is directed upon the best and most complete object. Aristotle takes a parallel from the case of health. When a healthy young man is engaged in activity calling forth his fullest powers, there is a superadded completion or perfection upon his health like a bloom. Now pleasure is of this character; it comes as a superadded perfection, like the bloom upon the cheek of a young man, which, though not directly aimed at, may be taken as a sign that the powers of the mind and body are in an active and healthy state, that in other words the human machine is working smoothly.

For this reason paradoxically enough the most real and lasting pleasures have probably been found to arise in connection with work. The pleasures of that work which makes the heaviest demand upon our faculties, the pleasures of the athlete, the artist, the critic or the composer, the pleasures, in brief, of creative work are probably the most real pleasures known to mankind.

On these lines also is to be found an explanation of the element of uncertainty that attaches to pleasure. There is no certain recipe for the production of pleasure, just as there is no certain recipe for the production of beauty. The mathematician who multiplies seven by seven knows that the result will always and infallibly be forty-nine. The scientist knows that if hydrogen and oxygen are combined in certain proportions the result will infallibly be water. But the ingredients that will infallibly produce pleasure are unknown. Just because it eludes us if we desire it directly, just because it comes and clothes as it were absent-mindedly without purpose or design, a mental state which has been ardently concerned with the achievement of somethin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: Philosophical or Traditional Ethics
• Part II: Empirical or Common-Sense Ethics
• Index