Principia Ethica

state a natural law: it states that, given certain conditions, certain results will always happen. But Evolution, as Mr. Spencer 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 happened 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. Spencer constantly speaks of the process which is exemplified in 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 temporary 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 favourable 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. If it were clearly recognised 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 begun 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 (1) 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, (2) to illustrate further the positive result, already established in Chapter I, that the fundamental principles of Ethics must be synthetic propositions, declaring what things, and in what degree, possess a simple and unanalysable property which may be called “intrinsic value” or “goodness.” The chapter began (1) by dividing the views to be criticised into (a) those which, supposing “good” to be defined by reference to some supersensible reality, conclude that the 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 and was therefore reserved for Chapter III: all other forms of Naturalism may be first dismissed, by taking typical examples (24⁠–⁠26). (2) As typical of naturalistic views, other than Hedonism, there was first taken the popular commendation of what is “natural”: it was pointed out that by “natural” there might here be meant either “normal” or “necessary,” and that neither the “normal” nor the “necessary” could be seriously supposed to be either always good or the only good things (27⁠–⁠28). (3) But a more important type, because one 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 hardly have been supposed to have any important bearing upon Ethics (29⁠–⁠34).

III

Hedonism

36. In this chapter we have to deal with what is perhaps the most famous and the most 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 sole 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 the 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, Prof. Sidgwick alone has clearly recognised that by “good” we do mean something unanalysable, and has alone been led thereby to emphasise the fact that, if Hedonism be true, its claims to be so must be rested solely on its self-evidence⁠—that we must maintain “Pleasure is