When we are told that actions are right or wrong only in so far as they tend towards happiness, we naturally ask what is meant by “happiness.” For the term in the common use of language is only to a certain extent commensurate with moral good and evil. We should hardly say that a good man could be utterly miserable (Aristotle Ethics, I 10. §§ 12, 13), or place a bad man in the first rank of happiness. But yet, from various circumstances, the measure of a man’s happiness may be out of all proportion to his desert. And if we insist on calling the good man alone happy, we shall be using the term in some new and transcendental sense, as synonymous with well-being. We have already seen that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as our own; we must now comprehend unconscious as well as conscious happiness under the same word. There is no harm in this extension of the meaning, but a word which admits of such an extension can hardly be made the basis of a philosophical system. The exactness which is required in philosophy will not allow us to comprehend under the same term two ideas so different as the subjective feeling of pleasure or happiness and the objective reality of a state which receives our moral approval.
Like Protarchus in the “Philebus,” we can give no answer to the question, “What is that common quality which in all states of human life we call happiness? which includes the lower and the higher kind of happiness, and is the aim of the noblest, as well as of the meanest of mankind?” If we say “Not pleasure, not virtue, not wisdom, nor yet any quality which we can abstract from these”—what then? After seeming to hover for a time on the verge of a great truth, we have gained only a truism.
Let us ask the question in another form. What is that which constitutes happiness, over and above the several ingredients of health, wealth, pleasure, virtue, knowledge, which are included under it? Perhaps we answer, “The subjective feeling of them.” But this is very far from being coextensive with right. Or we may reply that happiness is the whole of which the above-mentioned are the parts. Still the question recurs, “In what does the whole differ from all the parts?” And if we are unable to distinguish them, happiness will be the mere aggregate of the goods of life.
Again, while admitting that in all right action there is an element of happiness, we cannot help seeing that the utilitarian theory supplies a much easier explanation of some virtues than of others. Of many patriotic or benevolent actions we can give a straightforward account by their tendency to promote happiness. For the explanation of justice, on the other hand, we have to go a long way round. No man is indignant with a thief because he has not promoted the greatest happiness of the greatest number, but because he has done him a wrong. There is an immeasurable interval between a crime against property or life, and the omission of an act of charity or benevolence. Yet of this interval the utilitarian theory takes no cognizance. The greatest happiness principle strengthens our sense of positive duties towards others, but weakens our recognition of their rights. To promote in every way possible the happiness of others may be a counsel of perfection, but hardly seems to offer any ground for a theory of obligation. For admitting that our ideas of obligation are partly derived from religion and custom, yet they seem also to contain other essential elements which cannot be explained by the tendency of actions to promote happiness. Whence comes the necessity of them? Why are some actions rather than others which equally tend to the happiness of mankind imposed upon us with the authority of law? “You ought” and “you had better” are fundamental distinctions in human thought; and having such distinctions, why should we seek to efface and unsettle them?
Bentham and Mr. Mill are earnest in maintaining that happiness includes the happiness of others as well as of ourselves. But what two notions can be more opposed in many cases than these? Granting that in a perfect state of the world my own happiness and that of all other men would coincide, in the imperfect state they often diverge, and I cannot truly bridge over the difficulty by saying that men will always find pleasure in sacrificing themselves or in suffering for others. Upon the greatest happiness principle it is admitted that I am to have a share, and in consistency I should pursue my own happiness as impartially as that of my neighbour. But who can decide what proportion should be mine and what his, except on the principle that I am most likely to be deceived in my own favour, and had therefore better give the larger share, if not all, to him?
Further, it is admitted that utility and right coincide, not in particular instances, but in classes of actions. But is it not distracting to the conscience of a man to be told that in the particular case they are opposed? Happiness is said to be the ground of moral obligation, yet he must not do
