Читать книгу Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics - Джон Дьюи - Страница 23

Pleasure Not a Standard.

1. It does not unify character. In the first place, the hedonistic theory makes an unreal and impossible separation between conduct and character. The psychology of hedonism comes into conflict with its ethics. According to the former the motive of all action is to secure pleasure or avoid pain. So far as the motive is concerned, on this theory there can be no immoral action at all. That the agent should not be moved by pleasure, and by what, at the time of acting, is the greatest pleasure possible, would be a psychological impossibility. Every motive would be good, or rather there would be no distinction of good or bad pertaining to the motive. The character of the agent, as measured by his motives, could never, under such circumstances, have any moral quality.

To the consequences of action, or the conduct proper, however, the terms good and bad might be applied. Although the agent is moved by pleasurable feelings, the result of his action may be painful and thus bad. In a word, on the hedonistic theory, it is only the external consequences of conduct, or conduct divorced from character, to which moral adjectives have any application. Such a separation not only contradicts our experience (see VIII), but inverts the true order of moral judgment. Consequences do not enter into the moral estimate at all, except so far as, being foreseen, they are the act in idea. That is, it is only as the consequences are taken up into the motive, and thus related to character, that they are subject to moral judgment. Indeed, except so far as action expresses character, it is not conduct, but mere physical sequence, as irrelevant to morality as the change in blood distribution, which also is the 'result' of an action. Hedonism has to rule out at the start the only thing that gives totality to action—the character of the agent, or conduct as the outcome of motives. Furthermore, the ordinary judgment of men, instead of saying that the sole moral motive is to get pleasure, would say that to reduce everything to means for getting pleasure is the very essence of immorality.

On the point above, compare Bentham, Op. cit., I, p. 48. "A motive is substantially nothing more than pleasure or pain operating in a certain manner. Now pleasure is in itself a good: nay, even, setting aside immunity from pain, the only good; pain is in itself an evil, and, indeed, without exception, the only evil; or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is alike true of every sort of pain and of every sort of pleasure. It follows, therefore, immediately and incontestably, that there is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad one. If motives are good or bad, it is only on account of their effects; good on account of their tendency to produce pleasure or avert pain; bad on account of their tendency to produce pain or avert pleasure. Now the case is, that from one and the same motive, and from every kind of motive, may proceed actions that are good, others that are bad and others that are indifferent." Further, on p. 60, Bentham asks: "Is there nothing, then, about a man that can properly be termed good or bad, when on such or such an occasion he suffers himself to be governed by such or such a motive? Yes, certainly, his disposition. Now disposition is a kind of fictitious entity, feigned for the convenience of discourse, in order to express what there is supposed to be permanent in a man's frame of mind. It is with disposition as with everything else; it will be good or bad according to its effects." The first quotation, it will be noticed, simply states that the motive is in itself always good, while conduct (i. e., consequences) may be good, bad or indifferent. The second quotation seems, however, to pass moral judgment upon character under the name of disposition. But disposition is judged according to the tendency of a person's actions. A good or bad disposition, here, can mean nothing intrinsic to the person, but only that the person has been observed to act in ways that usually produce pain or pleasure, as the case may be. The term is a 'fiction', and is a backhanded way of expressing a somewhat habitual result of a given person's conduct his motive remaining good (or for pleasure) all the time. The agent would never pronounce any such judgment upon his own disposition, unless as a sort of surprise that, his motive being 'good,' his actions turn out so 'bad' all the time. At most, the judgment regarding disposition is a sort of label put upon a man by others, a label of "Look out for him, he is dangerous," or, "Behold, a helpful man."

The moral standard of hedonism does not, then, bear any relation to the character of the agent, does not enable us to judge it, either as a whole or in any specific manifestation.