Analytic_PrincipiaEthica_1903.txt

Principia Ethica
(1903)
G. E. Moore

Analytical Table of Contents
Preface
Preface. It appears to me that in Ethics, as in all other philosophical
studies, the difficulties and disagreements, of which its history is full, are
mainly due to a very simple cause: namely to the attempt to answer
questions, without first discovering precisely what question it is which you
desire to answer. ...

Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics
1. § 1. In order to define Ethics, we must discover what is both common
and peculiar to all undoubted ethical judgements; ...
2. § 2. but this is not that they are concerned with human conduct, bt that
they are concerned with a certain predicate good, and its converse bad,
which may be applied both to conduct and to other things. …
3. § 3. The subjects of the judgments if a scientific ethics are not, like
those of some studies, particular things; …
4. § 4. but it includes all universal judgments which assert the relation of
goodness to any subject, and hence includes Casuistry.
5. § 5. It must, however, enquire not only what things are universally
related to goodness, but also, what this predicate, to which they are
related, is: …
6. § 6. and the answer to this question is that it is indefinable …
7. § 7. or simple: for if by definition be meant the analysis of an object of
thought, only complex objects can be defined; …
8. § 8. and of the three senses in which definition can be used, this is the
most important. …
9. § 9. What is thus indefinable is not the good, or the whole of that
which always possesses the predicate good, but this predicate itself. …
10. § 10. Good, then, denotes one unique simple object of thought among
innumerable others; but this object has very commonly been identified
with some other—a fallacy which may be called the naturalistic fallacy
…
11. § 11. and which reduces what is used as a fundamental principle of
Ethics either to a tautology or to a statement about the meaning of a
word. …
12. § 12. The nature of this fallacy is easily recognised; …
13. § 13. and if it were avoided, it would be plain that the only alternatives
to the admission that good is indefinable, are either that it is complex,
or that there is no notion at all peculiar to Ethics—alternatives which
can only be refuted by an appeal to inspection, but which can be so
refuted.
14. § 14. The naturalistic fallacy illustrated by Bentham; and the
importance of avoiding it pointed out. …
15. § 15. The relation which ethical judgments assert to hold universally
between goodness and other things are of two kinds: a thing may be

asserted either to be good itself or to be causally related to something
else which is itself good—to be good as a means. …
16. § 16. Our investigations of the latter kind of relation cannot hope to
establish more than that a certain kind of action will generally be
followed by the best possible results; …
17. § 17. but a relation, of the former kind, if true at all, will be true of all
cases. All ordinary ethical judgments assert causal relations, but they
are commonly treated as if they did not, because the two kinds of
relations are not distinguished. …
18. § 18. The investigation of intrinsic values is complicated by the fact
that the value of a whole may be different from the sum of the value of
its parts, …
19. § 19. in which case the part has to the whole a relation, which exhibits
an equally important difference from and resemblance to that of means
to end. …
20. § 20. The term organic whole might well be used to denote that a
whole has this property, since, of the two other properties which it is
commonly used to imply, …
21. § 21. one, that of reciprocal causal dependence between parts, has no
necessary relation to this one, …
22. § 22. and the other, upon which most stress has been laid, can be true
of no whole whatsoever, being a self-contradictory conception due to
confusion. …
23. § 23. Summary of chapter.

Chapter II: Naturalistic Ethics
24. § 24. This and the two following chapters will consider certain
proposed answers to the second of ethical questions: What is good in
itself? These proposed answers are characterised by the facts (1) that
they declare some one kind of thing to be alone good in itself; and (2)
that they do so, because they suppose this one thing to define the
meaning of good. …
25. § 25. Such theories may be divided into two groups (1) Metaphysical,
(2) Naturalistic; and the second group may be subdivided into two
others, (a) theories which declare some natural object, other than
pleasure, to be sole good, (b) Hedonism. This present chapter will deal
with (a). …
26. § 26. Definition of what is meant by Naturalism.
27. § 27. The common argument that things are good, because they are
natural, may involve either (1) the false proposition that the normal, as
such, is good;
28. § 28. or (2) the false proposition that the necessary, as such, is good. …
29. § 29. But a systematised appeal to Nature is now most prevalent in
connection with the term Evolution. An examination of Mr Herbert
Spencer's Ethics will illustrate which are commonly associated with
the latter term. …
30. § 30. Darwin's scientific theory of natural selection, which has mainly
caused the modern vogue of the term Evolution, must be carefully

distinguished from certain ideas which are commonly associated with
the latter term. …
31. § 31. Mr Spencer's connection of Evolution with Ethics seems to shew
the influence of the naturalistic fallacy; …
32. § 32. but Mr Spencer is vague as to the ethical relations of pleasure and
evolution, and his Naturalism may be mainly Naturalistic Hedonism.
…
33. § 33. A discussion of the third chapter of the Data of Ethics serves to
illustrate these two points and to shew that Mr Spencer is in utter
confusion with regard to the fundamental principles of Ethics. …
34. § 34. Three possible views as to the relation of Evolution to Ethics are
distinguished from the naturalistic view to which it is proposed to
confine the name Evolutionistic Ethics. On any of these three views the
relation would be unimportant, and the Evolutionistic view, which
makes it important, involves a double fallacy. …
35. § 35. Summary of chapter.

Chapter III: Hedonism
36. § 36. The prevalence of Hedonism is mainly due to the naturalistic
fallacy. …
37. § 37. Hedonism may be defined as the doctrine that Pleasure is the sole
good; this doctrine has always been held by Hedonists and used by
them as a fundamental ethical principle, although it has commonly
been confused with others. …
38. § 38. The method pursued in this chapter will consist in exposing the
reasons commonly offered for the truth of Hedonism and in bringing
out the reasons, which suffice to shew it untrue, by a criticism of J. S.
Mill & H. Sidgwick. …
39. § 39. Mill declares that Happiness is the only thing desirable as an end,
and insists that Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct
proof; …
40. § 40. yet he gives a proof of the first proposition, which consists in (1)
the fallacious confusion of desirable with desired, …
41. § 41. (2) an attempt to shew that nothing but pleasure is desired. …
42. § 42. The theory that nothing but pleasure is desired seems largely due
to a confusion between the cause and the object of desire, and, even if
it is always among the causes of desire, that fact would not tempt
anyone to think it a good. …
43. § 43. Mill attempts to reconcile his doctrine that pleasure is the sole
object of desire with his admission that other things are desired, by the
absurd declaration that what is a means to happiness is a part of
happiness. …
44. § 44. Summary of Mill's argument and of my criticism.
45. § 45. We must now proceed to consider the principle of Hedonism as
an Intuition, as which it has been clearly recognised by Prof. Sidgwick
alone. That it should be thus incapable of proof is not, in itself, any
reason for dissatisfaction. …

46. § 46. In thus beginning to consider what things are good in themselves,
we leave the refutation of Naturalism behind, and enter on the second
division of ethical questions. …
47. § 47. Mill's doctrine that some pleasures are superior in quality to
others implies both (1) that judgments of ends must be intuitions; …
48. § 48. and (2) that pleasure is not the sole good. …
49. § 49. Prof. Sidgwick has avoided those confusions made by Mill: in
considering his arguments we shall, therefore, merely consider the
question Is pleasure the sole good?
50. § 50. Prof. Sidgwick first tries to show that nothing outside of Human
Existence can be good. Reasons are given for doubting this. …
51. § 51. He then goes on to the far more important proposition that no
part of Human Existence, except pleasure, is desirable. …
52. § 52. But pleasure must be distinguished from consciousness of
pleasure, and (1) it is plain that, when so distinguished, pleasure is not
the sole good; …
53. § 53. and (2) it may be made equally plain that consciousness of
pleasure is not the sole good, if we are equally careful to distinguish it
from its usual accompaniments. …
54. § 54. Of Prof. Sidgwick's two arguments for the contrary view, the
second is equally compatible with the supposition that pleasure is a
mere criterion of what is right; …
55. § 55. and in his first, the appeal to reflective intuition, he fails to put
the question clearly (1) in that he does not recognize the principle of
organic unities; …
56. § 56. and (2) in that he fails to emphasize that the agreement, which he
has tried to shew, between hedonistic judgments and those of Common
Sense, only holds of judgments of means: hedonistic judgments of ends
are flagrantly paradoxical. …
57. § 57. I conclude, then, that a reflective intuition, if proper precautions
are taken, will agree with Common Sense that it is absurd to regard
mere consciousness of pleasure as the sole good. …
58. § 58. It remains to consider Egoism and Utilitarianism. It is important
to distinguish the former, as the doctrine that my own pleasure is sole
good, from the doctrine, opposed to Altruism, that to pursue my own
pleasure exclusively is right as a means. …
59. § 59. Egoism proper is utterly untenable, being self-contradictory; it
fails to perceive that when I declare a thing to be my own good, I must
be declaring it to be good absolutely or else not good at all. …
60. § 60. This confusion is further brought out by an examination of Prof.
Sidgwick's contrary view; …
61. § 61. and it is shewn that, in consequence of this confusion, his
representation of the relation of Rational Egoism to Rational
Benevolence as the profoundest problem of Ethics, and his view that a
certain hypothesis is required to make Ethics rational, are grossly
erroneous. …
62. § 62. The same confusion is involved in the attempt to infer
Utilitarianism from Psychological Hedonism, as commonly held, e.g.
by Mill. …

63. § 63. Egoism proper seems also to owe its plausibility to its confusion
with Egoism, as a doctrine of means. …
64. § 64. Certain ambiguities in the conception of Utilitarianism are
noticed; and it is pointed out (1) that, as a doctrine of the end to be
pursued, it is finally refuted by the refutation of Hedonism, and (2)
that, while the arguments most commonly urged in its favour could, at
most, only shew it to offer a correct criterion of right action, they are
quite insufficient even for this purpose. …
65. § 65. Summary of chapter.

Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics
66. § 66. The term metaphysical is defined as having reference primarily to
any object of knowledge which is not a part of Nature—does not exist
in time, as an object of perception; but since metaphysicians, not
content with pointing out the truth about such entities, have always
supposed that what does not exist in Nature, must, at least, exist, the
term also has reference to a supposed supersensible reality: …
67. § 67. and by metaphysical Ethics I mean those systems which maintain
or imply that the answer to the question What is good? logically
depends upon the answer to the question What is the nature of
supersensible reality? All such systems obviously involve the same
fallacy—the naturalistic fallacy—by the use of which Naturalism was
also defined. …
68. § 68. Metaphysics, as dealing with a supersensible reality may have a
bearing upon practical Ethics (1) if its supersensible reality is
conceived as something future, which our actions can affect; and (2)
since it will prove that every proposition of practical Ethics is false, if
it can shew that an eternal reality is either the only real thing or the
only good thing. Most metaphysical writers, believing in a reality of
the latter kind, do thus imply the complete falsehood of every practical
proposition, although they fail to see that their Metaphysics thus
contradicts their Ethics. …
69. § 69. But the theory, by which I have defined Metaphysical Ethics, is
not that Metaphysics has a logical bearing upon the question involved
in practical Ethics What effects will my action produce?, but that it has
such a bearing upon the fundamental ethical question, What is good in
itself? This theory has been refuted by the proof, in Chap. I, that the
naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy; it only remains to discuss certain
confusions which seem to have lent it plausibility. …
70. § 70. One such source of confusion seems to lie in the failure to
distinguish between the proposition This is good, when it means This
existing thing is good, and the same proposition, when it means The
existence of this kind of thing would be good; …
71. § 71. and another seems to lie in the failure to distinguish between that
which suggests a truth, or is a cause of our knowing it, and that upon
which it logically depends, or which is a reason for believing it: in the
former sense fiction has a more important bearing on Ethics than
Metaphysics can have. …

72. § 72. But a more important source of confusion seems to lie in the
supposition that to be good is identical with the possession of some
supersensible property, which is also involved in the definition of
reality. …
73. § 73. One cause of this supposition seems to be the logical prejudice
that all propositions are of the most familiar type—that in which
subject and predicate are both existents. …
74. § 74. But ethical propositions cannot be reduced to this type: in
particular, they are obviously to be distinguished …
75. § 75. (1) from Natural Laws; with which one of Kant's most famous
doctrines confuses them, …
76. § 76. and (2) from Commands; with which they are confused both by
Kant and by others. …
77. § 77. This latter confusion is one of the sources of the prevalent
modern doctrine that being good is identical with being willed; but the
prevalence of this doctrine seems to be chiefly due to other causes. I
shall try to shew with regard to it (1) what are the chief errors which
seem to have led to its adoption; and (2) that, apart from it, the
Metaphysics of Volition can hardly have the smallest logical bearing
upon Ethics. …
78. § 78. (1) It has been commonly held, since Kant, that goodness has the
same relation to Will or Feeling, which truth or reality has to
Cognition: that the proper method for Ethics is to discover what is
implied in Will or Feeling, just as, according to Kant, the proper
method for Metaphysics was to discover what is implied in Cognition.
…
79. § 79. The actual relations between goodness and Will or Feeling, from
which this false doctrine is inferred, seem to be mainly (a) the causal
relation consisting in the fact that it is only by reflection upon the
experiences of Will and Feeling that we become aware of ethical
distinctions; (b) the facts that a cognition of goodness is perhaps
always included in certain kinds of Willing and Feeling, and is
generally accompanied by them: …
80. § 80. but from neither of these psychological facts does it follow that to
be good is identical with being willed or felt in a certain way. The
supposition that it does follow is an instance of the fundamental
contradiction of modern Epistemology—the contradiction involved in
both distinguishing and identifying the object and the act of Thought,
truth itself and its supposed criterion: …
81. § 81. and, once this analogy between Volition and Cognition is
accepted, the view that ethical propositions have an essential reference
to Will or Feeling, is strengthened by another error with regard to the
nature of Cognition—the error of supposing that perception denotes
merely a certain way of cognising an object, whereas it actually
includes the assertion that the object is also true. …
82. § 82. The argument of the last three §§ is recapitulated; and it is
pointed out (1) that Volition and Feeling are not analogous to
Cognition (2) that, even if they were, to be good could not mean to be
willed or felt in a certain way. …

83. § 83. (2) If being good and being willed are not identical then the latter
could only be a criterion of the former; and, in order to shew that it
was so, we should have to establish independently that many things
were good—that is to say, we should have to establish most of our
ethical conclusions before the Metaphysics of Volition could possibly
give us the smallest assistance. …
84. § 84. The fact that the metaphysical writers who, like Green, attempt to
base Ethics on Volition, do not even attempt this independent
investigation, shows that they start from the false assumption that
goodness is identical with being willed, and hence that their ethical
reasonings have no value whatsoever. …
85. § 85. Summary of chapter.

Chapter V: Ethics in Relation to Conduct
86. § 86. The question to be discussed in this chapter must be clearly
distinguished from the two questions hitherto discussed, namely (1)
What is the nature of the proposition: This is good in itself? …
87. § 87. and (2) What things are good in themselves? to which we gave
one answer in deciding that pleasure was not the only thing good in
itself. …
88. § 88. In this chapter we shall deal with the third object of ethical
enquiry: namely answers to the question What conduct is a means to
good results? or What ought we to do? This is the question of Practical
Ethics, and its answer involves an assertion of causal connection. …
89. § 89. It is shewn that the assertions This action is right or is my duty
are equivalent to the assertion that the total results of the action in
question will be the best possible; …
90. § 90. and the rest of the chapter will deal with certain conclusions,
upon which light is thrown by this fact. Of which the first is (1) that
Intuitionism is mistaken; since no proposition with regard to duty can
be self-evident. …
91. § 91. (2) It is plain that we cannot hope to prove which among all the
actions, which it is possible for us to perform on every occasion, will
produce the best total results: to discover what is our duty, in this strict
sense, is impossible. It may, however, be possible to shew which
among the actions, which we are likely to perform, will produce the
best results. …
92. § 92. The distinction made in the last § is further explained; and it is
insisted that all that Ethics has done or can do, is, not to determine
absolute duties, but to point out which, among a few of the alternatives,
possible under certain circumstances, will have the better result. …
93. § 93. (3) Even this latter task is immensely difficult, and no adequate
proof that the total results of one action are superior to those of
another, has ever been given. For (a) we can only calculate actual
results within a comparatively near future. We must, therefore, assume
that no results of the same action in the infinite future beyond, will
reverse the balance—an assumption which perhaps can be, but
certainly has not been, justified; …

94. § 94. and (b) even to decide that, of any two actions, one has a better
total result than the other in the immediate future, is very difficult; and
it is very improbable, and quite impossible to prove, that any single
action is in all cases better as means than its probable alternative.
Rules of duty, even in this restricted sense, can only, at most, be
general truths. …
95. § 95. But (c) most of the actions, most universally approved by
Common Sense, may perhaps be shewn to be generally better as means
than any probable alternative, on the following principles. (1) With
regard to some rules it may be shewn that their general observation
would be useful in any state of society, where the instincts to preserve
and propagate life and to possess property were as strong as they seem
always to be; and this utility may be shewn, independently of a right
view as to what is good in itself, since the observance is a means to
things which are a necessary condition for the attainment of any great
goods in considerable quantities. …
96. § 96. (2) Other rules are such that their general observance can only be
shewn to be useful, as a means to the preservation of society, under
more or less temporary conditions: if any of these are to be proved
useful in all societies, this can only be done by shewing their causal
relation to things good or evil in themselves, which are not generally
recognised to be such. …
97. § 97. It is plain that rules of class (1) may also be justified by the
existence of such temporary conditions as justify those of class (2); and
among such temporary conditions must be reckoned the so-called
sanctions. …
98. § 98. In this way, then, it may be possible to prove the general utility,
for the present, of those actions, which in our society are both
generally recognized as duties and generally practised; but it seems
very doubtful whether a conclusive case can be established for any
proposed change in social custom, without an independent
investigation of what things are good or bad in themselves. …
99. § 99. And (d) if we consider the distinct question of how a single
individual should decide to act (J) in cases where the general utility of
the action in question is certain, (K) in other cases: there seems reason
for thinking that, with regard to (J), he should always conform to it;
but these reasons are not conclusive, if either the general observance or
the general utility is wanting; …
100.
§ 100. and that (K) in all other cases, rules of action should not
be followed at all, but the individual should consider what positive
goods, he, in his particular circumstances, seems likely to be able to
effect, and what evils to avoid. …
101.
§ 101. (4) It follows further that the distinction denoted by the
terms duty and expediency is not primarily ethical; when we ask Is this
really expedient? we are asking precisely the same question as Is this
my duty?, viz. Is this a means to the best possible? Duties are mainly
distinguished by the non-ethical marks (1) that many people are often
tempted to avoid them, (2) that their most prominent effects are on
others than the agent, (3) that they excite the moral sentiments: so far
as they are distinguished by an ethical peculiarity, this is not that they

are peculiarly useful to perform, but that they are peculiarly useful to
sanction. …
102.
§ 102. The distinction between duty and interest is also, in the
main, the same non-ethical distinction; but the term interested does
also refer to a distinct ethical predicate—that an action is to my interest
asserts only that it will have the best possible effects of one particular
kind, not that its total effects will be the best possible. …
103.
§ 103. (5) We may further see that virtues are not to be defined
as dispositions that are good in themselves: they are not necessarily
more than dispositions to perform actions generally good as means,
and of these, for the most part, only those classed as duties in
accordance with section (4). It follows that to decide whether a
disposition is or is not virtuous involves the difficult causal
investigation discussed in section (3); and that what is a virtue in one
state of society may not be so in another. …
104.
§ 104. It follows that we have no reason to presume, as has
commonly been done, that the exercise of virtue in the performance of
duties is ever good in itself—far less, that it is the sole good: …
105.
§ 105. and, if we consider the intrinsic value of each exercise, it
will appear (1) that, in most cases, it has no value, and (2) that even the
cases, where it has some value, are far from constituting the sole good.
The truth of the latter proposition is generally inconsistently implied,
even by those who deny it; …
106.
§ 106. but in order fairly to decide upon the intrinsic value of
virtue, we must distinguish three different kinds of disposition, each of
which is commonly so called and has been maintained to be the only
kind deserving the name. Thus (a) the mere unconscious habit of
performing duties, which is the commonest type, has no intrinsic value
whatsoever; Christian moralists are right in implying that mere
external rightness has no intrinsic value, though they are wrong in
saying that it is therefore not virtuous, since this implies that it has no
value as a means. …
107.
§ 107. (b) where virtue consists in a disposition to have, and be
moved by, a sentiment of love towards really good consequences of an
action and of hatred towards really evil ones, it has some intrinsic
value, but its value may vary greatly in degree. …
108.
§ 108. finally (c) where virtue consists in conscientiousness,
i.e., the disposition not to act, in certain cases, until we believe or feel
that our action is right, it seems to have some intrinsic value: the value
of this feeling has been peculiarly emphasized by Christian Ethics, but
it certainly is not, as Kant would lead us to think, either the sole thing
of value, or always good even as a means. …
109.
§ 109. Summary of chapter.

Chapter VI: The Ideal
110.
§ 110. By an ideal state of things may be meant either (1) the
Summum Bonum or absolutely best, or (2) the best which the laws of
nature allow to exist in this world, or (3) anything greatly good in

itself: this chapter will be principally occupied with what is ideal in
sense (3)—with answering the fundamental question of Ethics. …
111.
§ 111. but a correct answer to this question is an essential step
towards a correct view as to what is ideal in senses (1) and (2). …
112.
§ 112. In order to obtain a correct answer to the question What
is good in itself? we must consider what value things would have if
they existed absolutely by themselves; …
113.
§ 113. and, if we use this method, it is obvious that personal
affection and aesthetic enjoyments include by far the greatest goods
with which we are acquainted. …
114.
§ 114. If we begin by considering I. Aesthetic Enjoyments, it is
plain (1) that there is always essential to these some one of a great
variety of different emotions, though these emotions may have little
value by themselves: …
115.
§ 115. and (2) that a cognition of really beautiful qualities is
equally essential, and has equally little value by itself. …
116.
§ 116. But (3) granted that the appropriate combination of these
two elements is always a considerable good and may be a very great
one, we may ask whether, where there is added to this a true belief in
the existence of the object of cognition, the whole thus formed is not
much more valuable still. …
117.
§ 117. I think that this question should be answered in the
affirmative; but in order to ensure that this judgment is correct, we
must carefully distinguish it …
118.
§ 118. from the two judgments (a) that knowledge is valuable
as a means, (b) that, where the object of the cognition is itself a good
thing, its existence, of course, adds to the value of the whole state of
things: …
119.
§ 119. if, however, we attempt to avoid being biased by these
two facts, it still seems that mere true belief may be a condition
essential to great value. …
120.
§ 120. We thus get a third essential constituent of many great
goods; and in this way we are able to justify (1) the attribution of value
to knowledge, over and above its value as a means, and (2) the intrinsic
superiority of the proper appreciation of a real object over the
appreciation of an equally valuable object of mere imagination:
emotions directed towards real objects may thus, even if the object be
inferior, claim equality with the highest imaginative pleasures. …
121.
§ 121. Finally (4) with regard to the objects of the cognition
which is essential to these good wholes, it is the business of Aesthetics
to analyse their nature: it need only be here remarked (1) that, by
calling them beautiful, we mean that they have this relation to a good
whole; and (2) that they are, for the most part, themselves complex
wholes, such that the admiring contemplation of the whole greatly
exceeds in value the sum of the values of the admiring contemplation
of the parts. …
122.
§ 122. With regard to II. Personal Affection, the object is here
not merely beautiful but also good in itself; it appears, however, that
the appreciation of what is thus good in itself, viz. the mental qualities
of a person, is certainly, by itself, not so great a good as the whole

formed by the combination with it of an appreciation of corporeal
beauty; but it is certain that the combination of both is a far greater
good than either singly. …
123.
§ 123. It follows from what has been said that we have every
reason to suppose that a cognition of material qualities, and even their
existence, is an essential constituent of the Ideal or Summum Bonum:
there is only a bare possibility that they are not included in it. …
124.
§ 124. It remains to consider positive evils and mixed goods. I.
Evils may be divided into three classes, namely …
125.
§ 125. (1) evils which consist in the love, or admiration, or
enjoyment of what is evil or ugly …
126.
§ 126. (2) evils which consist in the hatred or contempt of what
is good or beautiful …
127.
§ 127. and (3) the consciousness of intense pain: this appears to
be the only thing, either greatly good or greatly evil, which does not
involve both a cognition and an emotion directed towards its object;
and hence it is not analogous to pleasure in respect of its intrinsic
value, while it also seems not to add to the vileness of the whole, as a
whole, in which it is combined with another bad thing, whereas
pleasure does add to the goodness of a whole, in which it is combined
with another good thing; …
128.
§ 128. but pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this,
that pleasure by no means always increases, and pain by no means
always decreases, the total value of a whole in which it is included: the
converse is often true. …
129.
§ 129. In order to consider II. Mixed Goods, we must first
distinguish between (1) the value of a whole as a whole, and (2) its
value on the whole or total value: (1)=the difference between (2) and
the sum of the values of the parts. In view of this distinction, it then
appears: …
130.
§ 130. (1) That the mere combination of two or more evils is
never positively good on the whole, although it may certainly have
great intrinsic value as a whole; …
131.
§ 131. but (2) That a whole which includes a cognition of
something evil or ugly may yet be a great positive good on the whole:
most virtues, which have any intrinsic value whatever, seem to be of
this kind, e.g. (a) courage and compassion, and (b) moral goodness; all
these are instances of the hatred or contempt of what is evil or ugly; …
132.
§ 132. but there seems no reason to think that, where the evil
object exists, the total state of things is ever positively good on the
whole, although the existence of the evil may add to its value as a
whole. …
133.
§ 133. Hence (1) no actually existing evil is necessary to the
Ideal, (2) the contemplation of imaginary evils is necessary to it, and
(3) where evils already exist, the existence of mixed virtues has a value
independent both of its consequences and of the value which it has in
common with the proper appreciation of imaginary evils. …
134.
§ 134. Concluding remarks.
135.
§ 135. Summary of chapter.

Preface.
It appears to me that in Ethics, as in all other philosophical studies, thedifficulties and
disagreements, of which its history is full, are mainly due to a very simple cause:
namely to the attempt to answer questions, without first discovering precisely what
question it is which you desire to answer. I do not know how far this source of error
would be done away, if philosophers would try to discover what question they were
asking, before they set about to answer it; for the work of analysis and distinction is
often very difficult: we may often fail to make the necessary discovery, even though
we make a definite attempt to do so. But I am inclined to think that in many cases a
resolute attempt would be sufficient to ensure success; so that, if only this attempt
were made, many of the most glaring difficulties and disagreements in philosophy
would disappear. At all events, philosophers seem, in general, not to make the
attempt; and whether in consequence of this omission or not, they are constantly
endeavouring to prove that Yes or No will answer questions, to which neither answer
is correct, owing to the fact that what they have before their minds is not one question,
but several, to some of which the true answer is No, to others Yes.(Preface ¶ 1)
I have tried in this book to distinguish clearly two kinds of question, which moral
philosophers have always professed to answer, but which, as I have tried to shew,
they have almost always confused both with one another and with other questions.
These two questions may be expressed, the first in the form: What kind of things
ought to exist for their own sakes? the second in the form: What kind of actions ought
we to perform? I have tried to shew exactly what it is that we ask about a thing, when
we ask whether it ought to exist for its own sake, is good in itself or has intrinsic
value; and exactly what it is that we ask about an action, when we ask whether we
ought to do it, whether it is a right action or duty. (Preface ¶ 2)
But from a clear insight into the nature of these two questions, there appears to me to
follow a second most important result: namely, what is the nature of the evidence, by
which alone any ethical proposition can be proved or disproved, confirmed or
rendered doubtful. Once we recognize the exact meaning of the two questions, I think
it also becomes plain exactly what kind of reasons are relevant as arguments for or
against any particular answer to them. It becomes plain that, for answers to the first
question, no relevant evidence whatever can be adduced: from no other truth, except
themselves alone, can it be inferred that they are either true or false. We can guard
against error only by taking care, that, when we try to answer a question of this kind,
we have before our minds that question only, and not some other or others; but that
there is great danger of such errors of confusion I have tried to shew, and also what
are the chief precautions by the use of which we may guard against them. As for the
second question, it becomes equally plain, that any answer to it is capable of proof or
disproof—that, indeed, so many different considerations are relevant to its truth or
falsehood, as to make the attainment of probability very difficult, and the attainment
of certainty impossible. Nevertheless the kind of evidence, which is both necessary
and alone relevant to such proof and disproof, is capable of exact definition. Such
evidence must contain propositions of two kinds and of two kinds only: it must
consist, in the first place, of truths with regard to the results of the action in
question—of causal truths—but it must also contain ethical truths of our first or selfevident class. Many truths of both kinds are necessary to the proof that any action
ought to be done; and any other kind of evidence is wholly irrelevant. It follows that,

if any ethical philosopher offers for propositions of the first kind any evidence
whatever, or if, for propositions of the second kind, he either fails to adduce both
causal and ethical truths, or adduces truths that are neither, his reasoning has not the
least tendency to establish his conclusions. But not only are his conclusions totally
devoid of weight: we have, moreover, reason to suspect him of the error of confusion;
since the offering of irrelevant evidence generally indicates that the philosopher who
offers it has had before his mind, not the question which he professes to answer, but
some other entirely different one. Ethical discussion, hitherto, has perhaps consisted
chiefly in reasoning of this totally irrelevant kind. (Preface ¶ 3)
One main object of this book may, then, by expressed by slightly changing one of
Kant's famous titles. I have endeavoured to write Prolegomena to any future Ethics
that can possibly pretend to be scientific. In other words, I have endeavoured to
discover what are the fundamental principles of ethical reasoning; and the
establishment of these principles, rather than of any conclusions which may be
attained by their use, may be regarded as my main object. I have, however, also
attempted, in Chapter VI, to present some conclusions, with regard to the proper
answer to the question, What is good in itself? which are very different from any
which have commonly been advocated by philosophers. I have tried to define the
classes within which all great goods and evils fall; and I have maintained that very
many different things are good and evil in themselves, and that neither class of things
possesses any other proper which is both common to all its members and peculiar to
them. (Preface ¶ 4)
In order to express the fact that ethical propositions of my first class are incapable of
proof or disproof, I have sometimes followed Sidgwick's usage in calling them
Intuitions. But I beg that it may be noticed that I am not an Intuitionist, in the ordinary
sense of the term. Sidgwick himself seems never to have been clearly aware of the
immense importance of the difference which distinguishes his Intuitionism from the
common doctrine, which has generally been called by that name. The Intuitionist
proper is distinguished by maintaining that propositions of my second class—
propositions which assert that a certain action is right or a duty—are incapable of
proof or disproof by any enquiry into the results of such actions. I, on the contrary, am
no less anxious to maintain that propositions of this kind are not Intuitions, than to
maintain that propositions of my first class are Intuitions. (Preface ¶ 5)
Again, I would wish it observed that, when I call such propositions Intuitions, I mean
merely to assert that they are incapable of proof; I imply nothing whatever as to the
manner or origin of our cognition of them. Still less do I imply (as most Intuitionists
have done) that any proposition whatever is true, because we cognise it in a particular
way or by the exercise of any particular faculty: I hold, on the contrary, that in every
way in which it is possible to cognise a true proposition, it is also possible to cognise
a false one. (Preface ¶ 6)
When this book had been already completed, I found, in Brentano's Origin of the
Knowledge of Right and Wrong , opinions far more closely resembling my own, than
those of any other ethical writer with whom I am acquainted. Brentano appears to
agree with me completely (1) in regarding all ethical propositions as defined by the
fact that they predicate a single unique objective concept; (2) in dividing such
propositions sharply into the same two kinds; (3) in holding that the first kind are

incapable of proof; and (4) with regard to the kind of evidence which is necessary and
relevant to the proof of the second kind. But he regards the fundamental ethical
concept as being, not the simple one which I denote by good, but the complex one
which I have taken to define beautiful; and he does not recognize, but even denies by
implication, the principle which I have called the principle of organic unities. In
consequence of these two differences, his conclusions as to what things are good in
themselves, also differ very materially from mine. He agrees, however, that there are
many different goods, and that the love of good and beautiful objects constitutes an
important class among them.(Preface ¶ 7)
I wish to refer to one oversight, of which I became aware only when it was too late to
correct it, and which may, I am afraid, cause unnecessary trouble to some readers. I
have ommitted to discuss directly the mutual relations of the several different notions,
which are all expressed by the word end. The consequences of this omission may be
partially avoided by a reference to my article on Teleology in Baldwin's Dictionary of
Philosophy and Psychology.(Preface ¶ 8)
If I were to rewrite my work now, I should make a very different, and I believe that I
could make a much better book. But it may be doubted whether, in attempting to
satisfy myself, I might not merely render more obscure the ideas which I am most
anxious to convey, without a corresponding gain in completeness and accuracy.
However that may be, my belief that to publish the book as it stands was probably the
best thing I could do, does not prevent me from being painfully aware that it is full of
defects.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
August, 1903

Chapter I: The Subject-Matter of Ethics.
§ 1.
It is very easy to point out some among our every-day judgments, with the truth of
which Ethics is undoubtedly concerned. Whenever we say, So and so is a good man,
or That fellow is a villain; whenever we ask What ought I to do? or Is it wrong for me
to do like this?; whenever we hazard such remarks as Temperance is a virtue and
drunkenness a vice—it is undoubtedly the business of Ethics to discuss such questions
and such statements; to argue what is the true answer when we ask what it is right to
do, and to give reasons for thinking that our statements about the character of persons
or the morality of actions are true or false. In the vast majority of cases, where we
make statements involving any of the terms virtue, vice, duty, right, ought, good, bad,
we are making ethical judgments; and if we wish to discuss their truth, we shall be
discussing a point of Ethics. (§ 1 ¶ 1)
So much as this is not disputed; but it falls very far short of defining the province of
Ethics. That province may indeed be defined as the whole truth about that which is at
the same time common to all such judgments and peculiar to them. But we have still
to ask the question: What is it that is thus common and peculiar? And this is a
question to which very different answers have been given by ethical philosophers of
acknowledged reputation, and none of them, perhaps, completely satisfactory. (§ 1 ¶
2)

§ 2.
If we take such examples as those given above, we shall not be far wrong in saying
that they are all of them concerned with the question of conduct—with the question,
what, in the conduct of us, human beings, is good, and what is bad, what is right, and
what is wrong. For when we say that a man is good, we commonly mean that he acts
rightly; when we say that drunkenness is a vice, we commonly mean that to get drunk
is a wrong or wicked action. And this discussion of human conduct is, in fact, that
with which the name Ethics is most intimately associated. It is so associated by
derivation; and conduct is undoubtedly by far the commonest and most generally
interesting object of ethical judgments. (§ 2 ¶ 1)
Accordingly, we find that many ethical philosophers are disposed to accept as an
adequate definition of Ethics the statement that it deals with the question what is good
or bad in human conduct. They hold that its enquiries are properly confined to
conduct or to practice; they hold that the name practical philosophy covers all the
matter with which it has to do. Now, without discussing the proper meaning of the
word (for verbal questions are properly left to the writers of dictionaries and other
persons interested in literature; philosophy, as we shall see, has no concern with
them), I may say that I intend to use Ethics to cover more than this—a usage, for
which there is, I think, quite sufficient authority. I am using it to cover an enquiry for
which, at all events, there is no other word: the general enquiry into what is good. (§ 2
¶ 2)

Ethics is undoubtedly concerned with the question what good conduct is; but, being
concerned with this, it obviously does not start at the beginning, unless it is prepared
to tell us what is good as well as what is conduct. For good conduct is a complex
notion: all conduct is not good; for some is certainly bad and some may be indifferent.
And on the other hand, other things, beside conduct, may be good; and if they are so,
then, good denotes some property, that is common to them and conduct; and if we
examine good conduct alone of all good things, then we shall be in danger of
mistaking for this property, some property which is not shared by those other things:
and thus we shall have made a mistake about Ethics even in this limited sense; for we
shall not know what good conduct really is. This is a mistake which many writers
have actually made, from limiting their enquiry to conduct. And hence I shall try to
avoid it by considering first what is good in general; hoping, that if we can arrive at
any certainty about this, it will be much easier to settle the question of good conduct;
for we all know pretty well what conduct is. This, then, is our first question: What is
good? and What is bad? and to the discussion of this question (or these questions) I
give the name Ethics, since that science must, at all events, include it. (§ 2 ¶ 3)

§ 3.
But this is a question which may have many meanings. If, for example, each of us
were to say I am doing good now or I had a good dinner yesterday these statements
would each of them be some sort of answer to our question, although perhaps a false
one. So, too, when A asks B what school he ought to send his son to, B’s answer will
certainly be an ethical judgment. And similarly all distribution of praise or blame to
any personage or thing that has existed, now exists, or will exist, does give some
answer to the question What is good? In all such cases some particular thing is judged
to be good or bad: the question What? is answered by This. But this is not the sense in
which a scientific Ethics asks the question. Not one, of all the many million answers
of this kind, which must be true, can form a part of an ethical system; although that
science must contain reasons and principles sufficient for deciding on the truth of all
of them. there are far too many persons, things and events in the world, past, present,
or to come, for a discussion of their individual merits to be embraced in any science.
Ethics, therefore, does not deal at all with facts of this nature, facts that are unique,
individual, absolutely particular; facts with which such studies as history, geography,
astronomy are compelled, in part at least, to deal. And, for this reason, it is not the
business of the ethical philosopher to give personal advice or exhortation. (§ 3 ¶ 1)

§ 4.
But there is another meaning which may be given to the question What is good?
Books are good would be an answer to it, though an answer obviously false; for some
books are very bad indeed. And ethical judgments of this kind do indeed belong to
Ethics; though I shall not deal with many of them. Such is the judgment Pleasure is
good—a judgment, of which Ethics should discuss the truth, although it is not nearly
as important as that other judgment, with which we shall be much occupied
presently—Pleasure alone is good. It is judgments of this sort, which are made in such
books on Ethics as contain a list of virtues—in Aristotle’s Ethics for example. But it is
judgments of precisely the same kind, which form the substance of what is commonly
supposed to be a study different from Ethics, and one much less respectable—the
study of Casuistry. We may be told that Casuistry differs from Ethics in that it is

much more detailed and particular, Ethics much more general. But it is most
important to notice that Casuistry does not deal with anything that is absolutely
particular—particular in the only sense in which it a perfectly precise line can be
drawn between it and what is general. It is not particular in the sense just noticed, the
sense in which this book is a particular book, and A’s friend’s advice particular
advice. Casuistry may indeed be more particular and Ethics more general; but that
means they differ only in degree and not in kind. And this is universally true of
particular and general, when used in this common, but inaccurate, sense. So far as
Ethics allows itself to give lists of virtues or even to name constituents of the Ideal, it
is indistinguishable from Casuistry. Both alike deal with what is general, in the sense
in which physics and chemistry deal with what is general. Just as chemistry aims at
discovering what are the properties of oxygen, wherever it occurs, and not only of this
or that particular specimen of oxygen; so Casuistry aims at discovering what actions
are good, whenever they occur. In this respect Ethics and Casuistry alike are to be
classed with such sciences as physics, chemistry, and physiology, in their absolute
distinction from those of which history and geography are instances. And it is to be
noted that, owing to their detailed nature, casuistical investigations are actually nearer
to physics and to chemistry than are the investigations usually assigned to Ethics. For
just as physics cannot rest content with the discovery that light is propagated by
waves of ether, but must go on to discover the particular nature of the ether-waves
corresponding to each several colour; so Casuistry, not content with the general law
that charity is a virtue must attempt to discover the relative merits of every different
form of charity. Casuistry forms, therefore, part of the ideal of ethical science: Ethics
cannot be complete without it. The defects of Casuistry are not defects of principle;
no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too
difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge. The
casuist has been unable to distinguish, in the cases which he treats, those elements
upon which their value depends. Hence he often thinks two cases to be alike in respect
of value, when in reality they are alike only in some other respect. It is to mistakes of
this kind that the pernicious influence of such investigations has been due. For
Casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the
beginning of our studies, but only at the end. (§ 4 ¶ 1)

§ 5.
But our question What is good? may still have another meaning. We may, in the third
place, mean to ask, not what thing or things are good, but how good is to be defined.
This is an enquiry which belongs only to Ethics, not to Casuistry; and this is the
enquiry which will occupy us first. (§ 5 ¶ 1)
It is an enquiry to which most special attention should be directed; since this question,
how good is to be defined, is the most fundamental question in all Ethics. That which
is meant by good is, in fact, except its converse bad, the only simple object of thought
which is peculiar to Ethics. Its definition is, therefore, the most essential point in the
definition of Ethics; and moreover a mistake with regard to it entails a far larger
number of erroneous ethical judgments than any other. Unless this first question be
fully understood, and its true answer clearly recognised, the rest of Ethics is as good
as useless from the point of view of systematic knowledge. True ethical judgments, of
the two kinds last dealt with, may indeed be made by those who do not know the
answer to this question as well as by those who do; and it goes without saying that the

two classes of people may live equally good lives. But it is extremely unlikely that the
most general ethical judgments will be equally valid, in the absence of a true answer
to this question; I shall presently try to shew that the gravest errors have been largely
due to beliefs in a false answer. And, in any case, it is impossible that, till the answer
to this question be known, any one should know what is the evidence for any ethical
judgment whatsoever. But the main object of Ethics, as a systematic science, is to
give correct reasons for thinking that this or that is good; and, unless this question be
answered, such reasons cannot be given. Even, therefore, apart from the fact that a
false answer leads to false conclusions, the present enquiry is a most necessary and
important part of the science of Ethics. (§ 5 ¶ 2)

§ 6.
What, then, is good? How is good to be defined? Now it may be thought that this is a
verbal question. A definition does indeed often mean the expressing of one word’s
meaning in other words. But this is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a
definition can never be of ultimate importance to any study except lexicography. If I
wanted that kind of definition I should have to consider in the first place how people
generally used the word good; but my business is not with its proper usage, as
established by custom. I should, indeed, be foolish if I tried to use it for something
which it did not usually denote: if, for instance, I were to announce that, whenever I
used the word good, I must be understood to be thinking of that object which is
usually denoted by the word table. I shall, therefore, use the word in the sense in
which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the same time I am not anxious to discuss
whether I am right in thinking it is so used. My business is solely with that object or
idea, which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to stand for.
What I want to discover is the nature of that object or idea, and about this I am
extremely anxious to arrive at an agreement. (§ 6 ¶ 1)
But if we understand the question in this sense, my answer to it may seem a very
disappointing one. If I am asked, What is good? my answer is that good is good, and
that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked How is good to be defined? my answer
is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it. But disappointing as
these answers may appear, they are of the very last importance. To readers who are
familiar with philosophic terminology, I can express their importance by saying that
they amount to this: That propositions about the good are all of them synthetic and
never analytic; and that is plainly no trivial matter. And the same thing may be
expressed more popularly, by saying that, if I am right, then nobody can foist upon us
such an axiom as that Pleasure is the only good or that The good is the desired on the
pretence that this is the very meaning of the word. (§ 6 ¶ 2)

§ 7.
Let us, then, consider this position. My point is that good is a simple notion, just as
yellow is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, by any manner of means, explain to
anyone who does not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what
good is. Definitions of the kind that I was asking for, definitions which describe the
real nature of the object or notion denoted by a word, and which do not merely tell us
what the word is used to mean, are only possible when the object or notion in question
is something complex. You can give a definition of a horse, because a horse has many

different properties and qualities, all of which you can enumerate. But when you have
enumerated them all, when you have reduced a horse to his simplest terms, you can
no longer define those terms. They are simply something which you think of or
perceive, and to anyone who cannot think of or perceive them, you can never, by any
definition, make their nature known. It may perhaps be objected to this that we are
able to describe to others, objects which they have never seen or thought of. We can,
for instance, make a man understand what a chimaera is, although he has never heard
of one or seen one. You can tell him that it is an animal with a lioness’s head and
body, with a goat’s head growing from the middle of its back, and with a snake in
place of its tail. But here the object which you are describing is a complex object; it is
entirely composed of parts, with which we are all perfectly familiar—a snake, a goat,
a lioness; and we know, too, the manner in which those parts are to be put together,
because we know what is meant by the middle of a lioness’s back, and where her tail
is wont to grow. And so it is with all objects not previously known, which we are able
to define: they are all complex; all composed of parts, which may themselves, in the
first instance, be capable of similar definition, but which must in the end be reducible
to simplest parts, which can no longer be defined. But yellow and good, we say, are
not complex: they are notions of that simple kind, out of which definitions are
composed and with which the power of further defining ceases. (§ 7 ¶ 1)

§ 8.
When we say, as Webster says, The definition of horse is A hoofed quadruped of the
genus Equus, we may, in fact, mean three different things. (1) We may mean merely
When I say horse, you are to understand that I am talking about a hoofed quadruped
of the genus Equus. This might be called the arbitrary verbal definition: and I do not
mean that good is indefinable in that sense. (2) We may mean, as Webster ought to
mean: When most English people say horse, they mean a hoofed quadruped of the
genus Equus. This may be called the verbal definition proper, and I do not say that
good is indefinable in this sense either; for it is certainly possible to discover how
people use a word: otherwise, we could never have known that good may be
translated by gut in German and by bon in French. But (3) we may, when we define
horse, mean something much more important. We may mean that a certain object,
which we all of us know, is composed in a certain manner: that it has four legs, a
head, a heart, a liver, etc., etc., all of them arranged in definite relations to one
another. It is in this sense that I deny good to be definable. I say that it is not
composed of any parts, which we can substitute for it in our minds when we are
thinking of it. We might think just as clearly and correctly about a horse, if we
thought of all its parts and their arrangement instead of thinking of the whole: we
could, I say, think how a horse differed from a donkey just as well, just as truly, in
this way, as now we do, only not so easily; but there is nothing whatsoever which we
could substitute for good; and that is what I mean, when I say that good is indefinable.
(§ 8 ¶ 1)

§ 9.
But I am afraid I have still not removed the chief difficulty which may prevent
acceptance of the proposition that the good is indefinable. I do not mean to say that
the good, that which is good, is thus indefinable; if I did think so, I should not be
writing on Ethics, for my main object is to help towards discovering that definition. It

is just because I think there will be less risk of error in our search for a definition of
the good, that I am now insisting that good is indefinable. I must try to explain the
difference between these two. I suppose it may be granted that good is an adjective.
Well, the good, that which is good, must therefore be the substantive to which the
adjective good will apply: it must be the whole of that to which the adjective will
apply, and the adjective must always truly apply to it. But if it is that to which the
adjective will apply, it must be something different from that adjective itself; and the
whole of that something different, whatever it is, will be our definition of the good.
Now it may be that this something will have other adjectives, beside good, that will
apply to it. It may be full of pleasure, for example; it may be intelligent; and if those
two adjectives are really part of its definition, then it will certainly be true, that
pleasure and intelligence are good. And many people appear to think that, if we say
Pleasure and intelligence are good, or if we say Only pleasure and intelligence are
good, we are defining good. Well, I cannot deny that propositions of this nature may
sometimes be called definitions; I do not know well enough how the word is generally
used to decide upon this point. I only wish it to be understood that that is not what I
mean when I say there is no possible definition of good, and that I shall not mean this
if I use the word again. I do most fully believe that some true proposition of the form
Intelligence is good and intelligence alone is good can be found; if none could be
found, our definition of the good would be impossible. As it is, I believe the good to
be definable; and yet I still say that good itself is indefinable. (§ 9 ¶ 1)

§ 10.
Good, then, if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when
we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition, in the most important
sense of that word. The most important sense of definition is that in which a definition
states what are the parts which invariably compose a certain whole; and in this sense
good has no definition because it is simple and has no parts. It is one of those
innumerable objects of thought which are themselves incapable of definition, because
they are the ultimate terms of reference to which whatever is capable of definition
must be defined. That there must be an indefinite number of such terms is obvious, on
reflection; since we cannot define anything except by an analysis, which, when
carried as far as it will go, refers us to something, which is simply different from
anything else, and which by that ultimate difference explains the peculiarity of the
whole which we are defining: for every whole contains some parts which are common
to other wholes also. There is, therefore, no intrinsic difficulty in the contention that
good denotes a simple and indefinable quality. There are many other instances of such
qualities. (§ 10 ¶ 1)
Consider yellow, for example. We may try to define it, by describing its physical
equivalent; we may state what kind of light-vibrations must stimulate the normal eye,
in order that we may perceive it. But a moment’s reflection is sufficient to shew that
those light-vibrations are not themselves what we mean by yellow. They are not what
we perceive. Indeed, we should never have been able to discover their existence,
unless we had first been struck by the patent difference of quality between the
different colours. The most we can be entitled to say of those vibrations is that they
are what corresponds in space to the yellow which we actually perceive. (§ 10 ¶ 2)

Yet a mistake of this simple kind has commonly been made about good. It may be
true that all things which are good are also something else, just as it is true that all
things which are yellow produce a certain kind of vibration in the light. And it is a
fact, that Ethics aims at discovering what are those other properties belonging to all
things which are good. But far too many philosophers have thought that when they
named those other properties they were actually defining good; that these properties,
in fact, were simply not other, but absolutely and entirely the same with goodness.
This view I propose to call the naturalistic fallacy and of it I shall now endeavour to
dispose. (§ 10 ¶ 3)

§ 11.
Let us consider what it is such philosophers say. And first it is to be noticed that they
do not agree among themselves. They not only say that they are right as to what good
is, but they endeavour to prove that other people who say that it is something else, are
wrong. One, for instance, will affirm that good is pleasure, another, perhaps, that good
is that which is desired; and each of these will argue eagerly to prove that other people
who say that it is something else, are wrong. One, for instance, will affirm that good is
pleasure, another, perhaps, that good is that which is desired; and each of these will
argue eagerly to prove that the other is wrong. But how is that possible? One of them
says that good is nothing but the object of desire, and at the same time tries to prove
that it is not pleasure. But from his first assertion, that good just means the object of
desire, one of two things must follow as regards his proof: (§ 11 ¶ 1)
(1) He may be trying to prove that the object of desire is not pleasure. But, if this be
all, where is his Ethics? The position he is maintaining is merely a psychological one.
Desire is something which occurs in our minds, and pleasure is something else which
so occurs; and our would-be ethical philosopher is merely holding that the latter is not
the object of the former. But what has that to do with the question in dispute? His
opponent held the ethical proposition that pleasure was the good, and although he
should prove a million times over the psychological proposition that pleasure is not
the object of desire, he is no nearer proving his opponent to be wrong. The position is
like this. One man says a triangle is a circle: another replies, A triangle is a straight
line, and I will prove to you that I am right: for (this is the only argument) a straight
line is not a circle. That is quite true, the other may reply; but nevertheless a triangle
is a circle, and you have said nothing whatever to prove the contrary. What is proved
is that one of us is wrong, for we agree that a triangle cannot be both a straight line
and a circle: but which is wrong, there can be no earthly means of proving, since you
define triangle as straight line and I define it as circle.—Well, that is one alternative
which any naturalistic Ethics has to face; if good is defined as something else, then it
is impossible either to prove that any other definition is wrong or even to deny such
definition. (§ 11 ¶ 2)
(2) The other alternative will scarcely be more welcome. It is that the discussion is
after all a verbal one. When A says Good means pleasant and B says Good means
desired, they may merely wish to assert that most people have used the word for what
is pleasant and for what is desired respectively. And this is quite an interesting subject
for discussion: only it is not a whit more an ethical discussion than the last was. Nor
do I think that any exponent of naturalistic Ethics would be willing to allow that this
was all he meant. They are all so anxious to persuade us that what they call the good

is what we really ought to do. Do, pray, act so, because the word good is generally
used to denote actions of this nature: such, on this view, would be the substance of
their teaching. And in so far as they tell us how we ought to act, their teaching is truly
ethical, as they mean it to be. But how perfectly absurd is the reason they would give
for it! You are to do this, because most people use a certain word to denote conduct
such as this. You are to say the thing which is not, because most people call it lying.
That is an argument just as good!—My dear sirs, what we want to know from you as
ethical teachers, is not how people use a word; it is not even, what kind of actions
they approve, which the use of this word good may certainly imply: what we want to
know is simply what is good. We may indeed agree that what most people do think
good, is actually so; we shall at all events be glad to know their opinions: but when
we say that their opinions about what is good, we do mean what we say; we do not
care whether they call that thing horse or table or chair, gut or bon or QJR S; we
want to know what it is that they so call. When they say Pleasure is good, we cannot
believe that they merely mean Pleasure is pleasure and nothing more than that. (§ 11 ¶
3)

§ 12.
Suppose a man says I am pleased; and suppose it is not a lie or a mistake but the truth.
Well, if it is true, what does that mean? It means that his mind, a certain definite
mind, distinguished by certain definite marks from all others has at this moment a
certain definite feeling called pleasure. Pleased means nothing but having pleasure,
and though we may be more pleased or less pleased, and even, we may admit for the
present, have one or another kind of pleasure; yet in so far as it is pleasure we have,
whether there be more or less of it, and whether it be of one kind or another, what we
have is one definite thing, absolutely indefinable, some one thing that is the same in
all the various degrees and in all the various kinds of it that there may be. We may be
able to say how it is related to other things: that, for example, it is in the mind, that it
causes desire, that we are conscious of it, etc., etc. We can, I say, describe its relations
to other things, but define it we can not. And if anybody tried to define pleasure for us
as being any other natural object; if anybody were to say, for instance, that pleasure
means the sensation of red, and were to proceed to deduce from that that pleasure is a
colour, we should be entitled to laugh at him and to distrust his future statements
about pleasure. Well, that would be the same fallacy which I have called the
naturalistic fallacy. That pleased does not mean having the sensation of red, or
anything else whatever, does not prevent us from understanding what it does mean. It
is enough for us to know that pleased does mean having the sensation of pleasure, and
though pleasure is absolutely indefinable, though pleasure is pleasure and nothing else
whatever, yet we feel no difficulty in saying that we are pleased. The reason is, of
course, that when I say I am pleased, I do not mean that I am the same thing as having
pleasure. And similarly no difficulty need be found in my saying that pleasure is good
and yet not meaning that pleasure is the same thing as good, that pleasure means
good, and that good means pleasure. If I were to imagine that when I said I am
pleased, I meant that I was exactly the same thing as pleased, I should not indeed call
that a naturalistic fallacy, although it would be the same fallacy as I have called
naturalistic with reference to Ethics. The reason of this is obvious enough. When a
man confuses two natural objects with one another, defining the one by the other, if
for instance, he confuses himself, who is one natural object, with pleased or with
pleasure which are others, then there is no reason to call the fallacy naturalistic. But if

he confuses good, which is not in the same sense a natural object, with any natural
object whatever, then there is a reason for calling that a naturalistic fallacy; its being
made with regard to good marks it as something quite specific, and this specific
mistake deserves a name because it is so common. As for the reasons why good is not
to be considered a natural object, they may be reserved for discussion in another
place. But, for the present, it is sufficient to notice this: Even if it were a natural
object, that would not alter the nature of the fallacy nor diminish its importance one
whit. All that I have said about it would remain quite equally true: only the name
which I have called it would not be so appropriate as I think it is. And I do not care
about the name: what I do care about is the fallacy. It does not matter what we call it,
provided we recognise it when we meet with it. It is to be met with in almost every
book on Ethics; and yet it is not recognised: and that is why it is necessary to multiply
illustrations of it, and convenient to give it a name. It is a very simple fallacy indeed.
When we say that an orange is yellow, we do not think our statement binds us to hold
that orange means nothing else than yellow, or that nothing can be yellow but an
orange. Supposing the orange is also sweet! Does that bind us to say that sweet is
exactly the same thing as yellow, that sweet must be defined as yellow? And
supposing it be recognised that yellow just means yellow and nothing else whatever,
does that make it any more difficult to hold that oranges are yellow? Most certainly it
does not: on the contrary, it would be absolutely meaningless to say that oranges were
yellow unless yellow did in the end mean just yellow and nothing else whatever—
unless it was absolutely indefinable. We should not get any very clear notion about
things, which are yellow—we should not get very far with our science, if we were
bound to hold that everything which was yellow, meant exactly the same thing as
yellow. We should find we had to hold that an orange was exactly the same thing as a
stool, a piece of paper, a lemon, anything you like. We could prove any number of
absurdities; but should we be the nearer to the truth? Why, then, should it be different
with good? Why, if good is good and indefinable, should I be held to deny that
pleasure is good? Is there any difficulty in holding both to be true at once? On the
contrary, there is no meaning in saying that pleasure is good, unless good is
something different from pleasure. It is absolutely useless, so far as Ethics is
concerned, to prove, as Mr Spencer tries to do, that increase of pleasure coincides
with increase of life, unless good means something different from either life or
pleasure. He might just as well try to prove that an orange is yellow by shewing that it
is always wrapped up in paper. (§ 12 ¶ 1)

§ 13.
In fact, if it is not the case that good denotes something simple and indefinable, only
two alternatives are possible: either it is a complex, a given whole, about the correct
analysis of which there could be disagreement; or else it means nothing at all, and
there is no such subject as Ethics. In general, however, ethical philosophers have
attempted to define good, without recognising what such an attempt must mean. They
actually use arguments which involve one or both of the absurdities considered in §
11. We are, therefore, justified in concluding that the attempt to define good is chiefly
due to want of clearness as to the possible nature of definition. There are, in fact, only
two serious alternatives to be considered, in order to establish the conclusion that
good does denote a simple and indefinable notion. It might possibly denote a
complex, as horse does; or it might have no meaning at all. Neither of these
possibilities has, however, been clearly conceived and seriously maintained, as such,

by those who presume to define good; and both may be dismissed by a simple appeal
to facts. (§ 13 ¶ 1)
(1) The hypothesis that disagreement about the meaning of good is disagreement with
regard to the correct analysis of a given whole, may be most plainly seen to be
incorrect by consideration of the fact that, whatever definition may be offered, it may
always, be asked, with significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is itself
good. To take, for instance, one of the more plausible, because one of the more
complicated of such proposed definitions, it may easily be thought, at first sight, that
to be good may mean to be that which we desire to desire. Thus if we apply this
definition to a particular instance and say When we think that A is good, we are
thinking that A is one of the things which we desire to desire, our proposition may
seem quite plausible. But, if we carry the investigation further, and ask ourselves Is it
good to desire to desire A? it is apparent, on a little reflection, that this question is
itself as intelligible, as the original question, Is A good?—that we are, in fact, now
asking for exactly the same information about the desire to desire A, for which we
formerly asked with regard to A itself. But it is also apparent that the meaning of this
second question cannot be correctly analysed into Is the desire to desire A one of the
things which we desire to desire?: we have not before our minds anything so
complicated as the question Do we desire to desire to desire to desire A? Moreover
any one can easily convince himself by inspection that the predicate of this
proposition—good—is positively different from notion of desiring to desire which
enters into its subject: That we should desire to desire A is good is not merely
equivalent to That A should be good is good. It may indeed be true that what we
desire to desire is always good; perhaps, even the converse may be true: but it is very
doubtful whether this is the case, and the mere fact that we understand very well what
is meant by doubting it, shews clearly that we have to different notions before our
mind. (§ 13 ¶ 2)
(2) And the same consideration is sufficient to dismiss the hypothesis that good has no
meaning whatsoever. It is very natural to make the mistake of supposing that what is
universally true is of such a nature that its negation would be self-contradictory: the
importance which has been assigned to analytic propositions in the history of
philosophy shews how easy such a mistake is. And thus it is very easy to conclude
that what seems to be a universal ethical principle is in fact an identical proposition;
that, if, for example, whatever is called good seems to be pleasant, the proposition
Pleasure is the good does not assert a connection between two different notions, but
involves only one, that of pleasure, which is easily recognised as a distinct entity. But
whoever will attentively consider with himself what is actually before his mind when
he asks the question Is pleasure (or whatever it may be) after all good? can easily
satisfy himself that he is not merely wondering whether pleasure is pleasant. And if he
will try this experiment with each suggested definition in succession, he may become
expert enough to recognise that in every case he has before his mind a unique object,
with regard to the connection of which with any other object, a distinct question may
be asked. Every one does in fact understand the question Is this good? When he thinks
of it, his state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked Is this
pleasant, or desired, or approved? It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he
may not recognise in what respect it is distinct. Whenever he thinks of intrinsic value,
or intrinsic worth, or says that a thing ought to exist, he has before his mind the
unique object—the unique property of things—that I mean by good. Everybody is

constantly aware of this notion, although he may never become aware at all that it is
different from other notions of which he is also aware. But, for correct ethical
reasoning, it is extremely important that he should become aware of this fact; and as
soon as the nature of the problem is closely understood, there should be little
difficulty in advancing so far in analysis. (§ 13 ¶ 3)

§ 14.
Good, then, is indefinable; and yet, so far as I know, there is only one ethical writer,
Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact. We shall see,
indeed, how far many of the most reputed ethical systems fall short of drawing the
conclusions which follow from such a recognition. At present I will only quote from
one instance, which will serve to illustrate the meaning and importance of this
principle that good is indefinable, or, as Prof. Sidgwick says, an unanalysable notion.
It is an instance to which Prof. Sidgwick himself refers in a note on the passage, in
which he argues that ought is unanalysable . (§ 14 ¶ 1)
Bentham, says Sidgwick, explains that his fundamental principle states the greatest
happiness of all those whose interest is in question as being the right and proper end
of human action; and yet his language in other passages of the same chapter would
seem to imply that he means by the word right conducive to the general happiness.
Prof. Sidgwick sees that, if you take these two statements together, you get the absurd
result that greatest happiness is the end of human action, which is conducive to the
general happiness; and so absurd does it seem to him to call this result, as Bentham
calls it, the fundamental principle of a moral system, that he suggests that Bentham
cannot have meant it. Yet Prof. Sidgwick himself states elsewhere that
Psychological Hedonism is not seldom confounded with Egoistic Hedonism; and that
confusion, as we shall see, rests chiefly on that same fallacy, the naturalistic fallacy,
which is implied in Bentham’s statements. Prof. Sidgwick admits therefore that this
fallacy is sometimes committed, absurd as it is; and I am inclined to think that
Bentham may really have been one of those who committed it. Mill, as we shall see,
certainly did commit it. In any case, whether Bentham committed it or not, his
doctrine, as above quoted, will serve as a very good illustration of this fallacy, and of
the importance of the contrary proposition that good is indefinable. (§ 14 ¶ 2)
Let us consider this doctrine. Bentham seems to imply, so Prof. Sidgwick says, that
the word right means conducive to general happiness. Now this, by itself, need not
necessarily involve the naturalistic fallacy. For the word right is very commonly
appropriated to actions which lead to the attainment of what is good; which are
regarded as means to the ideal and not as ends-in-themselves. This use of right, as
denoting what is good as a means, whether or not it also be good as an end, is indeed
the use to which I shall confine the word. Had Bentham been using right in this sense,
it might be perfectly consistent for him to define right as conducive to the general
happiness provided only (and note this proviso) he had already proved, or laid down
as an axiom, that general happiness was the good, or (what is equivalent to this) that
general happiness alone was good. For in that case he would have already defined the
good as general happiness (a position perfectly consistent, we have seen, with the
contention that good is indefinable), and, since right was to be defined as conducive to
the good, it would actually mean conducive to general happiness. But this method of
escape from the charge of having committed the naturalistic fallacy has been closed

by Bentham himself. For his fundamental principle is, we see, that the greatest
happiness of all concerned is the right and proper end of human action. He applies the
word right, therefore, to the end, as such, not only to the means which are conducive
to it; and that being so, right can no longer be defined as conducive to the general
happiness, without involving the fallacy in question. For now it is obvious that the
definition of right as conducive to general happiness can be used by him in support of
the fundamental principle that general happiness is the right end; instead of being
itself derived from that principle. If right, by definition, means conducive to general
happiness, then it is obvious that general happiness is the right end. It is not necessary
now first to prove or assert that general happiness is the right end, before right is
defined as conducive to general happiness—a perfectly valid procedure; but on the
contrary the definition of right as conducive to general happiness proves general
happiness to be the right end—a perfectly invalid procedure, since in this case the
statement that general happiness is the right end of human action is not an ethical
principle at all, but either, as we have seen, a proposition about the meaning of words,
or else a proposition about the nature of general happiness, not about its rightness or
its goodness. (§ 14 ¶ 3)
Now, I do not wish the importance I assign to this fallacy to be misunderstood. The
discovery of it does not at all refute Bentham’s contention that greatest happiness is
the proper end of human action, if that be understood as an ethical proposition, as he
undoubtedly intended it. That principle may be true all the same; we shall consider
whether it is so in the succeeding chapters. Bentham might have maintained it, as
Prof. Sidgwick does, even if the fallacy had been pointed out to him. What I am
maintaining is that the reasons which he actually gives for his ethical proposition are
fallacious ones so far as they consist in a definition of right. What I suggest is that he
did not perceive them to be fallacious; that, if he had done so, he would have been led
to seek for other reasons in support of his Utilitarianism; and that, had he sought for
other reasons, he might have found none which he thought to be sufficient. In that
case he would have changed his whole system—a most important consequence. It is
undoubtedly also possible that he would have thought other reasons to be sufficient,
and in that case his ethical system, in its main results, would still have stood. But,
even in this latter case, his use of the fallacy would be a serious objection to him as an
ethical philosopher. For it is the business of Ethics, I must insist, not only to obtain
true results, but also to find valid reasons for them. The direct object of Ethics is
knowledge and not practice; and any one who uses the naturalistic fallacy has
certainly not fulfilled this first object, however correct his practical principles may be.
(§ 14 ¶ 4)
My objections to Naturalism are then, in the first place, that it offers no reason at all,
far less any valid reason, for any ethical principle whatever; and in this it already fails
to satisfy the requirements of Ethics, as a scientific study. But in the second place I
contend that, though it gives a reason for no ethical principle, it is the cause of the
acceptance of false principles—it deludes the mind into accepting ethical principles,
which are false; and in this it is contrary to every aim of Ethics. It is easy to see that if
we start with a definition of right conduct as conduct conducive to general happiness;
then, knowing that right conduct is universally conduct conducive to the good, we
very easily arrive at the result that the good is general happiness. If, on the other hand,
we once recognise that we must start our Ethics without a definition, we shall be
much more apt to look about us, before we adopt any ethical principle whatever, and

the more we look about us, the less likely we are to adopt a false one. It may be
replied to this: Yes, but we shall look about us just as much, before we settle on our
definition, and are therefore just as likely to be right. But I will try to shew that this is
not the case. If we start with the conviction that a definition of good can be found, we
start with the conviction that the good can mean nothing else than some one property
of things, and our only business will then be to discover what that property is. But if
we recognise that, so far as the meaning of good goes, anything whatever may be
good, we start with a much more open mind. Moreover, apart from the fact that, when
we think we have a definition, we cannot logically defend our ethical principles in any
way whatever, we shall also be much less apt to defend them well, even if illogically.
For we shall start with the conviction that good must mean so and so, and shall
therefore be inclined either to misunderstand our opponent’s arguments or to cut them
short with the reply, This is not an open question: the very meaning of the word
decides it; no one can think otherwise except through confusion. (§ 14 ¶ 5)
§ 14, n. 1: Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. iii, § 1 (6th edition).
§ 14, n. 2: Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, Chap. iv, § 1.

§ 15.
Our first conclusion as to the subject-matter of Ethics is, then, that there is a simple,
indefinable, unanalysable object of thought by reference to which it must be defined.
By what name we call this unique object is a matter of indifference, so long as we
clearly recognise what it is and that it does differ from other objects. The words which
are commonly taken as the signs of ethical judgments all do refer to it; and they are
expressions of ethical judgments solely because they do so refer. But they may refer
to it in two different ways, which it is very important to distinguish, if we are to have
a complete definition of the range of ethical judgments. Before I proceeded to argue
that there was such an indefinable notion involved in ethical notions, I stated (§ 4) that
it was necessary for Ethics to enumerate all true universal judgments, asserting that
such and such a thing was good, whenever it occurred. But, although all such
judgments do refer to that unique notion which I have called good, they do not all
refer to it in the same way. They may either assert that this unique property does
always attach to the thing in question, or else they may assert only that the thing in
question is a cause or necessary condition for the existence of other things to which
this unique property does attach. The nature of these two species of universal ethical
judgments is extremely different; and a great part of the difficulties, which are met
with in ordinary ethical speculation, are due to the failure to distinguish them clearly.
Their difference has, indeed, received expression in ordinary language by the contrast
between the terms good as means and good in itself, value as a means and intrinsic
value. But those terms are apt to be applied correctly only in the more obvious
instances; and this seems to be due to the fact that the distinction between the
conceptions which they denote has not been made a separate object of investigation.
This distinction may be briefly pointed out as follows. (§ 15 ¶ 1)

§ 16.

Whenever we judge that a thing is good as a means, we are making a judgment with
regard to its causal relations: we judge both that it will have a particular kind of effect,
and that that effect will be good in itself. But to find causal judgments that are
universally true is notoriously a matter of extreme difficulty. The late date at which
most of the physical sciences became exact, and the comparative fewness of the laws
which they have succeeded in establishing even now, are sufficient proofs of this
difficulty. With regard, then, to what are the most frequent objects of ethical
judgments, namely actions, it is obvious that we cannot be satisfied that any of our
universal causal judgments are true, even in the sense in which scientific laws are so.
We cannot even discover hypothetical laws of the form Exactly this action will
always, under these conditions, produce exactly that effect. But for a correct ethical
judgment with regard to the effects of certain actions we require more than this in two
respects. (1) We require to know that a given action will produce a certain effect,
under whatever circumstances it occurs. But this is certainly impossible. It is certain
that in different circumstances the same action may produce effects that are utterly
different in all respects upon which the value of the effects depends. Hence we can
never be entitled to more than a generalisation—to a proposition of the form This
result generally follows this kind of action; and even this generalisation will only be
true, if the circumstances under which the action occurs are generally the same. This
is in fact the case, to a great extent, within any one particular age and state of society.
But, when we take other ages into account, in many most important cases the normal
circumstances of a given kind of action will be so different, that the generalisation
which is true for one will not be true for another. With regard then to ethical
judgments which assert that a certain kind of action is good as a means to a certain
kind of effect, none will be universally true; and many, though generally true at one
period, will be generally false at others. But (2) we require to know not only that one
good effect will be produced, but that, among all subsequent events affected by the
action in question, the balance of good will be greater than if any other possible action
had been performed. In other words, to judge that an action is generally a means to
good is to judge not only that it generally does some good, but that it generally does
the greatest good of which the circumstances admit. In this respect ethical judgments
about the effects of action involve a difficulty and a complication far greater than that
involved in the establishment of scientific laws. For the latter we need only consider a
single effect; for the former it is essential to consider not only this, but the effects of
that effect, and so on as far as our view into the future can reach. It is, indeed, obvious
that our view can never reach far enough for us to be certain that any action will
produce the best possible effects. We must be content, if the greatest possible balance
of good seems to be produced within a limited period. But it is important to notice
that the whole series of effects within a period of considerable length is actually taken
account of in our common judgments that an action is good as a means; and that
hence this additional complication, which makes ethical generalisations so far more
difficult to establish than scientific laws, is one which is involved in actual ethical
discussions, and is of practical importance. The commonest rules of conduct involve
such considerations as the balancing of future bad health against immediate gains; and
even if we can never settle with any certainty how we shall secure the greatest
possible total of good, we try at least to assure ourselves that probable future evils will
not be greater than the immediate good. (§ 16 ¶ 1)

§ 17.

There are, then, judgments which state that certain kinds of things have good effects;
and such judgments, for the reasons just given, have the important characteristics (1)
that they are unlikely to be true, if they state that the kind of thing in question always
has good effects, and (2) that, even if they only state that it generally has good effects,
many of them will only be true of certain periods in the world’s history. On the other
hand there are judgments which state that certain kinds of things are themselves good;
and these differ from the last in that, if true at all, they are all of them universally true.
It is, therefore, extremely important to distinguish these two kinds of possible
judgments. Both may be expressed in the same language: in both cases we commonly
say Such and such a thing is good. But in the one case good will mean good as means,
i.e. merely that the thing is a means to good—will have good effects: in the other case
it will mean good as end—we shall be judging that the thing itself has the property
which, in the first case, we asserted only to belong to its effects. It is plain that these
are very different assertions to make about a thing; it is plain that either or both of
them may be made, both truly and falsely, about all manner of things; and it is certain
that unless we are clear as to which of the two we mean to assert, we shall have a very
poor chance of deciding rightly whether our assertion is true or false. It is precisely
this clearness as to the meaning of the question asked which has hitherto been almost
entirely lacking in ethical speculation. Ethics has always been predominantly
concerned with the investigation of a limited class of actions. With regard to these we
may ask both how far they are good in themselves and how far they have a general
tendency to produce good results. And the arguments brought forward in ethical
discussion have always been of both classes—both such as would prove the conduct
in question to be good in itself and such as would prove it to be good as a means. But
that these are the only questions which any ethical discussion can have to settle, and
that to settle the one is not the same thing as to settle the other—these two
fundamental facts have in general escaped the notice of ethical philosophers. Ethical
questions are commonly asked in an ambiguous form. It is asked What is a man’s
duty under these circumstances? or Is it right to act this way? or What ought we to
aim at securing? But all these questions are capable of further analysis; a correct
answer to any of them involves both judgments of what is good in itself and causal
judgments. This is implied even by those who maintain that we have a direct and
immediate judgment of absolute rights and duties. Such a judgment can only mean
that the course of action in question is the best thing to do; that, by acting so, every
good that can be secured will have been secured. Now we are not concerned with the
question whether such a judgment will ever be true. The question is: What does it
imply, if it is true? And the only possible answer is that, whether true or false, it
implies both a proposition as to the degree of goodness of the action in question, as
compared with other things, and a number of causal propositions. For it cannot be
denied that the action will have consequences: and to deny that the consequences
matter is to make a judgment of their intrinsic value, as compared with the action
itself. In asserting that the action is the best thing to do, we assert that it together with
its consequences presents a greater sum of intrinsic value than any possible
alternative. And this condition may be realised by any of the three cases:—(a) If the
action itself has greater intrinsic value than any alternative, whereas both its
consequences and those of the alternatives are absolutely devoid either of intrinsic
merit or intrinsic demerit; or (b) if, though its consequences are intrinsically bad, the
balance of intrinsic value is greater than would be produced by any alternative; or (c)
if, its consequences being intrinsically good, the degree of value belonging to them
and it conjointly is greater than that of any alternative series. In short, to assert that a

certain line of conduct is, at a given time, absolutely right or obligatory, is obviously
to assert that more good or less evil will exist in the world, if it be adopted than if
anything else be done instead. But this implies a judgment as to the value both of its
own consequences and of those of any possible alternative. And that an action will
have such and such consequences involves a number of causal judgments. (§ 17 ¶ 1)
Similarly, in answering the question What ought we to aim at securing? causal
judgments are again involved, but in a somewhat different way. We are liable to
forget, because it is so obvious, that this question can never be answered correctly
except by naming something which can be secured. Not everything can be secured;
and, even if we judge that nothing which cannot be obtained would be of equal value
with that which can, the possibility of the latter, as well as its value, is essential to its
being a proper end of action. Accordingly neither our judgments as to what actions we
ought to perform, nor even our judgments as to the ends which they ought to produce,
are pure judgments of intrinsic value. With regard to the former, an action which is
absolutely obligatory may have no intrinsic value whatsoever; that it is perfectly
virtuous may mean merely that it causes the best possible effects. And with regard to
the latter, these best possible results which justify our action can, in any case, have
only so much of intrinsic value as the laws of nature allow us to secure; and they in
their turn may have no intrinsic value whatsoever, but may merely be a means to the
attainment (in a still further future) of something that has such value. Whenever,
therefore, we ask What ought we to do? or What ought we to try to get? we are asking
questions which involve a correct answer to two others, completely different in kind
from one another. We must know both what degree of intrinsic value different things
have, and how these different things may be obtained. But the vast majority of
questions which have actually been discussed in Ethics—all practical questions,
indeed—involve this double knowledge; and they have been discussed without any
clear separation of the two distinct questions involved. A great part of the vast
disagreements prevalent in Ethics is to be attributed to this failure in analysis. By the
use of conceptions which involve both that of intrinsic value and that of causal
relation, as if they involved intrinsic value only, two different errors have been
rendered almost universal. Either it is assumed that nothing has intrinsic value which
is not possible, or else it is assumed that what is necessary must have intrinsic value.
Hence the primary and peculiar business of Ethics, the determination of what things
have intrinsic value and in what degrees, has received no adequate treatment at all.
And on the other hand a thorough discussion of means has been also largely
neglected, owing to an obscure perception of the truth that it is perfectly irrelevant to
the question of intrinsic values. But however this may be, and however strongly any
particular reader may be convinced that some one of the mutually contradictory
systems which hold the field has a given correct answer either to the question what
has intrinsic value, or to the question what we ought to do, or to both, it must at least
be admitted that the questions what is best in itself and what will bring about the best
possible, are utterly distinct; that both belong to the actual subject-matter of Ethics;
and that the more clearly distinct questions are distinguished, the better is our chance
of answering both correctly. (§ 17 ¶ 2)

§ 18.
There remains one point which must not be ommitted in a complete description of the
kind of questions which Ethics has to answer. The main division of these questions is,

as I have said, into two; the question what things are good in themselves, and the
question to what other things these are related as effects. The first of these, which is
the primary ethical question and is presupposed by the other, includes a correct
comparison of the various things which have intrinsic value (if there are many such)
in respect of the degree of value which they have; and such comparison involves a
difficulty of principle which has greatly aided the confusion of intrinsic value with
mere goodness as a means. It has been pointed out that one difference between a
judgment which asserts that a thing is good in itself, and a judgment which asserts that
it is a means to good, consists in the fact that the first, if true of one instance of the
thing in question, is necessarily true of all; whereas a thing which has good effects
under some circumstances may have bad ones under others. Now it is certainly true
that all judgments of intrinsic value are in this sense universal; but the principle which
I have now to enunciate may easily make it appear as if they were not so but
resembled the judgment of means in being merely general. There is, as will presently
be maintained, a vast number of different things, each of which has intrinsic value;
there are also very many which are positively bad; and there is a still larger class of
things, which appear to be indifferent. But a thing belonging to any of these three
classes may occur as part of a whole, which includes among its other parts other
things belonging both to the same and to the other two classes; and these wholes, as
such, may also have intrinsic value. The paradox, to which it is necessary to call
attention, is that the value of such a whole bears no regular proportion to the sum of
the values of its parts. It is certain that a good thing may exist in such a relation to
another good thing that the value of the whole thus formed is immensely greater than
the sum of the values of the two good things. It is certain that a whole formed of a
good thing and an indifferent thing may have immensely greater value than that good
thing itself possesses. It is certain that two bad things or a bad thing and an indifferent
thing may form a whole much worse than the sum of badness of its parts. And it
seems as if indifferent things may also be the sole constituents of a whole which has
great value, either positive or negative. Whether the addition of a bad thing to a good
whole may increase the positive value of the whole, or the addition of a bad thing to a
bad may produce a whole having a positive value, may seem more doubtful; but it is,
at least, possible, and this possibility must be taken into account in our ethical
investigations. However we may decide particular questions, the principle is clear.
The value of a whole must not be assumed to be the same as the sum of the values of
its parts. (§ 18 ¶ 1)
A single instance will suffice to illustrate the kind of relation in question. It seems to
be true that to be conscious of a beautiful object is of great intrinsic value; whereas
the same object, if no one be conscious of it, has certainly comparatively little value,
and it is commonly held to have none at all. But the consciousness of a beautiful
object is certainly a whole of some sort in which we can distinguish as parts the object
on the one hand and the being conscious on the other. Now this latter factor occurs as
part of a different whole, whenever we are conscious of anything; and it would seem
that some of these wholes have at all events very little value, and may even be
indifferent or positively bad. Yet we cannot always attribute the slightness of their
value to any positive demerit in the object which differentiates them from the
consciousness of beauty; the object itself may approach as near as possible to absolute
neutrality. Since, therefore, mere consciousness does not always confer great value
upon the whole of which it forms a part, we cannot attribute the great superiority of
the consciousness of a beautiful thing over the beautiful thing itself to the mere

addition of the value of consciousness to that of the beautiful thing. Whatever the
intrinsic value of consciousness may be, it does not give to the whole of which it
forms a part a value proportional to the sum of its value and that of its object. If this
be so, we have here an instance of a whole possessing a different intrinsic value from
the sum of that of its parts; and whether it be so or not, what is meant by such a
difference is illustrated by this case. (§ 18 ¶ 2)

§ 19.
There are, then, wholes which possess the property that their value is different from
the sum of the values of their parts, and the relations which subsist between such parts
and the whole of which they form a part have not hitherto been distinctly recognised
or received a separate name. Two points are especially worthy of notice. (1) It is plain
that the existence of any such part is a necessary condition for the existence of that
good which is constituted by the whole. And exactly the same language will also
express the relation between a means and the good thing which is its effect. But yet
there is a most important difference between the two cases, constituted by the fact that
the part is, whereas the means is not, a part of the good thing for the existence of
which its existence is a necessary condition. The necessity by which, if the good in
question is to exist, the means to it must exist is merely a natural or causal necessity.
If the laws of nature were different, exactly the same good might exist, although what
is now a necessary condition of its existence did not exist. The existence of the means
has no intrinsic value; and its utter annihilation would leave the value of that which it
is now necessary to secure entirely unchanged. But in the case of a part of such a
whole as we are now considering, it is otherwise. In this case the good in question
cannot conceivably exist, unless the part exist also. The necessity which connects the
two is quite independent of natural law. What is asserted to have intrinsic value is the
existence of the whole; and the existence of the whole includes the existence of its
part. Suppose the part removed, and what remains is not what was asserted to have
intrinsic value; but if we suppose a means removed, what remains is just what was
asserted to have intrinsic value. And yet (2) the existence of the part may itself have
no more intrinsic value than that of the means. It is this fact which constitutes the
paradox of the relation which we are discussing. It has just been said that what has
intrinsic value is the existence of the whole, and that this includes the existence of the
part; and from this it would seem a natural inference that the existence of the part has
intrinsic value. But the inference would be as false as if we were to conclude that,
because the number of two stones was two, each of the stones was also two. The part
of a valuable whole retains exactly the same value when it is, as when it is not, a part
of that whole. If it had value under other circumstances, its value is not any greater,
when it is part of a far more valuable whole; and if it had no value by itself, it has
none still, however great be that of the whole of which it now forms a part. We are not
then justified in asserting that one and the same thing is under some circumstances
intrinsically good, and under others not so; as we are justified in asserting of a means
that it sometimes does and sometimes does not produce good results. And yet we are
justified in asserting that it is far more desirable that a certain thing should exist under
some circumstances than under others; namely when other things will exist in such
relations to it as to form a more valuable whole. It will not have more intrinsic value
under those circumstances than under others; it will not necessarily even be a means
to the existence of things having more intrinsic value; but it will, like a means, be a
necessary condition for the existence of that which has greater intrinsic value,

although, unlike a means, it will itself form a part of the more valuable existent. (§ 19
¶ 1)

§ 20.
I have said that the peculiar relation between part and whole which I have just been
trying to define is one which has received no separate name. It would, however, be
useful that it should have one; and there is a name, which might well be appropriated
to it, if only it could be divorced from its present unfortunate usage. Philosophers,
especially those who profess to have derived great benefit from the writings of Hegel,
have latterly made much use of the terms organic whole, organic unity, organic
relation. The reason why these terms might well be appropriated to the use suggested
is that the peculiar relation of parts to whole, just defined, is one of the properties
which distinguishes the wholes to which they are actually applied with the greatest
frequency. And the reason why it is desirable that they should be divorced from their
present usage is that, as at present used, they have no distinct sense and, on the
contrary, both imply and propagate errors of confusion. (§ 20 ¶ 1)
To say that a thing is an organic whole is generally understood to imply that its parts
are related to one another and to itself as means to end; it is also understood to imply
that they have a property described in some such phrase as that they have no meaning
or significance apart from the whole; and finally such a whole is also treated as if it
had the property to which I am proposing that the name should be confined. But those
who use the term give us, in general, no hint as to how they suppose these three
properties to be related to one another. It seems generally to be assumed that they are
identical; and always, at least, that they are necessarily connected with one another.
That they are not identical I have already tried to shew; to suppose them so is to
neglect the very distinctions pointed out in the last paragraph; and the usage might
well be discontinued merely because it encourages such neglect. But a still more
cogent reason for its discontinuance is that, so far from being necessarily connected,
the second is a property which can attach to nothing, being a self-contradictory
conception; whereas the first, if we insist on its most important sense, applies to many
cases, to which we have no reason to think that the third applies also, and the third
certainly applies to many to which the first does not apply. (§ 20 ¶ 2)

§ 21.
These relations between the three properties just distinguished may be illustrated by
references to a whole of the kind from which the name organic was derived—a whole
which is an organism in the scientific sense—namely the human body. (§ 21 ¶ 1)
(1) There exists between many parts of our body (though not between all) a relation
which has been familiarised by the fable, attributed to Menenius Agrippa, concerning
the belly and its members. We can find it in parts such that the continued existence of
one is a necessary condition for the continued existence of the other; while the
continued existence of this latter is also a necessary condition for the continued
existence of the former. This amounts to no more than saying that in the body we hve
instances of two things, both enduring for some time, which have a relation of mutual
causal dependence on one another—a relation of reciprocity. Frequently no more than
this is meant by saying that the parts of the body form an organic unity, or that they

are mutually means and ends to one another. And we certainly have here a striking
characteristic of living things. But it would be extremely rash to assert that this
relation of mutual causal dependence was only exhibited by living things and hence
was sufficient to define their peculiarity. And it is obvious that of two things which
have this relation of mutual dependence, neither may have intrinsic value, or one may
have it and the other lack it. They are not necessarily ends to one another in any sense
except that in which end means effect. And moreover it is plain that in this sense the
whole cannot be an end to any of its parts. We are apt to talk of the whole in contrast
to one of its parts, when in fact we mean only the rest of the parts. But strictly the
whole must include all its parts and no part can be a cause of the whole, because it
cannot be a cause of itself. It is plain, therefore, that this relation of mutual causal
dependence implies nothing with regard to the value of either of the objects which
have it; and that, even if both of them happen also to have value, this relation between
them is one which cannot hold between part and whole. (§ 21 ¶ 2)
But (2) it may also be the case that our body as a whole has a value greater than the
sum of values of its parts; and this may be what is meant when it is said that the parts
are means to the whole. It is obvious that if we ask the question Why should the parts
be such as they are? a proper answer may be Because the whole they form has so
much value. But it is equally obvious that the relation which we thus assert to exist
between part and whole is quite different from that which we assert to exist between
part and part when we say This part exists, because that one could not exist without it.
In the latter case we assert the two parts to be causally connected; but, in the former,
part and whole cannot be causally connected and the relation which we assert to exist
between them may exist even though the parts are not causally connected either. All
the parts of a picture do not have that relation of mutual causal dependence, which
certain parts of the body have, and yet the existence of those which do not have it may
be absolutely essential to the value of the whole. The two relations are quite distinct in
kind, and we cannot infer the existence of the one from that of the other. It can,
therefore, serve no useful purpose to include them both under the same name; and if
we are to say that a whole is organic because its parts are (in this sense) means to the
whole, we must not say that it is organic because its parts are causally dependent on
one another. (§ 21 ¶ 3)

§ 22.
But finally (3) the sense which has been most prominent in recent uses of the term
organic whole is one whereby it asserts the parts of such a whole have a property
which the parts of no whole can possibly have. It is supposed that just as the whole
would not be what it is but for the existence of the parts, so the parts would not be
what they are but for the existence of the whole; and this is understood to mean not
merely that any particular part could not exist unless the others existed too (which is
the case where relation (1) exists between the parts), but actually that the part is no
distinct object of thought—that the whole, of which it is a part, is in turn a part of it.
That this supposition is self-contradictory a very little reflection should be sufficient
to shew. We may admit, indeed, that when a particular thing is a part of a whole, it
does possess a predicate which it would not otherwise possess—namely that it is a
part of the whole. But what cannot be admitted is that this predicate alters the nature
or enters into the definition of the thing which has it. When we think of the part itself,
we mean just that which we assert, in this case, to have the predicate that it is part of

the whole; and the mere assertion that it is a part of the whole involves that it should
itself be distinct from that which we assert of it. Otherwise we contradict ourselves
since we assert that, not it, but something else—namely it together with that which we
assert of it—has the predicate which we assert of it. In short, it is obvious that no part
contains analytically the whole to which it belongs, or any other parts of that whole.
The relation of part to whole is not the same as that of whole to part; and the very
definition of the latter is that it does contain analytically that which it is said to be its
part. And yet this very self-contradictory doctrine is the chief mark which shews the
influence of Hegel upon modern philosophy—an influence which pervades almost the
whole of orthodox philosophy. This is what is generally implied by the cry against
falsification by abstraction: that a whole is always a part of its part! If you want to
know the truth about a part, we are told, you must consider not that part, but
something else—namely the whole: nothing is true of the part, but only of the whole.
Yet plainly it must be true of the part at least that it is part of the whole; and it is
obvious that when we say it is, we do not mean merely that the whole is a part of
itself. This doctrine, therefore, that a part can have no meaning or significance apart
from its whole must be utterly rejected. It implies itself that the statement This is a
part of that whole has a meaning; and in order that this may have one, both subject
and predicate must have a distinct meaning. And it is easy to see how this flse
doctrine has arisen by confusion with the two relations (1) and (2) which may really
be properties of wholes. (§ 22 ¶ 1)
(a) The existence of a part may be connected by a natural or causal necessity with the
existence of the other parts of its whole; and further what is a part of a whole and
what has ceased to be such a part, although differing intrinsically from one another,
may be called by one and the same name. Thus, to take a typical example, if an arm
be cut off from the human body, we still call it an arm. Yet an arm, when it is a part of
the body, undoubtedly differs from a dead arm; and hence we may easily be led to say
The arm which is a part of the body would not be what it is, if it were not such a part,
and to think that the contradiction thus expressed is in reality a characteristic of
things. But, in fact, the dead arm never was a part of the body; it is only partially
identical with the living arm. Those parts of it which are identical with parts of the
living arm are exactly the same, whether they belong to the body or not; and in them
we have an undeniable instance of one and the same thing at one time forming a part,
and at another not forming a part of the presumed organic whole. On the other hand
those properties which are possessed by the living, and not by the dead arm, do not
exist in a changed form in the latter: they simply do not exist there at all. By a causal
necessity their existence depends on their having that relation to the other parts of the
body which we express by saying that they form part of it. Yet, most certainly, if they
ever did not form part of the body, they would be exactly what they are when they do.
That they differ intrinsically from the properties of the dead arm and that they form
part of the body are propositions not analytically related to one another. There is no
contradiction in supposing them to retain such intrinsic differences and yet not to
form part of the body. (§ 22 ¶ 2)
But (b) when we are told that a living arm has no meaning or significance apart from
the body to which it belongs, a different fallacy is also suggested. To have meaning or
significance is commonly used in the sense of to have importance; and this again
means to have value either as a means or as an end. Now it is quite possible that even
a living arm, apart from its body, would have no intrinsic value whatever; although

the whole of which it is a part has great intrinsic value owing to its presence. Thus we
may easily come to say that, as a part of the body, it has great value, whereas by itself
it would have none; and thus that its whole meaning lies in its relation to the body.
But in fact the value in question obviously does not belong to it at all. To have value
merely as a part is equivalent to having no value at all, but merely being a part of that
which has it. Owing, however, to neglect of this distinction, the assertion that a part
has value, as a part, which it would not otherwise have, easily leads to the assumption
that it is also different, as a part, from what it would otherwise be; for it is, in fact,
true that two things which have a different value must also differ in other respects.
Hence the assumption that one and the same thing, because it is a part of a more
valuable whole at one time than at another, therefore has more intrinsic value at one
time than at another, has encouraged the self-contradictory belief that one and the
same thing may be two different things, and that only in one of its forms is it truly
what it is. (§ 22 ¶ 3)
For these reasons, I shall, where it seems convenient, take the liberty to use the term
organic with a special sense. I shall use it to denote the fact that a whole has an
intrinsic value different in amount from the sum of the values of its parts. I shall use it
to denote this and only this. The term will not imply any causal relation whatever
between the parts of the whole in question. And it will not imply either, that the parts
are inconceivable except as parts of that whole, or that, when they form parts of such
a whole, they have a value different from that which they would have if they did not.
Understood in this special and perfectly definite sense the relation of an organic
whole to its parts is one of the most important which Ethics has to recognise. A chief
part of that science should be occupied in comparing the relative values of various
goods; and the grossest errors will be committed in such comparison if it be assumed
that wherever two things form a whole, the value of that whole is merely the sum of
the values of those two things. With this question of organic wholes, then, we
complete the enumeration of the kind of problems, with which it is the business of
Ethics to deal. (§ 22 ¶ 4)

§ 23.
In this chapter I have endeavoured to enforce the following conclusions. (1) The
peculiarity of Ethics is not that it investigates assertions about human conduct, but
that it investigates assertions about the property of things which is denoted by the
term good, and the converse property denoted by the term bad. It must, in order to
establish its conclusions, investigate the truth of all such assertions, except those
which assert the relation of this property only to a single existent (1—4). (2) This
property, by reference to which the subject-matter of Ethics must be defined, is itself
simple and indefinable (5—14). And (3) all assertions about its relation to other things
are of two, and only two, kinds: they either assert in what degree things themselves
possess this property, or else they assert causal relations between other things and
those which possess it (15—17). Finally, (4) in considering the different degrees in
which things themselves possess this property, we have to take account of the fact that
a whole may possess it in a degree different from that which is obtained by summing
the degrees in which its parts possess it (18—22). (§ 23 ¶ 1)

Chapter II: Naturalistic Ethics.
§ 24.
It results from the conclusions of Chapter I, 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 peculiar 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 (1) To what things and in what degree
does this predicate directly attach? What things are good in themselves? or (2) By
what means shall we be able to make what exist 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? (§ 24 ¶ 1)
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 characterised 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, of which
the existence has any value at all. But they all also 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 the 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 their 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. (§ 24 ¶ 2)
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
(1) 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 (2) to shew 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 doctrines, opposed to this, whose
power to recommend themselves is proved by their wide prevalence. (§ 24 ¶ 3)

§ 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
supersensible real world. These two types of ethical theory I propose to treat
separately. Theories of the second type may conveniently be called metaphysical, and
I shall postpone consideration of them till Chapter IV. 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 define 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 or positive science: its conclusions could 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. (§ 25 ¶ 1)

§ 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 science 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 holds 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, of 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. (§ 26 ¶ 1)
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, that they do exist to-day, 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 in so far as those thoughts did exist, they too are natural
objects. (§ 26 ¶ 2)
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 too 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
the 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.
(§ 26 ¶ 3)

§ 27.
Those theories of Ethics, then, are naturalistic which declare the sole good to consist
in some one property of things, which exists 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. (§ 27 ¶ 1)

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 everything 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? (§ 27 ¶ 2)
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 based an ethics upon 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, and 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 not rather abnormal, extraordinary? It is, I
think, obvious in the first place, that not all that is good is normal; that, 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 shewn 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 recognised that the latter judgment has not a whit 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 shews 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, goes no way at all to shew 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. (§
27 ¶ 3)

§ 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
enquire 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 on 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 part meant 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 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 ipso facto
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 thereto. The fallacy of this argument from nature
has been discovered as long ago as Lucian. I was almost inclined to laugh, says
Callicratidas, in one of the dialogues imputed to him , just now, when Charicles was
praising irrational brutes and the savagery of the Scythians: in the heat of his
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 reasoning 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 philosophise; 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, after many trials, have chosen what is best. (§ 28 ¶
1)
§ 28, n. 1:

TUVWS, 436-7.

§ 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 systematise an 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 shews
us the direction in which we are developing, thereby and for that reason shews us 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 clearer example might be found
in Guyau , a writer who has lately had considerable vogue in France, but who is not
so well known as Spencer. Guyau 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 criticised 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 he differs from Spencer in the fundamental principle that
the ideal is Quantity of life, measured in breadth as well as in length, or, as Guyau
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 shew, 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? (§ 29 ¶ 1)
I think his language in various places would give colour to all these hypotheses;
though some of them are mutually inconsistent. I will try to discuss the main points.
(§ 29 ¶ 2)

§ 29, n. 1: See Esquisse d'une Morale sans Obligation ni Sanction, par M. Guyau.
4me édition. Paris: F. Alcan, 1896.

§ 30.
The modern vogue of Evolution is chiefly owing to Darwin’s investigations as to the
origin of 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 accounted 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 then 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 changes 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 numbers 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 it 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 shewn a tendency to survive the lower, such as the North American
Indians. We can kill them more easily than they can kill us. 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 from man, a 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 fulfil 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 shewing
what are the causes which produce certain biological effects. Whether these effects
are good or bad, it cannot pretend to judge. (§ 30 ¶ 1)

§ 31.
But now let us hear what Mr Spencer says about the application of Evolution to
Ethics. (§ 31 ¶ 1)
I recur, he says , to the main proposition set forth in 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, co-operation and mutual aid. (§ 31 ¶ 2)
These implications of the Evolution-Hypothesis, we shall now see harmonize with the
leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached. (§ 31 ¶ 3)
Now, if we are to take the last sentence strictly—if the propositions which precede it
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 he 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 shew 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 informs 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.
(§ 31 ¶ 4)
§ 31, n. 1: Data of Ethics, Chap. II, § 7, ad fin.
§ 31, n. 2: The italics are mine.
§ 31, n. 3: The italics are mine.

§ 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
elsewhere most emphatically 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. (§ 32 ¶ 1)
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 shewing 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 an 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 (§ 10). Here,
then, Mr Spencer appears, not as an Evolutionist, but as a Hedonist, in Ethics. No
conduct is better, because it is more evolved. Degree of evolution can at most be a
criterion of ethical value; and it will only be that, if we can prove the extremely
difficult generalisation that the more evolved is always, on the whole, the pleasanter.
It is plain that Mr 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 Mr Spencer is a
naturalistic Hedonist. (§ 32 ¶ 2)

§ 33.
Let us examine Mr Spencer’s own words. He begins this third chapter by an attempt
to shew 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 (§ 9). 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 Mr 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 answers 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 (§ 10). It is to the defence of

this statement that the rest of the chapter is devoted; and at the end Mr 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 inexpugnable element of the conception (§ 16 ad fin.). (§ 33 ¶ 1)
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 he should mean that pleasure is
the only intrinsically desirable thing; that other good things are good only in the sense
that they are means to its existence. Nothing but this can properly be meant by
asserting it to be the ultimate moral aim, or, as he subsequently says (§ 62ad fin.), 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 Mr Spencer tells us that two conditions are, taken together,
sufficient to prove the more evolved conduct better: (1) That it should tend to produce
more life; (2) That life should be worth living or contain a balance of pleasure. And
the point I wish to emphasise 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 Mr
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 Mr Spencer, the less
evolved conduct. Accordingly, if Mr Spencer is a true Hedonist, the fact that life gives
a balance of pleasure is not, as he seems to think, sufficient to prove that the more
evolved conduct is the better. If Mr 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, Mr 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. Mr 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 whether 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. (§ 33 ¶ 2)
But the second question which we have to ask is: What reasons 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 it 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 (§ 16). 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 results of which are painful, and the word bad to
conduct, of which the aggregate results are pleasurable—creates absurdities (§ 16).
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: it 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 of 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 an unique indefinable quality. The doctrine of naturalistic
Hedonism is, indeed, quite strictly implied in his statement that virtue cannot be
defined otherwise than in terms of happiness (§ 13); and, though, as I remarked above,
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 reasons 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. (§ 33 ¶ 3)
So much for Mr Spencer. It is, of course, quite possible that his treatment of Ethics
contains 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 an 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 reasons 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.
(§ 33 ¶ 4)

§ 34.
It remains only to state clearly what is definitely fallacious in prevalent views as to
the relation of Evolution to Ethics—in those views with regard to which it seems so
uncertain how far Mr Spencer intends 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 go. This view must
be carefully distinguished from certain others, which may be commonly confused
with it. (1) It might, for instance, be held that the direction in which living things have

hitherto 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 of the exact points in which the
superiority of the more evolved consists. 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 discussion in order to arrive at a correct valuation of the different results of
evolution—to distinguish the more valuable from the less valuable, and both from
those which are no better than their causes, or perhaps even worse. In fact it is
difficult to see how, on this view—if all that be meant 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 judgments 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 claimed for it. (2) 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 a 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 a discussion in support of his contention that pleasure is the sole
good, I have pointed out; and that, if we attempt such a discussion, we shall arrive at
no such simple result, I shall presently try to shew. 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 relation 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 are working on that side is taken as a presumption
that it is the right side. That such a view, apart from metaphysical presuppositions,
with which I shall presently deal, is simply fallacious, I have tried to shew. 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 Spencer’s whole treatment of Evolution. For, after all, is Evolution the side on
which Nature is working? In the sense, which Mr Spencer 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 evolve 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 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 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 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. (§ 34 ¶ 1)

§ 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 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
hardly have been supposed to have any important bearing upon Ethics (29—34). (§ 35
¶ 1)

Chapter 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
the sole good to be mere intuition. It appeared to Prof. Sidgwick as a new discovery
that what he calls the method of Intuitionism must be retained as valid alongside of,
and indeed as 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 existents: they do not emphasise,
as they could hardly have failed to have done had they perceived it, how utterly
independent of all other truths this truth must be. (§ 36 ¶ 1)
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 any one 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 respect 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 analyse, 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

equivalents 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 that from the supposition
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 the subject will suffice to shew that a logical confusion of this
nature is very common. Moreover the very commission of the naturalistic fallacy
involves that those who commit it should not recognise 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 its logical relations should be clearly perceived. (§ 36 ¶ 2)
§ 36, n. 1: A. E. Taylor's Problems of Conduct, p. 120.

§ 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, that we are able to give to 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
favour 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
pretence 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 attempted 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. (§ 37 ¶ 1)
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 most of their practical conclusions. I quarrel only with the reasons by which
they seem to think their conclusions can be supported; and I do emphatically 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 fallacious reasoning; and
the good life or virtuous maxims of a Hedonist afford 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 any one 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. (§ 37 ¶ 2)

§ 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 Aristippus, the disciple of Socrates, and by the Cyrenaic school which he
founded; it is associated with Epicurus and the Epicureans; and it has been held in
modern times, chiefly by those philosophers who call themselves Utilitarians—by
Bentham, and by Mill, for instance. Herbert Spencer, as we have seen, also says that
he holds it; and Professor Sidgwick, as we shall see, holds it too. (§ 38 ¶ 1)
Yet all these philosophers, as has been said, differ from one another more or less, both
as to what they mean by Hedonism, and as to the reasons 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 shew 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 favour, 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 Sidgwick. These I shall try to give in my own words; and shall then proceed
to consider and refute Professor Sidgwick’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 two principles of method must be constantly kept in mind: (1) that the
naturalistic fallacy must not be committed; (2) that the distinction between means and
ends must be observed. (§ 38 ¶ 2)

§ 39.
I propose, then, to begin by an examination 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 principle. Let me repeat what that
principle is. It is, I 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 freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends (p. 10)* ; 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 (p.
58). 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
shewing that Mill’s reasons for them do not prove them, it must at least be admitted
that I have not been fighting with shadows or demolishing a man of straw. (§ 39 ¶ 1)
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 à fortiori to absence of pain: it is easy to make the necessary
substitutions. (§ 39 ¶ 2)
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 (p. 52). Happiness he has
already defined as pleasure, and the absence of pain (p. 10); 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
allowed, 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 (p. 6) that Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof.
Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shewn to be a means to
something admitted to be good without proof. With this, I perfectly agree: indeed the
chief object of my first chapter was to shew 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 I 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 IV, in which he deals with the proof of his Utilitarian
principle, Mill repeats the above statement in these words: It has already, he says,
been remarked, that questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary

acceptation of the term (p. 52). Questions about ends, he goes on in this same passage,
are, 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 absolutely and precisely
equivalent to the words good as an end. We are, then, now to hear, what reasons he
advances for this doctrine that pleasure alone is good as an end. (§ 39 ¶ 3)
§ 39, n. 1: My references are to the 13th edition, 1897.
§ 39, n. 2: My italics.

§ 40.
Questions about ends, he says (pp. 52-3), are, 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 requisite that
the doctrine should fulfil—to make good its claim to be believed? (§ 40 ¶ 1)
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 and in 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. (§ 40 ¶ 2)
There, that is enough. That is my first point. Mill has made as naïve and artless a use
of the naturalistic fallacy as anybody could desire. Good, he 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 (p. 58), a
psychological question, to which we shall presently proceed. The important step for
Ethics is this one just taken, the step which pretends to prove that good means desired.
(§ 40 ¶ 3)
Well, the 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 as visible means able
to be seen. The desirable means simply what ought to be desired or deserves to be
desired; just as the detestable means not what can be but what ought to be detested
and the damnable what deserves to be damned. Mill has, then, smuggled in, under
cover 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 tautology 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
(p. 10), as if, after all, what is desired were not ipso facto good, and good in
proportion to the amount it is desired. Moreover, if the desired is ipso facto the good;
then the good is ipso facto 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 (p. 26) 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
ipso facto 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 shew, must always follow from the use of the
naturalistic fallacy; and I hope I need now say no more about the matter. (§ 40 ¶ 4)

§ 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 they are not the same, then the first step in
his proof of Hedonism is absolutely worthless. (§ 41 ¶ 1)
But now we must deal with the second step. Having proved, as he thinks, that the
good means the desired, Mill recognises 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 Prof. Sidgwick has
called Psychological Hedonism: and it is a doctrine which most eminent 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 at 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 Callicles says of Polus 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 defence of what they hold to be the truth. (§ 41 ¶ 2)
§ 41, n. 1: 481c-487b.

§ 42.

Well, then, we are supposing 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. There is obviously
asserted some sort of necessary 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 the 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 shew, that, if there is, it 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 asked me the same question, I might answer, equally
consistently with my contention, Because there is pleasure here. Only our two
answers would 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 Mill’s naturalistic fallacy.
(§ 42 ¶ 1)
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 in to this relation? My theory is that it enters in, in
this way. The idea of the 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 sub-conscious. I
am ready to admit this, I say: I cannot vouch that iti s the true psychological doctrine;
but, at all events, it is not primâ 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 Mill’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. (§ 42 ¶ 2)

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 impelled to make for 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 the wine; 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, possibly true, theory, that pleasure is always the
cause of desire, then all the plausibility of our ethical doctrine that pleasure alone is
good straightaway 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 anything. And
can any one feel inclined to maintain, that that which I already have, while I am still
desiring something else, is always and alone the good? (§ 42 ¶ 3)
§ 42, n. 1: Ethical Studies, p. 282.

§ 43.
But now let us return to consider another of Mill’s arguments for his position that
happiness is the sole end of human action. Mill admits, as I have said, that pleasure is
not the only thing we actually desire. The desire of virtue, he says, is not as universal,
but is as authentic a fact, as the desire of happiness . And again, Money is, in many
cases, desired in and for itself . These admissions are, of course, in naked and glaring
contradiction with his argument that pleasure is the only thing desirable, because it is
the only thing desired. How then does Mill even attempt to avoid this contradiction?
His chief argument seems to be that virtue, money and other such objects, when they
are thus desired in and for themselves, are desired only as a part of happiness . Now
what does this mean? Happiness, as we saw, has been defined by Mill, as pleasure and
the absence of pain. Does Mill mean to say that money, these actual coins, which he
admits to be desired in and for themselves, are a part either of pleasure or of the
absence of pain? Will he maintain that those coins themselves are in my mind, and
actually a part of my pleasant feelings? If this is to be said, all words are useless:
nothing can possibly be distinguished from anything else; if these two things are not
distinct, what on earth is? We shall hear next that this table is really and truly the
same thing as this room; that a cab-horse is in fact indistinguishable from St Paul’s
Cathedral; that this book of Mill’s which I hold in my hand, because it was his
pleasure to produce it, is now and at this moment a part of the happiness which he felt
many years ago and which has so long ceased to be. Pray consider a moment what
this contemptible nonsense really means. Money, says Mill, is only desirable as a
means to happiness. Perhaps so, but what then? Why, says Mill, money is
undoubtedly desired for its own sake. Yes, go on, say we. Well, says Mill, if money is

desired for its own sake, it must be desirable as an end-in-itself: I have said so myself.
Oh, say we, but you have also said just now that it was only desirable as a means. I
own I did, says Mill, but I will try to patch up matters, by saying that what is only a
means to an end, is the same thing as a part of that end. I daresay the public won’t
notice. And the public haven’t noticed. Yet this is certainly what Mill has done. He
has broken down the distinction between means and ends, upon the precise
observance of which his Hedonism rests. And he has been compelled to do this,
because he failed to distinguish end in the sense of what is desirable, from end in the
sense of what is desired: a distinction which, nevertheless, both the present argument
and his whole book presupposes. This is a consequence of the naturalistic fallacy. (§
43 ¶ 1)
§ 43, n. 1: p. 53.
§ 43, n. 2: p. 55.
§ 43, n. 3: pp. 56-7.

§ 44.
Mill, then, has nothing better to say for himself than this. His two fundamental
propositions are, in his own words, that 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; and that desire anything except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a
physical and metaphysical impossibility . Both of these statements are, we have seen,
merely supported by fallacies. The first seems to rest on the naturalistic fallacy; the
second rests partly on this, partly on the fallacy of confusing ends and means, and
partly on the fallacy of confusing a pleasant thought with the thought of a pleasure.
His very language shews this. For that the idea of a thing is pleasant, in his second
clause, is obviously meant to be the same fact which he denotes by thinking of it as
pleasant, in his first. (§ 44 ¶ 1)
Accordingly, Mill’s arguments for the proposition that pleasure is the sole good, and
our refutation of those arguments, may be summed up as follows: (§ 44 ¶ 2)
First of all, he takes the desirable, which he uses as a synonym for the good, to mean
what can be desired. The test, again, of what can be desired, is, according to him,
what actually is desired: if, therefore, he says, we can find some one thing which is
always and alone desired, that thing will necessarily be the only thing that is desirable,
the only thing that is good as an end. In this argument the naturalistic fallacy is plainly
involved. That fallacy, I explained, consists in the contention that good means nothing
but some simple or complex notion, that can be defined in terms of natural qualities.
In Mill’s case, good is thus supposed to mean simply what is desired; and what is
desired is something which can thus be defined in natural terms. Mill tells us that we
ought to desire something (an ethical proposition), because we actually do desire it;
but if his contention that I ought to desire means nothing but I do desire were true,
then he is only entitled to say, We do desire so and so, because we do desire it; and
that is not an ethical proposition at all; it is a mere tautology. The whole object of
Mill’s book is to help us to discover what we ought to do; but in fact, by attempting to

define the meaning of this ought, he has completely debarred himself from ever
fulfilling that object: he has confined himself to telling us what we do do. (§ 44 ¶ 3)
Mill’s first argument then is that, because good means desired, therefore the desired is
good; but having thus arrived at an ethical conclusion, by denying that any ethical
conclusion is possible, he still needs another argument to make his conclusion a basis
for Hedonism. He has to prove that we always do desire pleasure or freedom from
pain, and that we never desire anything else whatever. This second doctrine, which
Professor Sidgwick has called Psychological Hedonism, I accordingly discussed. I
pointed out how obviously untrue it is that we never desire anything but pleasure; and
how there is not a shadow of ground for saying even that, whenever we desire
anything, we always desire pleasure as well as that thing. I attributed the obstinate
belief in these untruths partly to a confusion between the cause of desire and the
object of desire. It may, I said, be true that desire can never occur unless it be
preceded by some actual pleasure; but even if this is true, it obviously gives no
ground for saying that the object of desire is always some future pleasure. By the
object of desire is meant that, of which the idea causes desire in us; it is some
pleasure, which we anticipate, some pleasure which we have not got, which is the
object of desire, whenever we do desire pleasure. And any actual pleasure, which may
be excited by the idea of this anticipated pleasure, is obviously not the same pleasure
as that anticipated pleasure, of which only the idea is actual. This actual pleasure is
not what we want; what we want is always something which we have not got; and to
say that pleasure always causes us to want is quite a different thing from saying that
what we want is always pleasure. (§ 44 ¶ 4)
Finally, we saw, Mill admits all this. He insists that we do actually desire other things
than pleasure, and yet he says we do really desire nothing else. He tries to explain
away this contradiction, by confusing together two notions, which he has before
carefully distinguished—the notions of means and of end. He now says that a means
to an end is the same thing as a part of that end. To this last fallacy special attention
should be given, as our ultimate decision with regard to Hedonism will largely turn
upon it. (§ 44 ¶ 5)
§ 44, n. 1: p. 58.

§ 45.
It is this ultimate decision with regard to Hedonism at which we must now try to
arrive. So far I have been only occupied with refuting Mill’s naturalistic arguments
for Hedonism; but the doctrine that pleasure alone is desirable may still be true,
although Mill’s fallacies cannot prove it so. This is the question which we have now
to face. This proposition, pleasure alone is good or desirable, belongs undoubtedly to
that class of propositions, to which Mill at first rightly pretended it belonged, the class
of first principles, which are notamenable to direct proof. But in this case, as he also
rightly says, considerations may be presented capable of determining the intellect
either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine (p. 7). It is such considerations that
Professor Sidgwick presents, and such also that I shall try to present for the opposite
view. This proposition that pleasure alone is good as an end, the fundamental
proposition of Ethical Hedonism, will then appear, in Professor Sidgwick’s language,
as an object of intuition. I shall try to shew you why my intuition denies it, just as his

intuition affirms it. It may always be true notwithstanding; neither intuition can prove
whether it is true or not; I am bound to be satisfied, if I can present considerations
capable of determining the intellect to reject it. (§ 45 ¶ 1)
Now it may be said that this is a very unsatisfactory state of things. It is indeed; but it
is important to make a distinction between two different reasons, which may be given
for calling it unsatisfactory. Is it unsatisfactory because our principle cannot be
proved? or is it unsatisfactory merely because we do not agree with one another about
it? I am inclined to think that the latter is the chief reason. For the mere fact that in
certain cases proof is impossible does not usually give us the least uneasiness. For
instance, nobody can prove that there is a chair beside me; yet I do not suppose that
any one is much dissatisfied for that reason. We all agree that it is a chair, and that is
enough to content us, although it is quite possible we may be wrong. A madman, of
course, might come in and say that it is not a chair but an elephant. We could not
prove that he was wrong, and the fact that he did not agree with us might then begin
to make us uneasy. Much more, then, shall we be uneasy, if some one, whom we do
not think to be mad, disagrees with us. We shall try to argue with him, and we shall
probably be content if we lead him to agree with us, although we shall not have
proved our point. We can only persuade him by shewing him that our view is
consistent with something else which he holds to be true, whereas his original view is
contradictory to it. But it will be impossible to prove that that something else, which
we both agree to be true, is really so; we shall be satisfied to have settled the matter in
dispute by means of it, merely because we are agreed on it. In short, our
dissatisfaction in these cases is almost always of the type felt by the poor lunatic in
the story. I said the world was mad, says he, and the world said that I was mad; and,
confound it, they outvoted me. It is, I say, almost always such a disagreement, and not
the impossibility of proof, which makes us call the state of things unsatisfactory. For,
indeed, who can prove that proof itself is a warrant of truth? We are all agreed that the
laws of logic are true and therefore we accept a result which is proved by their means;
but such a proof is satisfactory to us only because we are all so fully agreed that it is a
warrant of truth. And yet we cannot, by the nature of the case, prove that we are right
in being so agreed. (§ 45 ¶ 2)
Accordingly, I do not think we need be much distressed by our admission that we
cannot prove whether pleasure alone is good or not. We may be able to arrive at an
agreement notwithstanding; and if so, I think it will be satisfactory. And yet I am not
very sanguine about our prospects of such satisfaction. Ethics, and philosophy in
general, have always been in a peculiarly unsatisfactory state. There has been no
agreement about them, as there is about the existence of chairs and lights and benches.
I should therefore be a fool if I hoped to settle one great point of controversy, now and
once for all. It is extremely improbable I shall convince. It would be highly
presumptuous even to hope that in the end, say two or three centuries hence, it will be
agreed that pleasure is not the sole good. Philosophical questions are so difficult, the
problems they raise are so complex, that no one can fairly expect, now, any more than
in the past, to win more than a very limited assent. And yet I confess that the
considerations which I am about to present appear to me to be absolutely convincing.
I do think that they ought to convince, if only I can put them well. In any case, I can
but try. I shall try now to put an end to that unsatisfactory state of things, of which I
have been speaking. I shall try to produce an agreement that the fundamental principle
of Hedonism is very like an absurdity, by shewing what it must mean, if it is clearly

thought out, and how that clear meaning is in conflict with other beliefs, which will, I
hope, not be so easily given up. (§ 45 ¶ 3)

§ 46.
Well, then, we now proceed to discuss Intuitionistic Hedonism. And the beginning of
this discussion marks, it is to be observed, a turning-point in my ethical method. The
point I have been labouring hitherto, the point that good is indefinable, and that to
deny this involves a fallacy, is a point capable of strict proof: for to deny it involves
contradictions. But now we are coming to the question, for the sake of answering
which Ethics exists, the question what things or qualities are good. Of any answer to
this question no direct proof is possible, and that, just because of our former answer,
as to the meaning of good, direct proof was possible. We are now confined to the
hope of what Mill calls indirect proof, the hope of determining one another’s intellect;
and we are now so confined, just because, in the matter of the former question we are
not so confined. Here, then, is an intuition to be submitted to our verdict—the
intuition that pleasure alone is good as an end—good in and for itself.(§ 46 ¶ 1)

§ 47.
Well, in this connection, it seems first desirable to touch on another doctrine of
Mill’s—another doctrine which, in the interest of Hedonism, Professor Sidgwick has
done very wisely to reject. This is the doctrine of difference of quality in pleasures. If
I am asked, says Mill , what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what
makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being
greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one
to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference,
irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable
pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competantly acquainted with both,
placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended
with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the
other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the
preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render
it, in comparison, of small account.(§ 47 ¶ 1)
Now it is well known that Bentham rested his case for Hedonism on quantity of
pleasure alone. It was his maxim, that quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as
good as poetry. And Mill apparently considers Bentham to have proved that
nevertheless poetry is better than pushpin; that poetry does produce a greater quantity
of pleasure. But yet, says Mill, the Utilitarians might have taken the other and, as it
may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency (p. 11). Now we see from this
that Mill acknowledges quality of pleasure to be another or different ground for
estimating pleasures, than Bentham’s quantity; and moreover, by that questionbegging higher, which he afterwards translates into superior, he seems to betray an
uncomfortable feeling, that, after all, if you take quantity of pleasure for your only
standard, something may be wrong and you may deserve to be called a pig. And it
may presently appear that you very likely would deserve this name. But, meanwhile, I
only wish to shew that Mill’s admissions as to the quality of pleasure are either
inconsistent with his Hedonism, or else afford no other ground for it than would be
given by mere quantity of pleasure. (§ 47 ¶ 2)

It will be seen that Mill’s test for one pleasure’s superiority in quality over another is
the preference of most people who have experienced both. A pleasure so preferred, he
holds, is more desirable. But then, as we have seen, he holds that to think of an object
as desirable and to think of it as pleasant are one and the same thing (p. 58). He holds,
therefore, that the preference of experts merely proves that one pleasure is pleasanter
than another. But if that is so, how can he distinguish this standard from the standard
of quantity of pleasure? Can one pleasure be pleasanter than another, except in the
sense that it gives more pleasure? Pleasant must, if words are to have any meaning at
all, denote some one quality common to all things that are pleasant; and, if so, then
one thing can only be more pleasant than another, according as it has more or less of
this one quality. But, then, let us try the other alternative, and suppose that Mill does
not seriously mean that this preference of experts merely proves one pleasure to be
pleasanter than another. Well, in this case, what does preferred mean? It cannot mean
more desired, since, as we know, the degree of desire is always, according to Mill, in
exact proportion to the degree of pleasantness. But, in that case, the basis of Mill’s
Hedonism collapses, for he is admitting that one thing may be preferred over another,
and thus proved more desirable, although it is not more desired. In this case, Mill’s
judgment of preference is just a judgment of that intuitional kind which I have been
contending to be necessary to establish the hedonistic or any other principle. It is a
direct judgment that one thing is more desirable, or better than another; a judgment
utterly independent of all considerations as to whether one thing is more desired or
pleasanter than another. This is to admit that good is good and indefinable. (§ 47 ¶ 3)
§47, n. 1: p. 12 [Ed.: Chapter 2 ¶ 5].

§ 48.
And note another point that is brought out by this discussion. Mill’s judgment of
preference, so far from establishing the principle that pleasure alone is good, is
obviously inconsistent with it. He admits that experts can judge whether one pleasure
is more desirable than another, because pleasures differ in quality. But what does this
mean? If one pleasure can differ from another in quality, that means, that a pleasure is
something complex, something composed, in fact, of pleasure in addition to that
which produces pleasure. For instance, Mill speaks of sensual indulgences as lower
pleasures. But what is a sensual indulgence? It is surely a certain excitement of some
sense together with the pleasure caused by such excitement. Mill, therefore, in
admitting that a sensual indulgence can be directly judged to be lower than another
pleasure, in which the degree of pleasure involved may be the same, is admitting that
other things may be good, or bad, quite independently of the pleasure which
accompanies them. A pleasure is, in fact, merely a misleading term which conceals the
fact that what we are dealing with is not pleasure but something else, which may
indeed necessarily produce pleasure, but is nevertheless quite distinct from it. (§ 48 ¶
1)
Mill, therefore, in thinking that to estimate quality of pleasure is quite consistent with
his hedonistic principle that pleasure and absence of pain alone are desirable as ends
has again committed the fallacy of confusing ends and means. For take even the most
favourable supposition of his meaning; let us suppose that by a pleasure he does not
mean, as his words imply, that which produces pleasure and the pleasure produced.
Let us suppose him to mean that there are various kinds of pleasure, in the sense in

which there are various kinds of colour—blue, red, green, etc. Even in this case, if we
are to say that our end is colour alone, then, although it is impossible we should have
colour without having some particular colour, yet the particular colour we must have,
is only a means to our having colour, if colour is really our end. And if colour is our
only possible end, as Mill says pleasure is, then there can be no possible reason for
preferring one colour to another, red, for instance, to blue, except that the one is more
of a colour than the other. Yet the opposite of this is what Mill is attempting to hold
with regard to pleasures. (§ 48 ¶ 2)
Accordingly a consideration of Mill’s view that some pleasures are superior to others
in quality brings out one point which may help to determine the intellect with regard
to the intuition Pleasure is the only good. For it brings out the fact that if you say
pleasure, you must mean pleasure: you must mean some one thing common to all
different pleasures, some one thing, which may exist in different degrees, but which
cannot differ in kind. I have pointed out that, if you say, as Mill does, that quality of
pleasure is to be taken into account, then you are no longer holding that pleasure
alone is good as an end, since you imply that something else, something which is not
present in all pleasures, is also good as an end. The illustration I have given from
colour expresses this point in its most acute form. It is plain that if you say Colour
alone is good as an end, then you can give no possible reason for preferring one
colour to another. Your only standard of good and bad will then be colour; and since
red and blue both conform equally to this, the only standard, you can have no other
whereby to judge whether red is better than blue. It is true that you cannot have colour
unless you also have one or all of the particular colours: they, therefore, if colour is
the end, will all be good as means, but none of them can be better than another even
as a means, far less can any one of them be regarded as an end in itself. Just so with
pleasure: If we do really mean Pleasure alone is good as an end, then we must agree
with Bentham that Quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry. To
have thus dismissed Mill’s reference to quality of pleasure, is therefore to have made
one step in the desired direction. The reader will now no longer be prevented from
agreeing with me, by any idea that the hedonistic principle Pleasure alone is good as
an end is consistent with the view that one pleasure may be of a better quality than
another. These two views, we have seen, are contradictory to one another. We must
choose between them: and if we choose the latter, then we must give up the principle
of Hedonism. (§ 48 ¶ 3)

§ 49.
But, as I said, Professor Sidgwick has seen that they are inconsistent. He has seen that
he must choose between them. He has chosen. He has rejected the test by quality of
pleasure, and has accepted the hedonistic principle. He still maintains that Pleasure
alone is good as an end. I propose therefore to discuss the considerations which he has
offered in order to convince us. I shall hope that discussion to remove some more of
such prejudices and misunderstandings as might prevent agreement with me. If I can
shew that some of the considerations which Professor Sidgwick urges are such as we
need by no means agree with, and that others are actually rather in my favour than in
his, we may have again advanced a few steps nearer to the unanimity which we
desire. (§ 49 ¶ 1)

§ 50.

The passages in the Methods of Ethics to which I shall now invite attention are to be
found in I. IX. 4 and in III. XIV. 4—5. (§ 50 ¶ 1)
The first of these two passages runs as follows:(§ 50 ¶ 2)
I think that if we consider carefully such permanent results as are commonly judged to
be good, other than qualities of human beings, we can find nothing that, on reflection,
appears to possess this quality of goodness out of relation to human existence, or at
least to some consciousness or feeling. (§ 50 ¶ 3)
For example, we commonly judge some inanimate objects, scenes, etc. to be good as
possessing beauty, and others bad from ugliness: still no one would consider it
rational to aim at the production of beauty in external nature, apart from any possible
contemplation of it by human beings. In fact when beauty is maintained to be
objective, it is not commonly meant that it exists as beauty out of relation to any mind
whatsoever: but only that there is some standard of beauty valid for all minds. (§ 50 ¶
4)
It may, however, be said that beauty and other results commonly judged to be good,
though we do not conceive them to exist out of relation to human beings (or at least
minds of some kind), are yet so far separable as ends from the human beings on
whom their existence depends, that their realisation may conceivably come into
competition with the perfection or happiness of these beings. Thus, though beautiful
things cannot be thought worth producing except as possible objects of contemplation,
still a man may devote himself to their production without any consideration of the
persons who are to contemplate them. Similarly knowledge is a good which cannot
exist except in minds; and yet one may be more interested in the development of
knowledge than in its possession by any particular minds; and may take the former as
an ultimate end without regarding the latter. (§ 50 ¶ 5)
Still, as soon as the alternatives are clearly apprehended, it will, I think, be generally
held that beauty, knowledge, and other ideal goods, as well as all external material
things, are only reasonably to be sought by men in so far as they conduce either (1) to
Happiness or (2) to the Perfection or Excellence of human existence. I say human, for
though most utilitarians consider the pleasure (and freedom from pain) of the inferior
animals to be included in the Happiness which they take as the right and proper end of
conduct, no one seems to contend that we ought to aim at perfecting brutes, except as
a means to our ends, or at least as objects of scientific or aesthetic contemplation for
us. Nor, again, can we include, as a practical end, the existence of beings above the
human. We certainly apply the idea of Good to the Divine Existence, just as we do to
His work, and indeed in a pre-eminent manner: and when it is said that we should do
all things to the glory of God, it may seem to be implied that the existence of God is
made better by our glorifying Him. Still this inference when explicitly drawn appears
somewhat impious and theologians generally recoil from it, and refrain from using the
notion of a possible addition to the Goodness of the Divine Existence as a ground of
human duty. Nor can the influence of our actions on other extra-human intelligences
besides the Divine be at present made matter of scientific discussion. (§ 50 ¶ 6)
I shall therefore confidently lay down, that if there be any Good other than Happiness
to be sought by man, as an ultimate practical end, it can only be the Goodness,

Perfection, or Excellence of Human Existence. How far this notion includes more
than Virtue, what its precise relation to Pleasure is, and to what method we shall be
logically led if we accept it as fundamental, are questions which we shall more
conveniently discuss after the detailed examination of these two other notions,
Pleasure and Virtue, in which we shall be engaged in the two following Books. (§ 50
¶ 7)
It will be observed that in this passage Prof. Sidgwick tries to limit the range of
objects among which the ultimate end may be found. He does not yet say what that
end is, but he does exclude from it everything but certain characters of Human
Existence. And the possible ends, which he thus excludes, do not again come up for
consideration. They are put out of court once and for all by this passage and by this
passage only. Now is this exclusion justified?(§ 50 ¶ 8)
I cannot think it is. No one, says Prof. Sidgwick, would consider it rational to aim at
the production of beauty in external nature, apart from any possible contemplation of
it by human beings. Well, I may say at once, that I, for one, do consider this rational;
and let us see if I cannot get any one to agree with me. Consider what this admission
really means. It entitles us to put the following case. Let us imagine one world
exceedingly beautiful. Imagine it as beautiful as you can; put into it whatever on this
earth you most admire—mountains, rivers, the sea; trees, and sunsets, stars and moon.
Imagine these all combined in the most exquisite proportions, so that no one thing jars
against another, but each contributes to the beauty of the whole. And then imagine the
ugliest world you can possibly conceive. Imagine it simply one heap of filth,
containing everything that is most disgusting to us, for whatever reason, and the
whole, as far as may be, without one redeeming feature. Such a pair of worlds we are
entitled to compare: they fall within Prof. Sidgwick’s meaning, and the comparison is
highly relevant to it. The only thing we are not entitled to imagine is that any human
being ever has or ever, by any possibility, can, live in either, can ever see and enjoy
the beauty of the one or hate the foulness of the other. Well, even so, supposing them
quite apart from any possible contemplation by human beings; still, is it irrational to
hold that it is better that the beautiful world should exist than the one which is ugly?
Would it not be well, in any case, to do what we could to produce it rather than the
other? Certainly I cannot help thinking that it would; and I hope that some may agree
with me in this extreme instance. The instance is extreme. It is highly improbable, not
to say, impossible, we should ever have such a choice before us. In any actual choice
we should have to consider the possible effects of our action upon conscious beings,
and among these possible effects there are always some, I think, which ought to be
preferred to the existence of mere beauty. But this only means that in our present
state, in which but a very small portion of the good is attainable, the pursuit of beauty
for its own sake must always be postponed to the pursuit of some greater good, which
is equally attainable. But it is enough for my purpose, if it be admitted that, supposing
no greater good were at all attainable, then beauty must in itself be regarded as a
greater good than ugliness; if it be admitted that, in that case, we should not be left
without any reason for preferring one course of action to another, we should not be
left without any duty whatever, but that it would then be our positive duty to make the
world more beautiful, so far as we were able, since nothing better than beauty could
then result from our efforts. If this be once admitted, if in any imaginable case you do
admit that the existence of a more beautiful thing is better in itself than that of one
more ugly, quite apart from its effects on any human feeling, then Prof. Sidgwick’s

principle has broken down. Then we shall have to include in our ultimate end
something beyond the limits of human existence. I admit, of course, that our beautiful
world would be better still, if there were human beings in it to contemplate and enjoy
its beauty. But that admission makes nothing against my point. If it be once admitted
that the beautiful world in itself is better than the ugly, then it follows, that however
many beings may enjoy it, and however much better their enjoyment may be than it is
itself, yet its mere existence adds something to the goodness of the whole: it is not
only a means to our end, but also itself a part thereof. (§ 50 ¶ 9)

§ 51.
In the second passage to which I referred above, Prof. Sidgwick returns from the
discussion of Virtue and Pleasure, with which he has meanwhile been engaged, to
consider what among the parts of Human Existence to which, as we saw, he has
limited the ultimate end, can really be considered as such end. What I have just said,
of course, appears to me to destroy the force of this part of his argument too. If, as I
think, other things than any part of Human Existence can be ends-in-themselves, then
Prof. Sidgwick cannot claim to have discovered the Summum Bonum, when he has
merely determined what parts of Human Existence are in themselves desirable. But
this error may be admitted to be utterly insignificant in comparison with that which
we are now about to discuss. (§ 51 ¶ 1)
It may be said, says Prof. Sidgwick (III. XIV. §§ 4—5), that we may … regard
cognition of Truth, contemplation of Beauty, Free or Virtuous action, as in some
measure preferable alternatives to Pleasure or Happiness—even though we admit that
Happiness must be included as a part of Ultimate Good…. I think, however, that this
view ought not to commend itself to the sober judgment of reflective persons. In order
to show this, I must ask the reader to use the same twofold procedure that I before
requested him to employ in considering the absolute and independent validity of
common moral precepts. I appeal firstly to his intuitive judgment after due
consideration of the question when fairly placed before it: and secondly to a
comprehensive comparison of the ordinary judgments of mankind. As regards the first
argument, to me at least it seems clear after reflection that these objective relations of
the conscious subject, when distinguished from the consciousness accompanying and
resulting from them, are not ultimately and intrinsically desirable; any more than
material or other objects are, when considered apart from any relation to conscious
existence. Admitting that we have actual experience of such preferences as have just
been described, of which the ultimate object is something that is not merely
consciousness: it still seems to me that when (to use Butler’s phrase) we sit down in a
cool hour, we can only justify to ourselves the importance that we attach to any of
these objects by considering its conduciveness, in one way or another, to the
happiness of sentient beings.(§ 51 ¶ 2)
The second argument, that refers to the common sense of mankind, obviously cannot
be made completely cogent; since, as above stated, several cultivated persons do
habitually judge that knowledge, art, etc.,—not to speak of Virtue—are ends
independently of the pleasure derived from them. But we may urge not only that all
these elements of ideal good are productive of pleasure in various ways; but also that
they seem to obtain the commendation of Common Sense, roughly speaking, in
proportion to the degree of this productiveness. This seems obviously true of Beauty;

and will hardly be denied in respect of any kind of social ideal: it is paradoxical to
maintain that any degree of Freedom, or any form of social order, would still be
commonly regarded as desirable even if we were certain that it had no tendency to
promote the general happiness. The case of Knowledge is rather more complex; but
certainly Common Sense is most impressed with the value of knowledge, when its
fruitfulness has been demonstrated. It is, however, aware that experience has
frequently shown bow knowledge, long fruitless, may become unexpectedly fruitful,
and how light may be shed on one part of the field of knowledge from another
apparently remote: and even if any particular branch of scientific pursuit could be
shown to be devoid of even this indirect utility, it would still deserve some respect on
utilitarian grounds; both as furnishing to the inquirer the refined and innocent
pleasures of curiosity, and because the intellectual disposition which it exhibits and
sustains is likely on the whole to produce fruitful knowledge. Still in cases
approximating to this last, Common Sense is somewhat disposed to complain of the
misdirection of valuable effort; so that the meed of honour commonly paid to Science
seems to be graduated, though perhaps unconsciously, by a tolerably exact utilitarian
scale. Certainly the moment the legitimacy of any branch of scientific inquiry is
seriously disputed, as in the recent case of vivisection, the controversy on both sides is
generally conducted on an avowedly utilitarian basis. (§ 51 ¶ 3)
The case of Virtue requires special consideration: since the encouragement in each
other of virtuous impulses and dispositions is a main aim of men’s ordinary moral
discourse; so that even to raise the question whether this encouragement can go too
far has a paradoxical air. Still, our experience includes rare and exceptional cases in
which the concentration of effort on the cultivation of virtue has seemed to have
effects adverse to general happiness, through being intensified to the point of moral
fanaticism, and so involving a neglect of other conditions of happiness. If, then, we
admit as actual or possible such infelicific effects of the cultivation of Virtue, I think
we shall also generally admit that, in the case supposed, conduciveness to general
happiness should be the criterion for deciding how far the cultivation of Virtue should
be carried. (§ 51 ¶ 4)
There we have Prof. Sidgwick’s argument completed. We ought not, he thinks, to aim
at knowing the Truth, or at contemplating Beauty, except in so far as such knowledge
or such contemplation contributes to increase the pleasure or to diminish the pain of
sentient beings. Pleasure alone is good for its own sake: knowledge of the Truth is
good only as a means to pleasure. (§ 51 ¶ 5)

§ 52.
Let us consider what this means. What is pleasure? It is certainly something of which
we may be conscious, and which, therefore, may be distinguished from our
consciousness of it. What I wish first to ask is this: Can it really be said that we value
pleasure, except in so far as we are conscious of it? Should we think that the
attainment of pleasure, of which we never were and never could be conscious, was
something to be aimed at for its own sake? It may be impossible that such pleasure
should ever exist, that it should ever be thus divorced from consciousness; although
there is certainly much reason to believe that it is not only possible but very common.
But, even supposing that it were impossible, that is quite irrelevant. Our question is: Is
it the pleasure, as distinct from the consciousness of it, that we set value on? Do we

think the pleasure valuable in itself, or must we insist that, if we are to think the
pleasure good, we must have consciousness of it too?(§ 52 ¶ 1)
This consideration is very well put by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue Philebus (21 A). (§
52 ¶ 2)
Would you accept, Protarchus, says Socrates, to live your whole life in the enjoyment
of the greatest pleasures? Of course I would, says Protrarchus. (§ 52 ¶ 3)
Socrates. Then would you think you needed anything else besides, if you possessed
this one blessing in completeness?(§ 52 ¶ 4)
Protarchus. Certainly not. (§ 52 ¶ 5)
Socrates. Consider what you are saying. You would not need to be wise and
intelligent and reasonable, nor anything like this? Would you not even care to keep
your sight?(§ 52 ¶ 6)
Protarchus. Why should I? I suppose I should have all I want, if I was pleased. (§ 52
¶ 7)
Socrates. Well, then, supposing you lived so, you would enjoy always throughout
your life the greatest pleasure?(§ 52 ¶ 8)
Protarchus. Of course. (§ 52 ¶ 9)
Socrates. But, on the other hand, inasmuch as you would not possess intelligence and
memory and knowledge and true opinion, you would, in the first place, necessarily be
without the knowledge whether you were pleased or not. For you would be devoid of
any kind of wisdom. You admit this?(§ 52 ¶ 10)
Protarchus. I do. The consequence is absolutely necessary. (§ 52 ¶ 11)
Socrates. Well, then, besides this, not having memory, you must also be unable to
remember even that you ever were pleased; of the pleasure which falls upon you at
the moment not the least vestige must afterwards remain. And again, not having true
opinion, you cannot think that you are pleased when you are; and, being bereft of your
reasoning faculties, you cannot even have the power to reckon that you will be
pleased in future. You must live the life of an oyster, or of some other of those living
creatures, whose home is the seas and whose souls are concealed in shelly bodies. Is
all this so, or can we think otherwise than this?(§ 52 ¶ 12)
Protarchus. How can we?(§ 52 ¶ 13)
Socrates. Well, then, can we think such a life desirable?(§ 52 ¶ 14)
Protarchus. Socrates, your reasoning has left me utterly dumb. (§ 52 ¶ 15)
Socrates, we see, persuades Protarchus that Hedonism is absurd. If we are really going
to maintain that pleasure alone is good as an end, we must maintain that it is good,

whether we are conscious of it or not. We must declare it reasonable to take as our
ideal (an unattainable ideal it may be) that we should be as happy as possible, even on
condition that we never know and never can know that we are happy. We must be
willing to sell in exchange for the mere happiness ever vestige of knowledge, both in
ourselves and in others, both of happiness itself and of every other thing. Can we
really still disagree? Can any one still declare it obvious that this is reasonable? That
pleasure alone is good as an end?(§ 52 ¶ 16)
The case, it is plain, is just like that of the colours, only, as yet, not nearly so strong.
It is far more possible that we should some day be able to produce the intensest
pleasure, without any consciousness that it is there, than that we should be able to
produce more colour, without its being any particular colour. Pleasure and
consciousness can be far more easily distinguished from one another, than colour
from the particular colours. And yet even if this were not so, we should be bound to
distinguish them if we really wished to declare pleasure alone to be our ultimate end.
Even if consciousness were an inseparable accompaniment of pleasure, a sine quâ non
of its existence, yet, if pleasure is the only end, we are bound to call consciousness a
mere means to it, in any intelligible sense that can be given to the word means. And if,
on the other hand, as I hope is now plain, the pleasure would be comparatively
valueless without the consciousness, then we are bound to say that pleasure is not the
only end, that some consciousness at least must be included with it as a veritable part
of the end. (§ 52 ¶ 17)
For our question is now solely what the end is: it is quite another question how far
that end may be attainable by itself, or must involve the simultaneous attainment of
other things. It may well be that the practical conclusions at which Utilitarians do
arrive, and even those at which they ought logically to arrive, are not far from the
truth. But in so far as their reason for holding these conclusions to be true is that
Pleasure alone is good as an end, they are absolutely wrong: and it is with reasons
that we are chiefly concerned in any scientific Ethics. (§ 52 ¶ 18)
§ 52, n. 1: § 48 sup.

§ 53.
It seems, then, clear that Hedonism is in error, so far as it maintains that pleasure
alone, and not the consciousness of pleasure, is the sole good. And this error seems
largely due to the fallacy which I pointed out above in Mill—the fallacy of confusing
means and end. It is falsely supposed that, since pleasure must always be
accompanied by consciousness (which is, itself, extremely doubtful), therefore it is
indifferent whether we say that pleasure or the consciousness of pleasure is the sole
good. Practically, of course, it would be indifferent at which we aimed, if it were
certain that we could not get the one without the other; but where the question is of
what is good in itself—where we ask: For the sake of what is it desirable to get that
which we aim at?—the distinction is by no means unimportant. Here we are placed
before an exclusive alternative. Either pleasure by itself (even though we can’t get it)
would be all that is desirable, or a consciousness of it would be more desirable still.
Both these propositions cannot be true, and I think it is plain that the latter is true;
whence it follows that pleasure is not the sole good. (§ 53 ¶ 1)

Still it may be said that, even if consciousness of pleasure, and not pleasure alone, is
the sole good, this conclusion is not very damaging to Hedonism. It may be said that
Hedonists have always meant by pleasure the consciousness of pleasure, though they
have not been at pains to say so; and this, I think is, in the main, true. To correct their
formula in this respect could, therefore, only be a matter of practical importance, if it
is possible to produce pleasure without producing consciousness of it. But even this
importance, which I think our conclusion so far really has, is, I admit, comparatively
slight. What I wish to maintain is that even consciousness of pleasure is not the sole
good: that, indeed, it is absurd so to regard it. And the chief importance of what has
been said so far lies in the fact that the same method, which shews that consciousness
of pleasure is more valuable than pleasure, seems also to shew that consciousness of
pleasure is itself far less valuable than other things. The supposition that
consciousness of pleasure is the sole good is due to a neglect of the same distinctions
which have encouraged the careless assertion that pleasure is the sole good. (§ 53 ¶ 2)
The method which I employed in order to shew that pleasure itself was not the sole
good, was that of considering what value we should attach to it, if it existed in
absolute isolation, stripped of all its usual accompaniments. And this is, in fact, the
only method that can be safely used, when we wish to discover what degree of value a
thing has in itself. The necessity of employing this method will be best established by
a discussion of the arguments used by Prof. Sidgwick in the passage last quoted, and
by an exposure of the manner in which they are calculated to mislead. (§ 53 ¶ 3)

§ 54.
With regard to the second of them, it only maintains that other things, which might be
supposed to share with pleasure the attribute of goodness, seem to obtain the
commendation of Common Sense, roughly speaking, in proportion to the degree of
their productiveness of pleasure. Whether even this rough proportion holds between
the commendation of Common Sense and the felicific effects of that which it
commends is a question extremely difficult to determine; and we need not enter into it
here. For, even assuming it to be true, and assuming the judgments of Common Sense
to be on the whole correct, what would it shew? It would shew, certainly, that
pleasure was a good criterion of right action—that the same conduct which produced
most pleasure would also produce most good on the whole. But this would by no
means entitle us to the conclusion that the greatest pleasure constituted what was best
on the whole: it would still leave open the alternative that the greatest quantity of
pleasure was as a matter of fact, under actual conditions, generally accompanied by
the greatest quantity of other goods, and that it therefore was not the sole good. It
might indeed seem to be a strange coincidence that these two things should always,
even in this world, be in proportion to one another. But the strangeness of this
coincidence will certainly not entitle us to argue directly that it does not exist—that it
is an illusion, due to the fact that pleasure is really the sole good. The coincidence
may be susceptible of other explanations; and it would even be our duty to accept it
unexplained, if direct intuition seemed to declare that pleasure was not the sole good.
Moreover it must be remembered that the need for assuming such a coincidence rests
in any case upon the extremely doubtful proposition that felicific effects are roughly
in proportion to the approval of Common Sense. And it should be observed that,
though Prof. Sidgwick maintains this to be the case, his detailed illustrations only tend
to shew the very different proposition that a thing is not held to be good, unless it

gives a balance of pleasure; not that the degree of commendation is in proportion to
the quantity of pleasure. (§ 54 ¶ 1)

§ 55.
The decision, then, must rest upon Prof. Sidgwick’s first argument—the appeal to our
intuitive judgment after due consideration of the question when fairly placed before it.
And here it seems to me plain that Prof. Sidgwick has failed, in two essential respects,
to place the question fairly before either himself or his reader. (§ 55 ¶ 1)
(1) What he has to shew is, as he says himself, not merely that Happiness must be
included as a part of Ultimate Good. This view, he says, ought not to commend itself
to the sober judgment of reflective persons. And why? Because these objective
relations, when distinguished from the consciousness accompanying and resulting
from them, are not ultimately and intrinsically desirable. Now, this reason, which is
offered as shewing that to consider Happiness as a mere part of Ultimate Good does
not meet the facts of intuition, is, on the contrary, only sufficient to shew that it is a
part of Ultimate Good. For from the fact that no value resides in one part of a whole,
considered by itself, we cannot infer that all the value belonging to the whole does
reside in the other part, considered by itself. Even if we admit that there is much value
in the enjoyment of Beauty, and none in the mere contemplation of it, which is one of
the constituents of that complex fact, it does not follow that all the value belongs to
the other constituent, namely, the pleasure which we take in contemplating it. It is
quite possible that this constituent also has no value in itself; that the value belongs to
the whole state, and to that only: so that both the pleasure and the contemplation are
mere parts of the good, and both of them equally necessary parts. In short, Prof.
Sidgwick’s argument here depends upon the neglect of that principle, which I tried to
explain in my first chapter and which I said I should call the principle of organic
relations. The argument is calculated to mislead, because it supposes that, if we see a
whole state to be valuable, and also see that one element of that state has no value by
itself, then the other element, by itself, must have all the value which belongs to the
whole state. The fact is, on the contrary, that, since the whole may be organic, the
other element need have no value whatever, and that even if it have some, the value of
the whole may be very much greater. For this reason, as well as to avoid confusion
between means and end, it is absolutely essential to consider each distinguishing
quality, in isolation, in order to decide what value it possesses. Prof. Sidgwick, on the
other hand, applies this method of isolation only to one element in the wholes he is
considering. He does not ask the question: If consciousness of pleasure existed
absolutely by itself, would a sober judgment be able to attribute much value to it? It
is, in fact, always misleading to take a whole, that is valuable (or the reverse), and
then to ask simply: To which of its constituents does this whole owe its value or its
vileness? It may well be that it owes it to none; and, if one of them does appear to
have some value in itself, we shall be led into the grave error of supposing that all the
value of the whole belongs to it alone. It seems to me that this error has commonly
been committed with regard to pleasure. Pleasure does seem to be a necessary
constituent of most valuable wholes; and, since the other constituents, into which we
may analyse them, may easily seem not to have any value, it is natural to suppose that
all the value belongs to pleasure. That this natural supposition does not follow from
the premises is certain; and that it is, on the contrary, ridiculously far from the truth
appears evident to my reflective judgment. If we apply either to pleasure or to

consciousness of pleasure the only safe method, that of isolation, and ask ourselves:
Could we accept, as a very good thing, that mere consciousness of pleasure, and
absolutely nothing else, should exist, even in the greatest quantities? I think we can
have no doubt about answering: No. Far less can we accept this as the sole good. Even
if we accept Prof. Sidgwick’s implication (which yet appears to me extremely
doubtful) that consciousness of pleasure has a greater value by itself than
Contemplation of Beauty, it seems to me that a pleasurable Contemplation of Beauty
has certainly an immeasurably greater value than mere Consciousness of Pleasure. In
favour of this conclusion I can appeal with confidence to the sober judgment of
reflective persons. (§ 55 ¶ 2)
§ 55, n. 1: §§ 18-19, § 22 ¶ 4.

§ 56.
(2) That the value of a pleasurable whole does not belong solely to the pleasure which
it contains, may, I think, be made still plainer by consideration of another point in
which Prof. Sidgwick’s argument is defective. Prof. Sidgwick maintains, as we saw,
the doubtful proposition, that the conduciveness to pleasure of a thing is in rough
proportion to its commendation by Common Sense. But he does not maintain, what
would be undoubtedly false, that the pleasantness of every state is in proportion to the
commendation of that state. In other words, it is only when you take into account the
whole consequences of any state, that he is able to maintain the coincidence of
quantity of pleasure with the objects approved by Common Sense. If we consider each
state by itself, and ask what is the judgment of Common Sense as to its goodness as
an end, quite apart from its goodness as a means, there can be no doubt that Common
Sense holds many much less pleasant states to be better than many far more pleasant:
that it holds, with Mill, that there are higher pleasures, which are more valuable,
though less pleasant, than those that are lower. Prof. Sidgwick might, of course,
maintain that in this Common Sense is merely confusing means and ends: that what it
holds to be better as an end, is in reality only better as a means. But I think his
argument is defective in that he does not seem to see sufficiently plainly that, as far as
intuitions of goodness as an end are concerned, he is running grossly counter to
Common Sense; that he does not emphasise sufficiently the distinction between
immediate pleasantness and conduciveness to pleasure. In order to place fairly before
us the question what is good as an end we must take states that are immediately
pleasant and ask if the more pleasant are always also the better; and whether, if some
that are less pleasant appear to be so, it is only because we think they are likely to
increase the number of the more pleasant. That Common Sense would deny both these
suppositions, and rightly so, appears to me indubitable. It is commonly held that
certain of what would be called the lowest forms of sexual enjoyment, for instance,
are positively bad, although it is by no means clear that they are not the most pleasant
states we ever experience. Common Sense would certainly not think it a sufficient
justification for the pursuit of what Prof. Sidgwick calls the refined pleasures here and
now, that they are the best means to the future attainment of a heaven, in which there
would be no more refined pleasures—no contemplation of beauty, no personal
affections—but in which the greatest possible pleasure would be obtained by a
perpetual indulgence in bestiality. Yet Prof. Sidgwick would be bound to hold that, if
the greatest possible pleasure could be obtained in this way, and if it were attainable,
such a state of things would be a heaven indeed, and that all human endeavours

should be devoted to its realisation. I venture to think that this view is as false as it is
paradoxical. (§ 56 ¶ 1)

§ 57.
It seems to me, then, that if we place fairly before us the question: Is consciousness of
pleasure the sole good? the answer must be: No. And with this the last defence of
Hedonism has been broken down. In order to put the question fairly we must isolate
consciousness of pleasure. We must ask: Suppose we were conscious of pleasure
only, and of nothing else, not even that we were conscious, would that state of things,
however great the quantity, be very desirable? No one, I think, can suppose it so. On
the other hand, it seems quite plain, that we do regard as very desirable, many
complicated states of mind in which the consciousness of pleasure is combined with
consciousness of other things—states which we call enjoyment of so and so. If this is
correct, then it follows that consciousness of pleasure is not the sole good, and that
many other states, in which it is included only as a part, are much better than it. Once
we recognise the principle of organic unities, any objection to this conclusion,
founded on the supposed fact that the other elements of such states have no value in
themselves, must disappear. And I do not know that I need say any more in refutation
of Hedonism. (§ 57 ¶ 1)

§ 58.
It only remains to say something of the two forms in which a hedonistic doctrine is
commonly held—Egoism and Utilitarianism. (§ 58 ¶ 1)
Egoism, as a form of Hedonism, is the doctrine which holds that we ought each of us
to pursue our own greatest happiness as our ultimate end. The doctrine will, of course,
admit that sometimes the best means to this end will be to give pleasure to others; we
shall, for instance, by so doing, procure for ourselves the pleasures of sympathy, of
freedom from interference, and of self-esteem; and these pleasures, which we may
procure by sometimes aiming directly at the happiness of other persons, may be
greater than any we could otherwise get. Egoism in this sense must therefore be
carefully distinguished from Egoism in another sense, the sense in which Altruism is
its proper opposite. Egoism, as commonly opposed to Altruism, is apt to denote
merely selfishness. In this sense, a man is an egoist, if all his actions are actually
directed towards gaining pleasure for himself; whether he holds that he ought to act
so, because he will thereby obtain for himself the greatest possible happiness on the
whole, or not. Egoism may accordingly be used to denote the theory that we should
always aim at getting pleasure for ourselves, because that is the best means to the
ultimate end, whether the ultimate end be our own greatest pleasure or not. Altruism,
on the other hand, may denote the theory that we ought always to aim at other
people’s happiness, on the ground that this is the best means of securing our own as
well as theirs. Accordingly, an Egoist, in the sense in which I am now going to talk of
Egoism, an Egoist, who holds that his own greatest happiness is the ultimate end, may
at the same time be an Altruist: he may hold that he ought to love his neighbour, as
the best means to being happy himself. And conversely an Egoist, in the other sense,
may at the same time be a Utilitarian. He may hold that he ought always to direct his
efforts towards getting pleasure for himself on the ground that he is thereby most
likely to increase the general sum of happiness. (§ 58 ¶ 2)

§ 59.
I shall say more later about this second kind of Egoism, this anti-altruistic Egoism,
this Egoism as a doctrine of means. What I am now concerned with is that utterly
distinct kind of Egoism, which holds that each man ought rationally to hold: My own
greatest happiness is the only good thing there is; my actions can only be good as
means, in so far as they help to win me this. This is a doctrine which is not much held
by writers now-a-days. It is a doctrine that was largely held by English Hedonists in
the 17th and 18th centuries: it is, for example, at the bottom of Hobbes’ Ethics. But
even the English school appear to have made one step forward in the present century:
they are most of them now-a-days Utilitarians. They do recognise that if my own
happiness is good, it would be strange that other people’s happiness should not be
good too. (§ 59 ¶ 1)
In order fully to expose the absurdity of this kind of Egoism, it is necessary to
examine certain confusions upon which its plausibility depends. (§ 59 ¶ 2)
The chief of these is the confusion involved in the conception of my own good as
distinguished from the good of others. This is a conception which we all use every
day; it is one of the first to which the plain man is apt to appeal in discussing any
question of Ethics: and Egoism is commonly advocated chiefly because its meaning is
not clearly perceived. It is plain, indeed, that the name Egoism more properly applies
to the theory that my own good is the sole good, than that my own pleasure is so. A
man may quite well be an Egoist, even if he be not a Hedonist. The conception which
is, perhaps, most closely associated with Egoism is that denoted by the words my own
interest. The Egoist is the man who holds that a tendency to promote his own interest
is the sole possible, and sufficient, justification of all his actions. But this conception
of my own interest plainly includes, in general, very much more than my own
pleasure. It is, indeed, only because and in so far as my own interest has been thought
to consist solely in my own pleasure, that Egoists have been led to hold that my own
pleasure is the sole good. Their course of reasoning is as follows: The only thing I
ought to secure is my own interest; but my own interest consists in my greatest
possible pleasure; and therefore the only thing I ought to pursue is my own pleasure.
That it is very natural, on reflection, thus to identify my own pleasure with my own
interest; and that it has generally been done by modern moralists, may be admitted.
But when Prof. Sidgwick points this out (III. xiv. § 5, Div. III.), he should have also
pointed out that this identification has by no means been made in ordinary thought.
When the plain man says my own interest, he does not mean my own pleasure—he
does not commonly even include this—he means my own advancement, my own
reputation, the getting of a better income etc., etc. That Prof. Sidgwick should not
have noticed this, and that he should give the reason he gives for the fact that the
ancient moralists did not identify my own interest with my own pleasure, seems to be
due to his having failed to notice that very confusion in the conception of my own
good which I am now to point out. That confusion has, perhaps, been more clearly
perceived by Plato than by any other moralist, and to point it out suffices to refute
Prof. Sidgwick’s own view that Egoism is rational. (§ 59 ¶ 3)
What, then, is meant by my own good? In what sense can a thing be good for me? It is
obvious, if we reflect, that the only thing which can belong to me, which can be mine,
is something which is good, and not the fact that it is good. When, therefore, I talk of

anything I get as my own good, I must mean either that the thing I get is good, or that
my possessing it is good. In both cases it is only the thing or the possession of it
which is mine, and not the goodness of that thing or that possession. There is no
longer any meaning in attaching the my to our predicate, and saying: The possession
of this by me is my good. Even if we interpret this by My possession of this is what I
think good, the same still holds: for what I think is that my possession of it is good
simply; and, if I think rightly, then the truth is that my possession of it is good
simply—not, in any sense, my good; and, if I think wrongly, it is not good at all. In
short, when I talk of a thing as my own good all that I can mean is that something
which will be exclusively mine, as my own pleasure is mine (whatever be the various
senses of this relation denoted by possession), is also good absolutely; or rather that
my possession of it is good absolutely. The good of it can in no possible sense be
private or belong to me; any more than a thing can exist privately or for one person
only. The only reason I can have for aiming at my own good, is that it is good
absolutely that what I so call should belong to me—good absolutely that I should have
something, which, if I have it, others cannot have. But if it is good absolutely that I
should have it, then everyone else has as much reason for aiming at my having it, as I
have myself. If, therefore, it is true of any single man’s interest or happiness that it
ought to be his sole ultimate end, this can only mean that that man’s interest or
happiness is the sole good, the Universal Good, and the only thing that anybody ought
to aim at. What Egoism holds, therefore, is that each man’s happiness is the sole
good—that a number of different things are each of them the only good thing there
is—an absolute contradiction! No more complete and thorough refutation of any
theory could be desired. (§ 59 ¶ 4)

§ 60.
Yet Prof. Sidgwick holds that Egoism is rational; and it will be useful briefly to
consider the reasons which he gives for this absurd conclusion. The Egoist, he says
(last Chap § 1), may avoid the proof of Utilitarianism by declining to affirm, either
implicitly or explicitly, that his own greatest happiness is not merely the ultimate
rational end for himself, but a part of Universal Good. And in the passage to which he
here refers us, as having there seen this, he says: It cannot be proved that the
difference between his own happiness and another’s happiness is not for him allimportant (IV. ii. § 1). What does Prof. Sidgwick mean by these phrases the ultimate
rational end for himself, and for him all-important? He does not attempt to define
them; and it is largely the use of such undefined phrases which causes absurdities to
be committed in philosophy (§ 60 ¶ 1)
Is there any sense in which a thing can be an ultimate rational end for one person and
not for another? By ultimate must be meant at least that the end is good-in-itself—
good in our undefinable sense; and by rational, at least, that it is truly good. That a
thing should be an ultimate rational end means, then, that it is truly good in itself; and
that it is truly good in itself means that it is a part of Universal Good. Can we assign
any meaning to that qualification for himself, which will make it cease to be a part of
Universal Good? The thing is impossible: for the Egoist’s happiness must either be
good in itself, and so a part of Universal Good, or else it cannot be good in itself at
all: there is no escaping this dilemma. And if it is not good at all, what reason can he
have for aiming at it? how can it be a rational end for him? That qualification for
himself has no meaning unless it implies not for others; and if it implies not for

others, then it cannot be a rational end for him, since it cannot be truly good in itself:
the phrase an ultimate rational end for himself is a contradiction in terms. By saying
that a thing is an end for one particular person, or good for him, can only be meant
one of four things. Either (1) it may be meant that the end in question is something
which will belong exclusively to him; but in that case, if it is to be rational for him to
aim at it, that he should exclusively possess it must be a part of Universal Good. Or
(2) it may be meant that it is the only thing at which he ought to aim; but this can only
be, because, by so doing, he will do the most he can towards realising Universal
Good: and this, in our case, will only give Egoism as a doctrine of means. Or (3) it
may be meant that the thing is what he desires or thinks good; and then, if he thinks
wrongly, it is not a rational end at all, and, if he thinks rightly, it is a part of Universal
Good. Or (4) it may be meant that it is peculiarly appropriate that a thing which will
belong exclusively to him should also by him be approved or aimed at; but, in this
case, both that it should belong to him and that he should aim at it must be parts of
Universal Good: by saying that a certain relation between two things is fitting or
appropriate, we can only mean that the existence of that relation is absolutely good in
itself (unless it be so as a means, which gives case (2)). By no possible meaning, then,
that can be given to the phrase that his own happiness is the ultimate rational end for
himself can the Egoist escape the implication that his own happiness is absolutely
good; and by saying that it is the ultimate rational end, he must mean that it is the only
good thing—the whole of Universal Good: and, if he further maintains, that each
man’s happiness is the ultimate rational end for him, we have the fundamental
contradiction of Egoism—that an immense number of different things are, each of
them, the sole good.—And it is easy to see that the same considerations apply to the
prhase that the difference between his own happiness and another’s is for him allimportant. This can only mean either (1) that his own happiness is the only end which
will affect him, or (2) that the only important thing for him (as a means) is to look to
his own happiness, or (3) that it is only his own happiness which he cares about, or (4)
that it is good that each man’s happiness should be the only concern of that man. And
none of these propositions, true as they may be, have the smallest tendency to shew
that if his own happiness is desirable at all, it is not a part of Universal Good. Either
his own happiness is a good thing or it is not; and, in whatever sense it may be allimportant for him, it must be true that, if it is not good, he is not justified in pursuing
it, and that, if it is good, everyone else has an equal reason to pursue it, so far as they
are able and so far as it does not exclude their attainment of other more valuable parts
of Universal Good. In short it is plain that the addition of for him for me to such
words as ultimate rational end, good, important can introduce nothing but confusion.
The only possible reason that can justify any action is that by it the greatest possible
amount of what is good absolutely should be realised. And if anyone says that the
attainment of his own happiness justifies his actions, he must mean that this is the
greatest possible amount of Universal Good which he can realise. And this again can
only be true either because he has no power to realise more, in which case he only
holds Egoism as a doctrine of means; or else because his own happiness is the greatest
amount of Universal Good which can be realised at all, in which case we have Egoism
proper, and the flagrant contradiction that every person’s happiness is singly the
greatest amount of Universal Good which can be realised at all. (§ 60 ¶ 2)

§ 61.

It should be observed that, since this is so, the relation of Rational Egoism to Rational
Benevolence, which Prof. Sidgwick regards as the profoundest problem of Ethics (III.
xiii. § 5, n. 1), appears in quite a different light to that in which he presents it. Even if
a man, he says, admits the self-evidence of the principle of Rational Benevolence, he
may still hold that his own happiness is an end which it is irrational for him to
sacrifice to any other; and that therefore a harmony between the maxim of Prudence
and the maxim of Rational Benevolence must be somehow demonstrated, if morality
is to be made completely rational. This latter view is that which I myself hold (last
Chap. § 1). Prof. Sidgwick then goes on to shew that the inseparable connection
between Utilitarian Duty and the greatest happiness of the individual who conforms to
it cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated on empirical grounds (Ib. § 4). And the final
paragraph of his book tells us that, since the reconciliation of duty and self-interest is
to be regarded as a hypothesis logically necessary to avoid a fundamental
contradiction in one chief department of our thought, it remains to ask how far this
necessity constitutes a sufficient reason for accepting this hypothesis (Ib. § 5). To
assume the existence of such a Being, as God, by the consensus of theologians, is
conceived to be would, he has already argued, ensure the required reconciliation;
since the Divine Sanctions of such a God would, of course, suffice to make it always
every one’s interest to promote the universal happiness to the best of his knowledge
(Ib. § 5). (§ 61 ¶ 1)
Now what is this reconciliation of duty and self-interest which Divine Sanctions could
ensure? It would consist in the mere fact that the same conduct which produced the
greatest possible happiness of the greatest number would always also produce the
greatest possible happiness of the agent. If this were the case (and our empirical
knowledge shews that it is not the case in this world), morality would, Prof. Sidgwick
thinks, be completely rational; we should avoid an ultimate and fundamental
contradiction in our apparent intuitions of what is Reasonable in conduct. That is to
say, we should avoid the necessity of thinking that it is as manifest an obligation to
secure our own greatest Happiness (maxim of Prudence), as to secure the greatest
Happiness on the whole (maxim of Benevolence). But it is perfectly obvious we
should not. Prof. Sidgwick here commits the characteristic fallacy of Empiricism—the
fallacy of thinking that an alteration in facts could make a contradiction cease to be a
contradiction. That a single man’s happiness should be the sole good, and that also
everybody’s happiness should be the sole good, is a contradiction which cannot be
solved by the assumption that the same conduct will secure both: it would be equally
contradictory, however certain we were that that assumption was justified. Prof.
Sidgwick strains at a gnat and swallows a camel. He thinks the Divine Omnipotence
must be called into play to secure that what gives other people pleasure should also
give it to him—that only so can Ethics be made rational; while he overlooks the fact
that even this exercise of Divine Omnipotence would leave in Ethics a contradiction,
in comparison with which his difficulty is a trifle—a contradiction, which would
reduce all Ethics to mere nonsense, and before which the Divine Omnipotence must
be powerless to all eternity. That each man’s happiness should be the sole good,
which we have seen to be the principle of Egoism, is in itself a contradiction; and that
it should also be true that the Happiness of all is the sole good, which is the principle
of Universalistic Hedonism, would introduce another contradiction. And that these
propositions should all be true might well be called the profoundest problem in
Ethics: it would be a problem necessarily insoluble. But they cannot all be true, and
there is no reason, but confusion, for the supposition that they are. Prof. Sidgwick

confuses this contradiction with the mere fact (in which there is no contradiction) that
our own greatest happiness and that of all do not seem always attainable by the same
means. This fact, if Happiness were the sole good, would indeed be of some
importance; and, on any view, similar facts are of importance. But they are nothing
but instances of the one important fact that in this world the quantity of good which is
attainable is ridiculously small compared to that which is imaginable. That I cannot
get the most possible pleasure for myself, if I produce the most possible pleasure on
the whole, is no more the profoundest problem of Ethics, than that in any case I
cannot get as much pleasure altogether as would be desirable. It only states that, if we
get as much good as possible in one place, we may get less on the whole, because the
quantity of attainable good is limited. To say that I have to choose between my own
good and that of all is a false antithesis: the only rational question is how to choose
between my own and that of others, and the principle on which this must be answered
is exactly the same as that on which I must choose whether to give pleasure to this
other person or to that. (§ 61 ¶ 2)
§ 61, n. 1: The italics are mine.

§ 62.
It is plain, then, that the doctrine of Egoism is self-contradictory; and that one reason
why this is not perceived is a confusion with regard to the meaning of the phrase my
own good. And it may be observed that this confusion and the neglect of this
contradiction are necessarily involved in the transition from Naturalistic Hedonism, as
ordinarily held, to Utilitarianism. Mill, for instance, as we saw, declares: Each person,
so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness (p. 53). And he
offers this as a reason why the general happiness is desirable. We have seen that to
regard it as such, involves, in the first place, the naturalistic fallacy. But moreover,
even if that fallacy were not a fallacy, it could only be a reason for Egoism and not for
Utilitarianism. Mill’s argument is as follows: a man desires his own happiness;
therefore his own happiness is desirable. Further: A man desires nothing but his own
happiness; therefore his own happiness is alone desirable. We have next to remember,
that everybody, according to Mill, so desires his own happiness: and then it will
follow that everybody’s happiness is alone desirable. And this is simply a
contradiction in terms. Just consider what it means. Each man’s happiness is the only
thing desirable: several different things are each of them the only thing desirable. This
is the fundamental contradiction of Egoism. In order to think that what his arguments
tend to prove is not Egoism but Utilitarianism, Mill must think that he can infer from
the proposition Each man’s happiness is his own good, the proposition The happiness
of all is the good of all; whereas in fact, if we understand what his own good means, it
is plain that the latter can only be inferred from The happiness of all is the good of
each. Naturalistic Hedonism, then, logically leads only to Egoism. Of course, a
Naturalist might hold that what we aimed at was simply pleasure not our own
pleasure; and that, always assuming the naturalistic fallacy, would give an
unobjectionable ground for Utilitarianism. But more commonly he will hold that it is
his own pleasure he desires, or at least will confuse this with the other; and then he
must logically be led to adopt Egoism and not Utilitarianism. (§ 62 ¶ 1)

§ 63.

The second cause I have to give why Egoism should be thought reasonable, is simply
its confusion with that other kind of Egoism—Egoism as a doctrine of means. This
second Egoism has a right to say: You ought to pursue your own happiness,
sometimes at all events; it may even say: Always. And when we find it saying this we
are apt to forget its proviso: But only as a means to something else. The fact is we are
in an imperfect state; we cannot get the ideal all at once. And hence it is often our
bounden duty, we often absolutely ought, to do things which are good only or chiefly
as means: we have to do the best we can, what is absolutely right, but not what is
absolutely good. Of this I shall say more hereafter. I only mention it here because I
think it is much more plausible to say that we ought to pursue our own pleasure as a
means than as an end, and that this doctrine, through confusion, lends some of its
plausibility to the utterly distinct doctrine of Egoism proper: My own greatest
pleasure is the only good thing. (§ 63 ¶ 1)

§ 64.
So much for Egoism. Of Utilitarianism not much need be said; but two points may
seem deserving of notice. (§ 64 ¶ 1)
The first is that this name, like that of Egoism, does not naturally suggest that all our
actions are to be judged according to the degree in which they are a means to
pleasure. Its natural meaning is that the standard of right and wrong in conduct is its
tendency to promote the interest of everybody. And by interest is commonly meant a
variety of different goods, classed together only because they are what a man
commonly desires for himself, so far as his desires have not that psychological quality
which is meant by moral. The useful thus means, and was in ancient Ethics
systematically used to mean, what is a means to the attainment of goods other than
moral goods. It is quite an unjustifiable assumption that these goods are only good as
means to pleasure or that they are commonly so regarded. The chief reason for
adopting the name Utilitarianism was, indeed, merely to emphasize the fact that right
and wrong conduct must be judged by its results—as a means, in opposition to the
strictly Intuitionistic view that certain ways of acting were right and others wrong,
whatever their results might be. In thus insisting that what is right must mean what
produces the best possible results Utilitarianism is fully justified. But with this correct
contention there has been historically, and very naturally, associated a double error.
(1) The best possible results were assumed to consist only in a limited class of goods,
roughly coinciding with those which were popularly distinguished as the results of
merely useful or interested actions; and these again were hastily assumed to be good
only as means to pleasure. (2) The Utilitarians tend to regard everything as a mere
means, neglecting the fact that some things which are good as means are also good as
ends. Thus, for instance, assuming pleasure to be a good, there is also a tendency to
value present pleasure only as a means to future pleasure, and not, as is strictly
necessary if pleasure is good as an end, also to weigh it against possible future
pleasures. Much utilitarian argument involves the logical absurdity that what is here
and now, never has any value in itself, but is only to be judged by its consequences;
which again, of course, when they are realised, would have no value in themselves,
but would be mere means to a still further future, and so on ad infinitum. (§ 64 ¶ 2)
The second point deserving notice with regard to Utilitarianism is that, when the name
is used for a form of Hedonism, it does not commonly, even in its description of its

end, accurately distinguish between means and end. Its best-known formula is that the
result by which actions are to be judged is the greatest happiness for the greatest
number. But it is plain that, if pleasure is the sole good, provided the quantity be
equally great, an equally desirable result will have been obtained whether it be
enjoyed by many or by few, or even if it be enjoyed by nobody. It is plain that, if we
ought to aim at the greatest happiness of the greatest number, this can only, on the
hedonistic principle, be because the existence of pleasure in a great number of persons
seems to be the best means available for attaining the existence of the greatest
quantity of pleasure. This may actually be the case; but it is fair to suspect that
Utilitarians have been influenced, in their adoption of the hedonistic principle, by this
failure to distinguish clearly between pleasure or consciousness of pleasure and its
possession by a person. It is far easier to regard the possession of pleasure by a
number of persons as the sole good, than so to regard the mere existence of an equally
great quantity of pleasure. If, indeed, we were to take the Utilitarian principle strictly,
and to assume them to mean that the possession of pleasure by many persons was
good in itself, the principle is not hedonistic: it includes as a necessary part of the
ultimate end, the existence of a number of persons, and this will include very much
more than mere pleasure. (§ 64 ¶ 3)
Utilitarianism, however, as commonly held, must be understood to maintain that
either mere consciousness of pleasure, or consciousness of pleasure together with the
minimum adjunct which may be meant by the existence of such consciousness in at
least one person, is the sole good. This is its significance as an ethical doctrine; and as
such it has already been refuted in my refutation of Hedonism. The most that can be
said for it is that it does not seriously mislead in its practical conclusions, on the
ground that, as an empirical fact, the method of acting which brings most good on the
whole does also bring most pleasure. Utilitarians do indeed generally devote most of
their arguments to shewing that the course of action which will bring most pleasure is
in general such as common sense would approve. We have seen that Prof. Sidgwick
appeals to this fact as tending to shew that pleasure is the sole good; and we have also
seen that it does not tend to shew this. We have seen how very flimsy the other
arguments advanced for this proposition are; and that, if it be fairly considered by
itself, it appears to be quite ridiculous. And, moreover, that the actions which produce
most good on the whole do also produce most pleasure is extremely doubtful. The
arguments tending to shew it are all more or less vitiated by the assumption that what
appear to be necessary conditions for the attainment of most pleasure in the near
future, will always continue so to be. And, even with this vicious assumption, they
only succeed in making out a highly problematical case. How, therefore, this fact is to
be explained, if it be a fact, need not concern us. It is sufficient to have shewn that
many complex states of mind are much more valuable than the pleasure they contain.
If this be so, no form of Hedonism can be true. And, since the practical guidance
afforded by pleasure as a criterion is small in proportion as the calculation attempts to
be accurate, we can well afford to await further investigation, before adopting a guide,
whose utility is very doubtful and whose trustworthiness we have grave reason to
suspect. (§ 64 ¶ 4)

§ 65.
The most important points which I have endeavoured to establish in this chapter are as
follows. (1) Hedonism must be strictly defined as the doctrine that Pleasure is the only

thing which is good in itself: this view seems to owe its prevalence mainly to the
naturalistic fallacy, and Mill’s arguments may be taken as a type of those which are
fallacious in this respect; Sidgwick alone has defended it without committing this
fallacy, and its final refutation must therefore point out the errors in his arguments
(36—38). (2) Mill’s Utilitarianism is criticised; it being shewn (a) that he commits
the naturalistic fallacy in identifying desirable with desired; (b) that pleasure is not the
only object of desire. The common arguments for Hedonism seem to rest on those two
errors (39—44). (3) Hedonism is considered as an Intuition, and it is pointed out (a)
that Mill’s allowance that some pleasures are inferior in quality to others implies both
that it is an Intuition and that it is a false one (46—48); (b) that Sidgwick fails to
distinguish pleasure from consciousness of pleasure, and that it is absurd to regard the
former at all events, as the sole good (49—52); (c) that it seems equally absurd to
regard consciousness of pleasure as the sole good, since, if it were so, a world in
which nothing else existed might be absolutely perfect: Sidgwick fails to put to
himself this question, which is the only clear and decisive one (53—57). (4) What are
commonly considered to be the two main types of Hedonism, namely, Egoism and
Utilitarianism, are not only different from, but strictly contradictory of, one another;
since the former asserts My own greatest pleasure is the sole good, the latter The
greatest pleasure of all is the sole good. Egoism seems to owe its plausibility partly to
the failure to observe this contradiction—a failure which is exemplified by Sidgwick;
partly to a confusion of Egoism as a doctrine of end, with the same as a doctrine of
means. If Hedonism is true, Egoism cannot be so; still less can it be so, if Hedonism is
false. The end of Utilitarianism, on the other hand, would, if Hedonism were true, be,
not indeed the best conceivable, but the best possible for us to promote; but it is
refuted by the refutation of Hedonism (58—64) (§ 65 ¶ 1)

Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics.
§ 66.
In this chapter I propose to deal with a type of ethical theory which is exemplified in
the ethical views of the Stoics, of Spinoza, of Kant, and especially of a number of
modern writers, whose views in this respect are mainly due to the influence of Hegel.
These ethical theories have this in common, that they use some metaphysical
proposition as a ground for inferring some fundamental proposition of Ethics. They
all imply, and many of them expressly hold, that ethical truths follow logically from
metaphysical truths—that Ethics should be based on Metaphysics. And the result is
that they all describe the Supreme Good in metaphysical terms. (§ 66 ¶ 1)
What, then, is to be understood by metaphysical? I use the term, as I explained in
Chapter II, in opposition to natural. I call those philosophers preeminently
metaphysical who have recognised most clearly that not everything which is is a
natural object. Metaphysicians have, therefore, the great merit of insisting that our
knowledge is not confined to the things which we can touch and see and feel. They
have always been much occupied, not only with that other class of natural objects
which consists in mental facts, but also with the class of objects or properties of
objects, which certainly do not exist in time, are not therefore parts of Nature, and
which, in fact, do not exist at all. To this class, as I have said, belongs what we mean
by the adjective good. It is not goodness, but only the things or qualities which are
good, which can exist in time—can have duration, and begin and cease to exist—can
be objects of perception. But the most prominent members of this class are perhaps
numbers. It is quite certain that two natural objects may exist; but it is equally certain
that two itself does not exist and never can. Two and two are four. But that does not
mean that either two or four exists. Yet it certainly means something. Two is
somehow, although it does not exist. And it is not only simple terms of propositions—
the objects about which we know truths—that belong to this class. The truths which
we know about them form, perhaps, a still more important subdivision. No truth does,
in fact, exist; but this is peculiarly obvious with regard to truths like Two and two are
four, in which the objects, about which they are truths, do not exist either. It is with
the recognition of such truths as these—truths which have been called universal—and
of their essential unlikeness to what we can touch and see and feel, that metaphysics
proper begins. Such universal truths have always played a large part in the reasonings
of metaphysicians from Plato's time till now; and that they have directed attention to
the difference between these truths and what I have called natural objects is the chief
contribution to knowledge which distinguishes them from that other class of
philosophers—empirical philosophers—to which most Englishmen have belonged. (§
66 ¶ 2)
But though, if we are to define metaphysics by the contribution which it has actually
made to knowledge, we should have to say that it has emphasized the importance of
objects which do not exist at all, metaphysicians themselves have not recognised this.
They have indeed recognised and insisted that there are, or may be, objects of
knowledge which do not exist in time, or at least which we cannot perceive; and in
recognising the possibility of these, as an object of investigation, they have, it may be
admitted, done a service to mankind. But they have in general supposed that whatever

does not exist in time, must at least exist elsewhere, if it is to be at all—that, whatever
does not exist in Nature, must exist in some supersensible reality, whether timeless or
not. Consequently they have held that the truths with which they have been occupied,
over and above the objects of perception, were in some way truths about such
supersensible reality. If, therefore, we are to define metaphysics not by what it has
attained, but by what it has attempted, we should say that it consists in the attempt to
obtain knowledge, by processes of reasoning, of what exists but is not a part of
Nature. Metaphysicians have actually held that they could give us such knowledge of
non-natural existence. They have held that their science consists in giving us such
knowledge as can be supported by reasons, of that supersensible reality of which
religion professes to give us a fuller knowledge, without any reasons. When,
therefore, I spoke above of metaphysical propositions, I meant propositions about the
existence of something supersensible—of something which is not an object of
perception, and which cannot be inferred from what is an object of perception by the
same rules of inference by which we infer the past and future of what we call Nature.
And when I spoke of metaphysical terms, I meant terms which refer to qualities of
such a supersensible reality, which do not belong to anything natural. I admit that
metaphysics should investigate what reasons there may be for belief in such a
supersensible reality; since I hold that its peculiar province is the truth about all
objects which are not natural objects. And I think that the most prominent
characteristic of metaphysics, in history, has been its profession to prove the truth
about non-natural existents. I define metaphysical, therefore, by a reference to
supersensible reality; although I think that the only non-natural objects, about which it
has succeeded in obtaining truth, are objects which do not exist at all. (§ 66 ¶ 3)
So much, I hope, will suffice to explain what I mean by the term metaphysical, and to
shew that it refers to a clear and important distinction. It was not necessary for my
purpose to make the definition exhaustive or to shew that it corresponds in essentials
with established usage. The distinction between Nature and a supersensible reality is
very familiar and very important: and since the metaphysician endeavours to prove
things with regard to a supersensible reality, and since he deals largely in truths which
are not mere natural facts, it is plain that his arguments, and errors (if any), will be of
a more subtle kind than those which I have dealt with under the name of Naturalism.
For these two reasons it seemed convenient to treat Metaphysical Ethics by
themselves. (§ 66 ¶ 4)

§ 67.
I have said that those systems of Ethics, which I propose to call Metaphysical, are
characterised by the fact that they describe the Supreme Good in metaphysical terms;
and this has now to been explained as meaning that they describe it in terms of
something which (they hold) does exist, but does not exist in Nature—in terms of a
supersensible reality. A Metaphysical Ethics is marked by the fact that it makes the
assertion: That which would be perfectly good is something which exists, but is not
natural; that which has some characteristic possessed by a supersensible reality. Such
an assertion was made by the Stoics when they asserted that a life in accordance with
Nature was perfect. For they did not mean by Nature, what I have so defined, but
something supersensible which they inferred to exist, and which they held to be
perfectly good. Such an assertion, again, is made by Spinoza when he tells us that we
are more or less perfect, in proportion as we are more or less closely united with

Absolute Substance by the intellectual love of God. Such an assertion is made by
Kant when he tells us that his Kingdom of Ends is the ideal. And such, finally, is
made by modern writers who tell us that the final and perfect end is to realise our true
selves—a self different both from the whole and from any part of that which exists
here and now in Nature. (§ 67 ¶ 1)
Now it is plain that such ethical principles have a merit, not possessed by Naturalism,
in recognising that for perfect goodness much more is required than any quantity of
what exists here and now or can be inferred as likely to exist in the future. And
moreover it is quite possible that their assertions should be true, if we only understand
them to assert that something which is real possesses all the characteristics necessary
for perfect goodness. But this is not all that they assert. They also imply, as I said, that
this ethical proposition follows from some proposition which is metaphysical: that the
question What is real? has some logical bearing upon the question What is good? It
was for this reason that I described Metaphysical Ethics in Chapter II as based upon
the naturalistic fallacy. And that a knowledge of what is real supplies reasons for
holding certain things to be good in themselves is either implied or expressly asserted
by all those who define the Supreme Good in metaphysical terms. This contention is
part of what is meant by saying that Ethics should be based on Metaphysics. It is
meant that some knowledge of supersensible reality is necessary as a premise for
correct conclusions as to what ought to exist. This view is, for instance, plainly
expressed in the following statements: The truth is that the theory of Ethics which
seems most satisfactory has a metaphysical basis......If we rest our view of Ethics on
the idea of the development of the ideal self or of the rational universe, the
significance of this cannot be made fully apparent without a metaphysical
examination of the nature of self; nor can its validity be established except by a
discussion of the reality of the rational universe . The validity of an ethical
conclusion about the nature of the ideal, it is here asserted, cannot be established
except by considering the question whether that ideal is real. Such an assertion
involves the naturalistic fallacy. It rests upon the failure to perceive that any truth
which asserts This is good in itself is quite unique in kind—that it cannot be reduced
to any assertion about reality, and therefore must remain unaffected by any
conclusions we may reach about the nature of reality. This confusion as to the unique
nature of ethical truths is, I have said, involved in all those ethical theories which I
have called metaphysical. It is plain that, but for some confusion of the sort, no-one
would think it worth while even to describe the Supreme Good in metaphysical terms.
If, for instance, we are told that the ideal consists in the realisation of the true self, the
very words suggest that the fact that the self in question is true is supposed to have
some bearing on the fact that it is good. All the ethical truth which can possibly be
conveyed by such an assertion would be just as well conveyed by saying that the ideal
consisted in the realisation of a particular kind of self, which might be either real or
purely imaginary. Metaphysical Ethics, then, involves the supposition that Ethics can
be based on Metaphysics; and our first concern with them is to make clear that this
supposition must be false. (§ 67 ¶ 2)
§ 67, n. 1: Prof. J. S. Mackenzie, A Manual of Ethics, 4th ed., p. 431. The italics are
mine.

§ 68.

In what way can the nature of supersensible reality possibly have a bearing upon
Ethics? (§ 68 ¶ 1)
I have distinguished two kinds of ethical questions, which are far too commonly
confused with one another. Ethics, as commonly understood, has to answer both the
question What ought to be? and the question What ought we to do? The second of
these questions can only be answered by considering what effects our actions will
have. A complete answer to it would give us that department of Ethics which may be
called the doctrine of means or practical Ethics. And upon this department of ethical
enquiry it is plain that the nature of a supersensible reality may have a bearing. If, for
instance, Metaphysics could tell us not only that we are immortal, but also, in any
degree, what effects our actions in this life will have upon our condition in a future
one, such information would have an undoubted bearing upon the question what we
ought to do. The Christian doctrine of heaven and hell are in this way highly relevant
to practical Ethics. But it is worthy of notice that the most characteristic doctrines of
Metaphysics are such as either have no such bearing upon practical Ethics or have a
purely negative bearing—involving the conclusion that there is nothing which we
ought to do at all. They profess to tell us the nature not of a future reality, but of one
that is eternal and which therefore no actions of ours can have power to alter. Such
information may indeed have relevance to practical Ethics, but it must be of a purely
negative kind. For, if it holds, not only that such an eternal reality exists, but also, as
is commonly the case, that nothing else is real—that nothing either has been, is now,
or will be real in time—then truly it will follow that nothing we can do will ever bring
any good to pass. For it is certain that our actions can only affect the future; and if
nothing can be real in the future, we can certainly not hope ever to make any good
thing real. It would follow, then, that there can be nothing which we ought to do. We
cannot possibly do any good; for neither our efforts, nor any result which they may
seem to effect, have any real existence. But this consequence, though it follows
strictly from many metaphysical doctrines, is rarely drawn. Although a metaphysician
may say that nothing is real but that which is eternal, he will generally allow that there
is some reality also in the temporal: and his doctrine of an eternal reality need not
interfere with practical Ethics, if he allows that, however good the eternal reality may
be, yet some things will also exist in time, and that the existence of some will be
better than that of others. It is, however, worth while to insist upon this point, because
it is rarely fully realised. (§ 68 ¶ 2)
If it is maintained that there is any validity at all in practical Ethics—that any
proposition which asserts We ought to do so and so can have any truth—this
contention can only be consistent with the Metaphysics of an eternal reality, under
two conditions. One of these is, (1) that the true eternal reality, which is to be our
guide, cannot, as is implied by calling it true, be the only true reality. For a moral rule,
bidding us realise a certain end, can only be justified, if it is possible that that end
should, at least partially, be realised. Unless our efforts can effect the real existence of
some good, however little, we certainly have no reason for making them. And if the
eternal reality is the sole reality, then nothing good can possibly exist in time: we can
only be told to try to bring into existence something which we know beforehand
cannot possibly exist. If it is said that what exists in time can only be a manifestation
of the true reality, it must at least be allowed that that manifestation is another true
reality—a good which we really can cause to exist; for the production of something
quite unreal, even if it were possible, cannot be a reasonable end of action. But if the

manifestation of that which eternally exists is real, then that which eternally exists is
not the sole reality. (§ 68 ¶ 3)
And the second condition which follows from such a metaphysical principle of Ethics,
is (2) that the eternal reality cannot be perfect—cannot be the sole good. For just as a
reasonable rule of conduct requires that what we are told to realise should be capable
of being truly real, so it requires that the realisation of this ideal shall be truly good. It
is just that which can be realised by our efforts—the appearance of the eternal in time,
or whatsoever else is allowed to be attainable—which must be truly good, if it is to be
worth our efforts. That the eternal reality is good, will by no means justify us in
aiming at its manifestation, unless that manifestation itself be also good. For the
manifestation is different from the reality: its difference is allowed, when we are told
that it can be made to exist, whereas the reality itself exists unalterably. And the
existence of this manifestation is the only thing which we can hope to effect: that also
is admitted. If, therefore, the moral maxim is to be justified, it is the existence of this
manifestation, as distinguished from the existence of its corresponding reality, which
must be truly good. The reality may be good too: but to justify the statement that we
ought to produce anything, it must be maintained, that just that thing itself, and not
something else which may be like it, is truly good. If it is not true that the existence of
the manifestation will add something to the sum of good in the Universe, then we
have no reason to aim at making it exist; and if it is true that it will add something to
the sum of good, then the existence of that which is eternal cannot be perfect by
itself—it cannot include the whole of possible goods. (§ 68 ¶ 4)
Metaphysics, then, will have a bearing upon practical Ethics—upon the question what
we ought to do—if it can tell us anything about the future consequences of our actions
beyond what can be established by ordinary inductive reasoning. But the most
characteristic metaphysical doctrines, those which profess to tell us not about the
future but about the nature of an eternal reality, can either have no bearing upon this
practical question or else must have a purely destructive bearing. For it is plain that
what exists eternally cannot be affected by our actions; and only what is affected by
our actions can have a bearing on their value as means. But the nature of an eternal
reality either admits no inference as to the results of our actions, except in so far as it
can also give us information about the future (and how it can do this is not plain), or
else, if, as is usual, it is maintained to be the sole reality and the sole good, it shews
that no results of our actions can have any value whatever. (§ 68 ¶ 5)

§ 69.
But this bearing upon practical Ethics, such as it is, is not what is commonly meant
when it is maintained that Ethics must be based on Metaphysics. It is not the assertion
of this relation which I have taken to be characteristic of Metaphysical Ethics. What
metaphysical writers commonly maintain is not merely that Metaphysics can help us
to decide what the effects of our actions will be, but that it can tell us which among
possible effects will be good and which will be bad. They profess that Metaphysics is
a necessary basis for an answer to that other and primary ethical question: What ought
to be? What is good in itself? That no truth about what is real can have any logical
bearing upon the answer to this question has been proved in Chapter I. To suppose
that it has, implies the naturalistic fallacy. All that remains for us to do is, therefore, to
expose the main errors which seem to have lent plausibility to this fallacy in its

metaphysical form. If we ask: What bearing can Metaphysics have upon the question,
What is good? the only possible answer is: Obviously and absolutely none. We can
only hope to enforce conviction that this answer is the only true one by answering the
question: Why has it been supposed to have such a bearing? We shall find that
metaphysical writers seem to have failed to distinguish the primary ethical question:
What is good? from various other questions; and to point out these distinctions will
serve to confirm the view that their profession to base Ethics on Metaphysics is solely
due to confusion. (§ 69 ¶ 1)

§ 70.
And, first of all, there is an ambiguity in the very question: What is good? to which it
seems some influence must be attributed. The question may mean either: Which
among existing things are good? or else: What sort of things are good, what are the
things which, whether they are real or not, ought to be real? And of these two
questions it is plain that to answer the first, we must know both the answer to the
second and also the answer to this question: What is real? It asks us for a catalogue of
all the good things there are in the Universe and also which of them are good. Upon
this question then our Metaphysics would have a bearing, if it can tell us what is real.
It would help us to complete the list of things which are both real and good. But to
make such a list is not the business of Ethics. So far as it enquires What is good? its
business is finished when it has completed the list of things which ought to exist,
whether they do exist or not. And if our Metaphysics is to have any bearing upon this
part of the ethical problem, it must be because the fact that something is real gives a
reason for thinking that it or something else is good, whether it be real or not. That
any such fact can give any such reason is impossible; but it may be suspected that the
contrary supposition has been encouraged by the failure to distinguish between the
assertion This is good, when it means This sort of thing is good, or This would be
good, if it existed, and the assertion This existing thing is good. The latter proposition
obviously cannot be true, unless the thing exists; and hence the proof of the thing's
existence is a necessary step to its proof. Both propositions, however, in spite of this
immense difference between them, are commonly expressed in the same terms. We
use the same words, when we assert an ethical proposition about a subject that is
actually real, and when we assert it about a subject considered as merely possible. (§
70 ¶ 1)
In this ambiguity of language we have, then, a possible source of error with regard to
the bearing of truths that assert reality upon truths that assert goodness. And that this
ambiguity is actually neglected by those metaphysical writers who profess that the
Supreme Good consists in an eternal reality may be shewn in the following way. We
have seen, in considering the possible bearing of Metaphysics upon Practical Ethics,
that, since what exists eternally cannot possibly be affected by our actions, no
practical maxim can possibly be true, if the sole reality is eternal. This fact, as I said,
is commonly neglected by metaphysical writers: they assert both of the two
contradictory propositions that the sole reality is eternal and that its realisation in the
future is a good too. Prof. Mackenzie, we saw, asserts that we ought to aim at the
realisation of the true self or the rational universe: and yet Prof. Mackenzie holds, as
the word true plainly implies, that both the true self and the rational universe are
eternally real. Here we have already a contradiction in the supposition that what is
eternally real can be realised in the future; and it is comparatively unimportant

whether or not we add to this the further contradiction involved in the supposition that
the eternal is the sole reality. That such a contradiction should be supposed valid can
only be explained by a neglect of the distinction between a real subject and the
character which that real subject possesses. What is eternally real may, indeed, be
realised in the future, if by this be only meant the sort of thing which is eternally real.
But when we assert that a thing is good, what we mean is that its existence or reality
is good; and the eternal existence of a thing cannot possibly be the same good as the
existence in time of what, in a necessary sense, is nevertheless the same thing. When,
therefore, we are told that the future realisation of the true self is good, this can at
most only mean that the future realisation of a self exactly like the self, which is true
and exists eternally, is good. If this fact were clearly stated, instead of consistently
ignored, by those who advocate the view that the Supreme Good can be defined in
these metaphysical terms, it seems probable that the view that a knowledge of reality
is necessary to a knowledge of the Supreme Good would lose part of its plausibility.
That that at which we ought to aim cannot possibly be that which is eternally real,
even if it be exactly like it; and that the eternal reality cannot possibly be the sole
good—these two propositions seem sensibly to diminish the probability that Ethics
must be based on Metaphysics. It is not very plausible to maintain that because one
thing is real, therefore something like it, which is not real, would be good. It seems,
therefore, that some of the plausibility of Metaphysical Ethics may be reasonably
attributed to the failure to observe that verbal ambiguity, whereby This is good may
mean either This real thing is good or The existence of this thing (whether it exists or
not) would be good. (§ 70 ¶ 2)

§ 71.
By exposing this ambiguity, then, we are enabled to see more clearly what must be
meant by the question: Can Ethics be based on Metaphysics? and we are, therefore,
more likely to find the correct answer. It is now plain that a metaphysical principle of
Ethics which says This eternal reality is the Supreme Good can only mean Something
like this eternal reality would be the Supreme Good. We are now to understand such
principles as having the only meaning which they can consistently have, namely, as
describing the kind of thing which ought to exist in the future, and which we ought to
try to bring about. And, when this is clearly recognised, it seems more evident that the
knowledge that such a kind of thing is also eternally real, cannot help us at all towards
deciding the properly ethical question: Is the existence of that kind of thing good? If
we can see that an eternal reality is good, we can see, equally easily, once the idea of
such a thing has been suggested to us, that it would be good. The metaphysical
construction of Reality would therefore be quite useful, for the purposes of Ethics, if it
were a mere construction of an imaginary Utopia: provided the kind of thing
suggested is the same, fiction is as useful as truth, for giving us matter, upon which to
exercise the judgment of value. Though, therefore, we admit that Metaphysics may
serve an ethical purpose, in suggesting things, which would not otherwise have
occurred to us, but which, when they are suggested, we see to be good; yet, it is not as
Metaphysics—as professing to tell us what is real—that it has this use. And, in fact,
the pursuit of truth must limit the usefulness of Metaphysics in this respect. Wild and
extravagant as are the assertions which metaphysicians have made about reality, it is
not to be supposed but that they have been partially deterred from making them wilder
still, by the idea that it was their business to tell nothing but the truth. But the wilder
they are, and the less useful for Metaphysics, the more useful will they be for Ethics;

since, in order to be sure that we have neglected nothing in the description of our
ideal, we should have had before us as wide a field as possible of suggested goods. It
is probable that this utility of Metaphysics, in suggesting possible ideals, may
sometimes be what is meant by the assertion that Ethics should be based on
Metaphysics. It is not uncommon to find that which suggests a truth confused with
that on which it logically depends; and I have already pointed out that Metaphysical
have, in general, this superiority over Naturalistic systems; that they conceive the
Supreme Good as something differing more widely from what exists here and now.
But, if it be recognised that, in this sense, Ethics should, far more emphatically, be
based on fiction, metaphysicians will, I think, admit that a connection of this kind
between Metaphysics and Ethics would by no means justify the importance which
they attribute to the bearing of the one study on the other. (§ 71 ¶ 1)

§ 72.
We may, then, attribute the obstinate prejudice that a knowledge of supersensible
reality is a necessary step to a knowledge of what is good in itself, partly to a failure
to perceive that the subject of the latter judgment is not anything real as such, and
partly to a failure to distinguish the cause of our perception of a truth from the reason
why it is true. But these two causes will carry us only a very little way in our
explanation of why Metaphysics should have been supposed to have a bearing upon
Ethics. The first explanation which I have given would only account for the
supposition that a thing's reality is a necessary condition for tis goodness. This
supposition is, indeed, commonly made; we find it commonly presupposed that unless
a thing can be shewn to be involved in the constitution of reality, it cannot be good.
And it is, therefore, worthwhile to insist that this is not the case; that Metaphysics is
not even necessary to furnish part of the basis of Ethics. But when metaphysicians
talk of basing Ethics on Metaphysics they commonly mean much more than this.
They commonly mean that Metaphysics is the sole basis of Ethics—that it furnishes
not only one necessary condition but all the conditions necessary to prove that certain
things are good. And this view may, at first sight, appear to be held in two different
forms. It may be asserted that merely to prove a thing supersensibly real is sufficient
to prove it good: that the truly real must, for that reason alone, be truly good. But
more commonly it appears to be held that the real must be good because it possesses
certain characters. And we may, I think, reduce the first kind of assertion to no more
than this. When it is asserted that the real must be good, because it is real, it is
commonly also held that this is only because, in order to be real, it must be of a
certain kind. The reasoning by which it is thought that a metaphysical enquiry can
give an ethical conclusion is of the following form. From a consideration of what it is
to be real, we can infer that what is real must have certain supersensible properties:
but to have those properties is identical with being good—it is the very meaning of
the word: it follows therefore that what has these properties is good: and from a
consideration of what it is to be real, we can again infer what it is that has these
properties. It is plain that, if such reasoning were correct, any answer which could be
given to the question What is good in itself? could be arrived at by a purely
metaphysical discussion and by that alone. Just as, when Mill supposed that to be
good meant to be desired, the question What is good? could be and must be answered
solely by an empirical investigation of the question what was desired; so here, if to be
good means to have some supersensible property, the ethical question can and must be
answered by a metaphysical enquiry into the question, What has this property? What,

then, remains to be done in order to destroy the plausibility of Metaphysical Ethics, is
to express the chief errors which seem to have led metaphysicians to suppose that to
be good means to possess some supersensible property. (§ 72 ¶ 1)

§ 73.
What, then, are the chief reasons which have made it seem plausible to maintain that
to be good must mean to possess some supersensible property or to be related to some
supersensible reality? (§ 73 ¶ 1)
We may, first of all, notice one, which seems to have had some influence in causing
the view that good must be defined by some such property, although it does not
suggest any particular property as the one required. This reason lies in the supposition
that the proposition This is good or This would be good, if it existed must, in a certain
respect, be of the same type as other propositions. The fact is that there is one type of
proposition so familiar to everyone, and therefore having such a strong hold upon the
imagination, that philosophers have always supposed that all other types of
propositions must be reducible to it. This type is that of the objects of experience—of
all those truths which occupy our minds for the immensely greater part of our waking
lives: truths such as that somebody is in the room, that I am writing or eating or
talking. All these truths, however much they may differ, have this in common that in
them both the grammatical subject and the grammatical object stand for something
which exists. Immensely the commonest type of truth, then, is one which asserts a
relation between two existing things. Ethical truths are immediately felt not to
conform to this type, and the naturalistic fallacy arises from the attempt to make out
that, in some roundabout way, they do conform to it. It is immediately obvious that
when we see a thing to be good, its goodness is not a property which we can take up
in our hands, or separate from it even by the most delicate scientific instruments, and
transfer to something else. It is not, in fact, like most of the predicates which we
ascribe to things, a part of the thing to which we ascribe it. But philosophers suppose
that the reason why we cannot take goodness up and move it about, is not that it is a
different kind of object from any which can be moved about, but only that it
necessarily exists together with anything with which it does exist. They explain the
type of ethical truths by supposing it identical with the type of scientific laws. And it
is only when they have done this that the naturalistic philosophers proper—those who
are empiricists—and those whom I have called metaphysical part company. These
two classes of philosophers do, indeed, differ with regard to the nature of scientific
laws. The former class tend to suppose that they mean only This has accompanied,
does now, and will accompany that in these particular instances: they reduce the
scientific law quite simply and directly to the familiar type of proposition which I
have pointed out. But this does not satisfy the metaphysicians. They see that when
you say This would accompany that, if that existed, you don't mean only that this and
that have existed and will exist together so many times. But it is beyond even their
powers to believe that what you do mean is merely what you say. They still think you
must mean, somehow or other, that something does exist, since that is what you
generally mean when you say anything. They are as unable as the empiricists to
imagine that you can ever mean that 2+2=4. The empiricists say this means that so
many couples of couples of things have in each case been four things; and hence that
2 and 2 would not make 4, unless precisely those things had existed. The
metaphysicians feel that this is wrong; but they themselves have no better account of

its meaning to give than either, with Leibniz, that God's mind is in a certain state, or,
with Kant, that your mind is in a certain state, or finally, with Mr Bradley, that
something is in a certain state. Here, then, we have the root of the naturalistic fallacy.
The metaphysicians have the merit of seeing that when you say This would be good,
if it existed, you can't mean merely This has existed and was desired, however many
times that may have been the case. They will admit that some good things have not
existed in this world, and even that some may not have been desired. But what you
can mean, except that something exists, they really cannot see. Precisely the same
error which leads them to suppose that there must exist a supersensible Reality, leads
them to commit the naturalistic fallacy with regard to the meaning of good. Every
truth, they think, must mean somehow that something exists; and since, unlike the
empiricists, they recognise some truths which do not mean which do not mean that
anything exists here and now, these they think must mean that something exists not
here and now. On the same principle, since good is a predicate which neither does nor
can exist, they are bound to suppose either that to be good means to be related to some
other particular thing which can exist and does exist in reality; or else that it means
merely to belong to the real world—that goodness is transcended or absorbed in
reality. (§ 73 ¶ 2)

§ 74.
That such a reduction of all propositions to the type of those which assert either that
something exists or that something which exists has a certain attribute (which means,
that both exist in a certain relation to one another), is erroneous, may easily be seen by
reference to the particular class of ethical propositions. For whatever we may have
proved to exist, and whatever two existents we may have proved to be necessarily
connected with one another, it still remains a distinct and different question whether
what thus exists is good; whether either or both of the two existents is so; and whether
it is good that they should exist together. To assert the one is plainly and obviously
not the same thing as to assert the other. We understand what we mean by asking: Is
this, which exists, or necessarily exists, after all, good? and we perceive that we are
asking a question which has not been answered. In the face of this direct perception
that the two questions are distinct, no proof that they must be identical can have the
slightest value. That the proposition This is good is thus distinct from every other
proposition was proved in Chapter I; and I may now illustrate this fact by pointing out
how it is distinguished from two particular propositions with which it has commonly
been identified. That so and so ought to be done is commonly called a moral law; and
this phrase naturally suggests that the proposition is in some way analogous either to a
natural law, or to a law in the legal sense, or to both. All three are, in fact, really
analogous in one respect, and in one respect only: that they include a proposition
which is universal. A moral law asserts This is good in all cases; a natural law asserts
This happens in all cases; and a law, in the legal sense, It is commanded that this be
done, or left undone, in all cases. But since it is very natural to suppose that the
analogy extends further, and that the assertion This is good in all cases is equivalent to
the assertion This happens in all cases or to the assertion It is commanded htat this be
done in all cases, it may be useful briefly to point out that they are not equivalent. (§
74 ¶ 1)

§ 75.

The fallacy of supposing moral law to be analogous to natural law in respect of
asserting that some action is one which is always necessarily done is contained in one
of the most famous doctrines of Kant. Kant identifies what ought to be with the law
according to which a Free or Pure Will must act—with the only kind of action which
is possible for it. And by this identification he does not mean merely to assert that
Free Will is also under the necessity of doing what it ought; he means that what it
ought to do means nothing but its own law—the law according to which it must act. It
differs from the human will just in that, what we ought to do, is what it necessarily
does. It is autonomous; and by this is meant (among other things) that there is no
separate standard by which it can be judged: that the question Is the law by which this
Will acts a good one? is, in its case, meaningless. It follows that what is necessarily
willed by this Pure Will is good, not because that Will is good, nor for any other
reason; but merely because it is what is necessarily willed by a Pure Will. (§ 75 ¶ 1)
Kant's assertion of the Autonomy of the Practical Reason thus has the very opposite
effect to that which he desired; it makes his Ethics ultimately and hopelessly
heteronomous. His Moral Law is independent of Metaphysics only in the sense that
according to him we can knnow it independently; he holds that we can only infer that
there is Freedom, from the fact that the Moral Law is true. And so far as he keeps
strictly to this view, he does avoid the error, into which most metaphysical writers
fall, of allowing his opinions as to what is real to influence his judgments of what is
good. But he fails to see that on his view the Moral Law is dependent upon Freedom
in a far more important sense than that in which Freedom depends on the Moral Law.
He admits that Freedom is the ratio essendi of the Moral Law, whereas the latter is
only the ratio cognoscendi of Freedom. And this means that, unless Reality be such as
he says, no assertion that This is good can possibly be true: it can indeed have no
meaning. He has, therefore, furnished his opponents with a conclusive method of
attacking the validity of the Moral Law. If they can only shew by some other means
(which he denies to be possible but leaves theoretically open) that the nature of
Reality is not such as he says, he cannot deny that they will have proved his ethical
principle to be false. If what This ought be done means This is willed by a Free Will,
then, if it can be shewn that there is no Free Will which wills anything, it will follow
that nothing ought to be done. (§ 75 ¶ 2)

§ 76.
And Kant also commits the fallacy of supposing that This ought to be means This is
commanded. He conceives the Moral Law to be an Imperative. And this is a very
common mistake. This ought to be, it is assumed, must mean This is commanded;
nothing, therefore, would be good unless it were commanded; and since commands in
this world are liable to be erroneous, what ought to be in its ultimate sense means
what is commanded by some real supersensible authority. With regard to this
authority it is, then, no longer possible to ask Is it righteous? Its commands cannot fail
to be right, because to be right means to be what it commands. Here, therefore, law, in
the moral sense, is supposed to be analogous to law, in the legal sense, rather than, as
in the last instance, to law in the natural sense. It is supposed that moral obligation is
analogous to legal obligation, with this difference only that whereas the source of
legal obligation is earthly, that of moral obligation is heavenly. Yet it is obvious that
if by a source of obligation is meant only a power which binds you or compels you to
do a thing, it is not because it does do this that you ought to obey it. It is only if it be

itself so good, that it commands and enforces only what is good, that it can be a
source of moral obligation. And in that case what it commands and enforces would be
good, whether commanded and enforced or not. Just that which makes an obligation
legal, namely the fact that it is commanded by a certain kind of authority, is entirely
irrelevant to moral obligation. However an authority be defined, its commands will be
morally binding only if they are—morally binding; only if they tell us what ought to
be or what is a means to that which ought to be. (§ 76 ¶ 1)

§ 77.
In this last error, in the supposition that when I say You ought to do this I must mean
You are commanded to do this, we have one of the reasons which has led to the
supposition that the particular supersensible property by reference to which good must
be defined is Will. And that ethical conclusion may be obtained by enquiring into the
nature of a fundamentally real Will seems to be by far the commonest assumption of
Metaphysical Ethics at the present day. But this assumption seems to owe its
plausibility, not so much to the supposition that ought expresses a command, as to a
far more fundamental error. This error consists in supposing that to ascribe certain
predicates to a thing is the same thing as to say that that thing is the object of a certain
kind of psychical state. It is supposed that to say that a thing is real or true is the same
thing as to say that it is known in a certain way; and that the difference between the
assertion that it is good and the assertion that it is real—between an ethical, therefore,
and a metaphysical proposition—consists in the fact that whereas the latter asserts its
relation to Cognition the former asserts its relation to Will. (§ 77 ¶ 1)
Now that this is an error has been already shewn in Chapter I. That the assertion This
is good is not identical with the assertion This is willed, either by a supersensible will,
or otherwise, nor with any other proposition, has been proved; nor can I add anything
to that proof. But in face of this proof it may be anticipated that two lines of defence
may be taken up. (1) It may be maintained that, nevertheless, they really are identical,
and facts may be pointed out which seem to prove that identity. Or else (2) it may be
said that an absolute identity is not maintained: that it is only meant to assert that
there is some special connection between will and goodness, such as makes an
enquiry into the real nature of the former an essential step in the proof of ethical
conclusions. In order to meet these two possible objections, I propose first to shew
what possible connections there are or may be between goodness and will; and that
none of these can justify us in asserting that This is good is identical with This is
willed. On the other hand it will appear that some of them may be easily confused
with this assertion of identity; and that therefore the confusion is likely to have been
made. This part of my argument will, therefore, already go some way towards
meeting the second objection. But what must be conclusive against this is to shew that
any possible connection between will and goodness except the absolute identity in
question, would not be sufficient to give an enquiry into Will the smallest relevance to
the proof of any ethical conclusion. (§ 77 ¶ 2)

§ 78.
It has been customary, since Kant's time, to assert that Cognition, Volition, and
Feeling are three fundamentally distinct attitudes of the mind towards reality. They
are three distinct ways of experiencing, and each of them informs us of a distinct

aspect under which reality may be considered. The Epistemological method of
approaching Metaphysics rests on the assumption that by considering what is implied
in Cognition—what is its ideal—we may discover what properties the world must
have, if it is to be true. And similarly it is held that by considering what is implied in
the fact of Willing or Feeling—what is the ideal which they presuppose—we may
discover what properties the world must have, if it is to be good or beautiful. The
orthodox Idealistic Epistemologist differs from the Sensationalist or Empiricist in
holding that what we directly cognise is neither all true nor yet the whole truth: in
order to reject the false and to discover further truths we must, he says, not take
cognition merely as it presents itself, but discover what is implied in it. And similarly
the orthodox Metaphysical Ethicist differs from the mere Naturalist, in holding that
not everything which we actually will is good, nor, if good, completely good: what is
really good is that which is implied in the essential nature of will. Others again think
that Feeling, and not Will, is the fundamental datum for Ethics. But, in either case, it
is agreed that Ethics has some relation to Will or Feeling which it has not to
Cognition, and which other objects of study have to Cognition. Will or Feeling, on the
one hand, and Cognition, on the other, are regarded as in some sense co-ordinate
sources of philosophical knowledge—the one of Practical, the other of Theoretical
Philosophy. (§ 78 ¶ 1)
What, that is true, can possibly be meant by this view? (§ 78 ¶ 2)

§ 79.
First of all, it may be meant that, just as, by reflection on our perceptual and sensory
experience, we become aware of the distinction between truth and falsehood, so it is
by reflection on our experiences of feeling and willing that we become more aware of
ethical distinctions. We should not know what was meant by thinking one thing better
than another unless the attitude of our will or feeling towards one thing was different
from its attitude towards another. All this may be admitted. But so far we have only
the psychological fact that it is only because we will or feel things in a certain way,
that we ever come to think them good; just as it is only because we have certain
perceptual experiences, that we ever come to think things true. Here, then, is a special
connection between willing and goodness; but it is only a causal connection—that
willing is a necessary condition for the cognition of goodness. (§ 79 ¶ 1)
But it may be said further that willing and feeling are not only the origin of cognitions
of goodness; but that to will a thing, or to have a certain feeling towards a thing, is the
same thing as to think it good. And it may be admitted that even this is generally true
in a sense. It does seem to be true that we hardly ever think a thing good, and never
very decidedly, without at the same time having a special attitude of feeling or will
towards it; though it is certainly not the case that this is true universally. And the
converse may possibly be true universally: it may be the case that a perception of
goodness is included in the complex facts which we mean by willing by having
certain kinds of feeling. Let us admit then, that to think a thing good and to will it are
the same thing in this sense, that, wherever the latter occurs, the former also occurs as
part of it; and even that they are generally the same thing in the converse sense, that
when the former occurs it is generally part of the latter. (§ 79 ¶ 2)

§ 80.

These facts may seem to give countenance to the general assertion that to think a
thing good is to prefer it or approve it, in the sense in which preference and approval
denote certain kinds of will or feeling. It seems to be always true that when we thus
prefer or approve, there is included in that fact the fact that we think good; and it is
certainly true, in an immense majority of instances, that when we think good, we also
prefer or approve. It is natural enough, then, to say that to think good is to prefer. And
what more natural than to add: When I say a thing is good, I mean that I prefer it?
And yet this natural addition involves a gross confusion. Even if it be true that to
think good is the same thing as to prefer (which, as we have seen, is never true in the
sense that they are absolutely identical; and not always true in the sense that they
occur together), yet it is not true that what you think, when you think a thing good, is
that you prefer it. Even if your thinking the thing good is the same thing as your
preference of it, yet the goodness of the thing—that of which you think—is, for that
very reason, obviously not the same thing as your preference of it. WHether you have
a certain thought or not is one question; and whether what you think is true is quite a
different one, upon which the answer to the first has not the least bearing. The fact
that you prefer a thing does not tend to shew that the thing is good; even if it does
shew that you think it so. (§ 80 ¶ 1)
It seems to be owing to this confusion, that the question What is good? is thought to
be identical with the question What is preferred? It is said, with sufficient truth, that
you would never know a thing was good unless you preferred it, just as you would
never know a thing existed unless you perceived it. But it is added, and this is false,
that you would never know a thing was good unless you knew that you preferred it, or
that it existed unless knew that you perceived it. And it is finally added, and this is
utterly false, that you cannot distinguish the fact that a thing is good from the fact that
you prefer it, or the fact that it exists from the fact that you perceive it. It is often
pointed out that I cannot at any given moment distinguish what is true from what I
think so: and this is true. But though I cannot distinguish what is true from what I
think so, I always can distinguish what I mean by saying that it is true from what I
mean by saying that I think so. For I understand the meaning of the supposition that
what I think true may nevertheless be false. When, therefore, I assert that it is true I
mean to assert something different from the fact that I think so. What I think, namely
that something is true, is always quite distinct from the fact that I think it. The
assertion that it is true does not even include the assertion that I think it so; although,
of course, whenever I do think a thing true, it is, as a matter of fact, also true that I do
think it. This tautologous proposition that for a thing to be thought true it is necessary
that it should be thought is, however, commonly identified with the proposition that
for a thing to be true it is necessary that it should be thought. A very little reflection
should suffice to convince anyone that this identification is erroneous; and a very little
more will shew that, if so, we must mean by true something which includes no
reference to thinking or to any other psychical fact. It may be difficult to discover
precisely what we mean—to hold the object in question before us, so as to compare it
with other objects: but that we do mean something distinct and unique can no longer
be matter of doubt. That to be true means to be thought in a certain way is, therefore,
certainly false. Yet this assertion plays the most essential part in Kant's Copernican
revolution of philosophy, and renders worthless the whole mass of modern literature,
to which that revolution has given rise, and which is called Epistemology. Kant held
that what was unified in a certain manner by the synthetic activity of thought was ipso
facto true: that this was the very meaning of the word. Whereas it is plain that the only

connection which can possibly hold between being true and being thought in a certain
way, is that the latter should be a criterion or test of the former. In order, however, to
establish that it is so, it would be necessary to establish by the methods of induction
that what was true was always thought in a certain way. Modern Epistemology
dispenses with this long and difficult investigation at the cost of the self-contradictory
assumption that truth and the criterion of truth are one and the same thing. (§ 80 ¶ 2)

§ 81.
It is, then, a very natural, though an uterrly false supposition that for a thing to be true
is the same thing as for it to be perceived or thought of in a certain way. And since,
for the reasons given above, the fact of preference seems roughly to stand in the same
relation to thinking things good, in which the fact of perception stands to thinking that
they are true or exist, it is very natural that for a thing to be good should be supposed
identical with its being preferred in a certain way. But once this coordination of
Volition and Cognition has been accepted, it is again very natural that every fact
which seems to support the conclusion that being true is identical with being cognised
should confirm the corresponding conclusion that being good is identical with being
willed. It will, therefore, be in place to point out another confusion, which seems to
have had great influence in causing acceptance of the view that to be true is the same
thing as to be cognised. (§ 81 ¶ 1)
This confusion is due to a failure to observe that when we say we have a sensation or
perception or that we know a thing, we mean to assert not only that our mind is
cognitive, but also that that which it cognises is true. It is not observed that the usage
of these words is such that, if a thing be untrue, that fact alone is sufficient to justify
us in saying that the person who says he perceives or knows it, does not perceive or
know it, without our either enquiring whether, or assuming that, his state of mind
differs in any respect from what it would have been had he perceived or known. By
this denial we do not accuse him of an error in introspection, even if there was such an
error: we do not deny that he was aware of a certain object, nor even that his state of
mind was exactly such as he took it to be: we merely deny that the object, of which he
was aware, had a certain property. It is, however, commonly supposed that when we
assert a thing to be perceived or known, we are asserting one fact only; and since of
the two facts which we really assert, the existence of a psychical state is by far the
easier to distinguish, it is supposed that this is the only one which we do assert. Thus
perception and sensation have come to be regarded as if they denoted certain states of
mind and nothing more; a mistake which was the easier to make since the commonest
state of mind, to which we give a name which does not imply that its object is true,
namely imagination, may, with some plausibility, be supposed to differ from
sensation and perception not only in the property possessed by its object, but also in
its character as a state of mind. It has thus come to be supposed that the only
difference between perception and imagination, by which they can be defined, must
be a merely psychical difference: and, if this were the case, it would follow at once
that to be true was identical with being cognised in a certain way; since the assertion
that a thing is perceived does certainly include the assertion that it is true, and if,
nevertheless, that it is perceived means only that the mind has a certain attitude
towards it, then its truth must be identical with the fact that it is regarded in this way.
We may, then, attribute the view that to be true means to be cognised in a certain way
partly to the failure to perceive that certain words, which are commonly supposed to

stand for nothing more than a certain kind of cognitive state, do, in fact, also include a
reference to the truth of the object of such states. (§ 81 ¶ 2)

§ 82.
I will now sum up account of the apparent connections between will and ethical
propositions, which seem to support the vague conviction that This is good is
somehow identical with This is willed in a certain way. (1) It may be maintained, with
sufficient show of truth, that it is only because certain things were originally willed,
that we ever came to have ethical convictions at all. And it has been too commonly
assumed that to shew what was the cause of a thing is the same thing as to shew the
thing itself is. IT is, however, hardly necessary to point out that this is not the case. (2)
It may be further maintained, with some plausibility, that to think a thing good and to
will it in a certain way are now as a matter of fact identical. We must, however,
distinguish certain possible meanings of this assertion. It may be admitted that when
we think a thing good, we generally have a special attitude of will or feeling towards
it; and that, perhaps, when we will it in a certain way, we do always think it good. But
the very fact that we can thus distinguish the question whether, though the one is
always accompanied by the other, yet this other may not always be accompanied by
the first, shews that the two things are not, in the strict sense, identical. The fact is
that, whatever we mean by will, or by any form of the will, the fact we mean by it
certainly always includes something else beside the thinking a thing good: and hence
that, when willing and thinking good are asserted to be identical, the most that can be
meant is that this other element in will always both accompanies and is accompanied
by the thinking good; and this, as has been said, is of very doubtful truth. Even,
however, if it were strictly true, the fact that the two things can be distinguished is
fatal to the assumed coordination between will and cognition, in one of the senses in
which that assumption is commonly made. For it is only in respect of the other
element in will, that volition differs from cognition; whereas it is only in respect of
the fact that volition, or some form of volition, includes a cognition of goodness, that
will can have the same relation to ethical, which cognition has to metaphysical,
propositions. Accordingly the fact of volition, as a whole, that is, if we include in it
the element which makes it volition and distinguishes it from cognition, has not the
same relation to ethical propositions which cognition has to those which are
metaphysical. Volition and cognition are not coordinate ways of experiencing, since it
is only in so far as volition denotes a complex fact, which includes in it the one
identical simple fact, which is meant by cognition, that volition is a way of
experiencing at all. (§ 82 ¶ 1)
But, (3) if we allow the terms volition or will to stand for thinking good, although
they certainly do not commonly stand for this, there still remains the question: What
connection would this fact establish between volition and Ethics? Could the enquiry
into what was willed be identical with the ethical enquiry into what was good? It is
plain enough that they could not be identical; though it is also plain why they should
be thought so. The question What is good? is confused with the question What is
thought good? and the question What is true? with the question What is thought true?
for two main reasons. (1) One of these is the general difficulty that is found in
distinguishing what is cognised from the cognition of it. It is observed that I certainly
cannot cognise anything that is true without cognising it. Since, therefore, whenever I
know a thing that is true, the thing is certainly cognised, it is assumed that for a thing

to be true at all is the same thing as for it to be cognised. And (2) it is not observed
that certain words, which are supposed to denote only peculiar species of cognition,
do as a matter of fact also denote that the object cognised is true. Thus if perception
be taken to denote only a certain kind of mental fact, then, since the object of it is
always true, it becomes easy to suppose that to be true means only to be object to a
mental state of that kind. And similarly it is easy to suppose that to be truly good
differs from being falsely thought so, solely in respect of the fact that to be the former
is to be the object of a volition differing from that of which an apparent good is the
object, in the same way in which a perception (on this supposition) differs from an
illusion. (§ 82 ¶ 2)

§ 83.
Being good, then, is not identical with being willed or felt in any kind of way, any
more than being true is identical with being thought in any kind of wy. But let us
suppose this to be admitted: Is it still possible that an enquiry into the nature of will or
feeling should be a necessary step to the proof of ethical conclusions? If being good
and being willed are not identical, then the most that can be maintained with regard to
the connection of goodness with will is that what is good is always also willed in a
certain way, and that what is willed in a certain way is always also good. And it may
be said that this is all that is meant by those metaphysical writers who profess to base
Ethics upon the Metaphysics of Will. What would follow from this supposition? (§ 83
¶ 1)
It is plain that if what is willed in a certain way were always also good, then the fact
that a thing was so willed would be a criterion of its goodness. But in order to
establish that will is a criterion of goodness, we must be able to shew first and
separately that in a great number of the instances in which we find a certain kind of
will we also find that the objects of that will are good. We might, then, perhaps, be
entitled to infer that in a few instances, where it was not obvious whether a thing was
good or not but was obvious that it was willed in the way required, the thing was
really good, since it had the property which in all other instances we had found to be
accompanied by goodness. A reference to will might thus, just conceivably, become
of use towards the end of our ethical investigations, when we had already been able to
shew, independently, of a vast number of different objects that they were really good
and in what degree they were so. And against even this conceivable utility it may be
urged (1) That it is impossible to see why it should not be as easy (and it would
certainly be the more secure way) to prove that the thing in question was good, by the
same methods which we had used in proving that other things were good, as by
reference to our criterion; and (2) That, if we set ourselves seriously to find out what
things are good, we shall see reason to think (as will appear in Chapter VI) that they
have no other property, both common and peculiar to them, beside their goodness—
that, in fact, there is no criterion of goodness. (§ 83 ¶ 2)

§ 84.
But to consider whether any form of will is or is not a criterion of goodness is quite
unnecessary for our purpose here; since none of those writers who profess to base
their Ethics on an investigation of will have ever recognised the need of proving
directly and independently that all the things which are willed in a certain way are

good. They make no attempt to shew that will is a criterion of goodness; and no
stronger evidence could be given that they do not recognise that this, at most, is all it
can be. As has been just pointed out, if we are to maintain that whatever is willed in a
certain way is also good, we must in the first place be able to shew that certain things
have one property goodness, and that the same things also have the other property that
they are willed in a certain way. And secondly we must be able to shew this in a very
large number of instances, if we are to be entitled to claim any assent for the
proposition that these two properties always accompany one another: even when this
was shewn it would still be doubtful whether the inference from generally to always
would be valid, and almost certain that this doubtful principle would be useless. But
the very question which it is the business of Ethics to answer is this question what
things are good; and, so long as Hedonism retains its present popularity, it must be
admitted that it is a question upon which there is scarcely any agreement and which
therefore requires the most careful examination. The greatest and most difficult part
of the business of Ethics would therefore require to have been already accomplished
before we could be entitled to claim that anything was a criterion of goodness. If, on
the other hand, to be willed in a certain way was identical with being good, then
indeed we should be entitled to start our ethical investigations by enquiring what was
willed in the way required. That this is the way in which metaphysical writers start
their investigations seems to shew conclusively that they are influenced by the idea
that goodness is identical with being willed. They do not recognise that the question
What is good? is a different one from the question What is willed in a certain way?
Thus we find Green explicitly stating that the common characteristic of the good is
that it satisfies some desire. If we are to take this statement strictly, it obviously
asserts that good things have no characteristic in common, except that they satisfy
some desire—not even, therefore, that they are good. And this can only be the case, if
being good is identical with satisfying desire: if good is merely another name for
desire-satisfying. There could be no plainer instance of the naturalistic fallacy. And
we cannot take the statement as a mere verbal slip, which does not affect the validity
of Green’s argument. For he nowhere either gives or pretends to give any reason for
believing anything to be good in any sense, except that it is what would satisfy a
particular kind of desire—the kind of desire which he tries to shew to be that of a
moral agent. An unhappy alternative is before us. Such reasoning would give valid
reasons for his conclusions, if, and only if, being good and being desired in a
particular way were identical: and in this case, as we have seen in Chapter I, his
conclusions would not be ethical. On the other hand, if the two are not identical, his
conclusions may be ethical and may even be right, but he has not given us a single
reason for believing them. The thing which a scientific Ethics is required to shew,
namely that certain things are really good, he has assumed to begin with, in assuming
that things which are willed in a certain way are always good. We may, therefore,
have as much respect for Green’s conclusions as for those of any other man who
details to us his ethical convictions: but that any of his arguments are such as to give
us any reason for holding that Green’s convictions are more likely to be true than
those of any other man, must be clearly denied. The Prolegomena to Ethics is quite as
far as Mr Spencer’s Data of Ethics, from making the smallest contribution to the
solution of ethical problems. (§ 84 ¶ 1)
§ 84, n. 1: Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 178 [Ed.: § 171 ¶ 1.]

§ 85.

The main object of this chapter has been to shew that Metaphysics, understood as the
investigation of a supposed supersensible reality, can have no logical bearing
whatever upon the answer to the fundamental ethical question What is good in itself?
That this is so, follows at once from the conclusion of Chapter I, that good denotes an
ultimate, unanalysable predicate; but this truth has been so systematically ignored,
that it seemed worth while to discuss and distinguish, in detail, the principal relations,
which do hold, or have been supposed to hold, between Metaphysics and Ethics. With
this view I pointed out:—(1) That Metaphysics may have a bearing on practical
Ethics—on the question What ought we to do?—so far as it may be able to tell us
what the future effects of our action will be: what it can no tell us is whether those
effects are good or bad in themselves. One particular type of metaphysical doctrine,
which is very frequently held, undoubtedly has such a bearing on practical Ethics:
for, if it is true that the sole reality is an eternal, immutable Absolute, then it follows
that no actions of ours can have any real effect, and hence that no practical
proposition can be true. The same conclusion follows from the ethical proposition,
commonly combined with this metaphysical one—namely that this eternal Reality is
also the sole good (68). (2) That metaphysical writers, as where they fail to notice the
contradiction between any practical proposition and the assertion that an eternal
reality is the sole good, seem frequently to confuse the proposition that one particular
existing thing is good, with the proposition that the existence of that kind of thing
would be good, wherever it might occur. To the proof of the former proposition
Metaphysics might be relevant, by shewing that the thing existed; to the proof of the
latter it is wholly irrelevant: it can only serve the psychological function of suggesting
things which may be valuable—a function which would be still better performed by
pure fiction (69—71). (§ 85 ¶ 1)
But the most important source of the supposition that Metaphysics is relevant to
Ethics, seems to be the assumption that good must denote some real property of
things—an assumption which is mainly due to two erroneous doctrines, the first
logical, the second epistemological. HEnce (3) I discussed the logical doctrine that all
properties assert a relation between existents; and pointed out that the assimilation of
ethical propositions either to natural laws or to commands are instances of this logical
fallacy (72—76). And finally (4) I discussed the epistemological doctrine that to be
good is equivalent to being willed or felt in some particular way; a doctrine which
derives support from the analogous error, which Kant regarded as the cardinal point of
his system and which has received immensely wide acceptance—the erroneous view
that to be true or real is equivalent to being thought in a particular way. In this
discussion the main points to which I desire to direct attention are these: (a) That
Volition and Feeling are not analogous to Cognition in the manner assumed; since in
so far as these words denote an attitude of the mind towards an object, they are
themselves merely instances of Cognition: they differ only in respect of the kind of
object of which they take cognisance, and in respect of the other mental
accompaniments of such cognitions: (b) That universally the object of a cognition
must be distinguished from the cognition of which it is the object; and hence that in
no case can the question of whether the object is true be identical with the question
how it is cognised or whether it is cognised at all: it follows that even if the
proposition This is good were always the object of certain kinds of will or feeling, the
truth of that proposition could in no case be established by proving that it was their
object; far less can that proposition itself be identical with the proposition that its
subject is the object of a volition or feeling (77—84). (§ 85 ¶ 2)

Chapter V: Ethics in Relation to Conduct.
§ 86.
In the present chapter we have again to take a great step in ethical method. My
discussion hitherto has fallen under two main heads. Under the first, I tried to shew
what good—the adjective good—means. This appeared to be the first point to be
settled in any treatment of Ethics, that should aim at being systematic. It is necessary
we should know this, should know what good means, before we can go on to consider
what is good—what things or qualities are good. It is necessary we should know it for
two reasons. The first reason is that good is the notion upon which all Ethics depends.
We cannot hope to understand what we mean, when we say that this is good or that is
good, until we understand quite clearly, not only what this is or that is (which the
natural sciences and philosophy can tell us) but also what is meant by calling them
good, a matter which is reserved for Ethics only. Unless we are quite clear on this
point, our ethical reasoning will be always apt to be fallacious. We shall think that we
are proving that a thing is good, when we are really only proving that it is something
else; since unless we know what good means, unless we know what is meant by that
notion in itself, as distinct from what is meant by any other notion, we shall not be
able to tell when we are dealing with it and when we are dealing with something else,
which is perhaps like it, but yet not the same. And the second reason why we should
settle first of all this question What good means? is a reason of method. It is this, that
we can never know on what evidence an ethical proposition rests, until we know the
nature of the notion which makes the proposition ethical. We cannot tell what is
possible, by way of proof, in favour of one judgment that This or that is good, or
against another judgment That this or that is bad, until we have recognised what the
nature of such propositions must always be. In fact, it follows from the meaning of
good and bad, that such propositions are all of them, in Kant's phrase, synthetic: they
all must rest in the end upon some proposition which must be simply accepted or
rejected, which cannot be logically deduced from any other proposition. This result,
which follows from our first investigation, may be otherwise expressed by saying that
the fundamental principles of Ethics must be self-evident. But I am anxious that this
expression should not be misunderstood. The expression self-evident means properly
that the proposition so called is evident or true, by itself alone; that it is not an
inference from some proposition other than itself. The expression does not mean that
the proposition is true, because it is evident to you or me or all mankind, because in
other words it appears to us to be true. That a proposition appears to be true can never
be a valid argument that true it really is. By saying that a proposition is self-evident,
we mean emphatically that its appearing so to us, is not the reason why it is true: for
we mean that it has absolutely no reason. It would not be a self-evident proposition, if
we could say of it: I cannot think otherwise and therefore it is true. For then its
evidence or proof would not lie in itself, but in something else, namely our conviction
of it. That it appears true to us may indeed be the cause of our asserting it, or the
reason why we think and say that it is true: but a reason in this sense is something
utterly different from a logical reason, or reason why something is true. Moreover, it
is obviously not a reason of the same thing. The evidence of a proposition to us is only
a reason for our holding it to be true: whereas a logical reason, or reason in the sense
in which self-evident propositions have no reason, is a reason why the proposition
itself must be true, not why we hold it so to be. Again that a proposition is evident to

us may not only be the reason why we do think or affirm it, it may even be a reason
why we ought to think it or affirm it. But a reason, in this sense too, is not a logical
reason for the truth of the proposition, though it is a logical reason for the rightness of
holding the proposition. In our common language, however, these three meanings of
reason are constantly confused, whenever we say I have a reason for thinking that
true. But it is absolutely essential, if we are to get clear notions about Ethics or,
indeed, about any other, especially any philosophical, study, that we should
distinguish them. When, therefore, I talk of Intuitionistic Hedonism, I must not be
understood to imply that my denial that Pleasure is the only good is based on my
Intuition of its falsehood. My intuition of its falsehood is indeed my reason for
holding and declaring it untrue; it is indeed the only valid reason for so doing. But
that is just because there is no logical reason for it; because there is no proper
evidence or reason of its falsehood except itself alone. It is untrue, because it is
untrue, and there is no other reason: but I declare it untrue, because its untruth is
evident to me, and I hold that that is a sufficient reason for my assertion. We must not
therefore look on Intuition, as if it were an alternative to reasoning. Nothing whatever
can take the place of reasons for the truth of any proposition: intuition can only
furnish a reason for holding any proposition to be true: this however it must do when
any proposition is self-evident, when, in fact, there are no reasons which prove its
truth. (§ 86 ¶ 1)

§ 87.
So much, then, for the first step which established that good is good and nothing else
whatever, and that Naturalism was a fallacy. A second step was taken when we began
to consider proposed self-evident principles of Ethics. In this second division, resting
on our result that good means good, we began the discussion of propositions asserting
that such and such a thing or quality or concept was good. Of such a kind was the
principle of Intuitionistic or Ethical Hedonism—the principle that Pleasure alone is
good. Following the method established by our first discussion, I claimed that the
untruth of this proposition was self-evident. I could do nothing to prove that it was
untrue; I could only point out as clearly as possible what it means, and how it
contradicts other propositions which appear to be equally true. My only object in all
this was, necessarily, to convince. But even if I did convince, that does not prove that
we are right. It justifies us in holding that we are so; but nevertheless we may be
wrong. On one thing, however, we may justly pride ourselves. It is that we have had a
better chance of answering our questions rightly, than Bentham or Mill or Sidgwick or
others who have contradicted us. For we have proved that these have never even
asked themselves the question which they professed to answer. They have confused it
with another question: small wonder, therefore, if their answer is different from ours.
We must be quite sure that the same question has been put, before we trouble
ourselves at the different answers that are given to it. For all we know, the whole
world would agree with us, if they could once clearly understand the question upon
which we want their votes. Certain it is, that in all those cases where we found a
difference of opinion, we found also that the question had not been clearly
understood. Though, therefore, we cannot prove that we are right, yet we have a
reason to believe that everybody, unless he is mistaken as to what he thinks, will think
the same as we. It is as with a sum in mathematics. If we find a gross and palpable
error in the calculations, we are not surprised or troubled that the person who made
this mistake has reached a different result from ours. We think he will admit that his

result is wrong, if his mistake is pointed out to him. For instance if a man has to add
up 5 + 7 + 9, we should not wonder that he made the result to be 34, if he started by
making 5 + 7 = 25. And so in Ethics, if we find, as we did, that desirable is confused
with desired, or that end is confused with means, we need not be disconcerted that
those who have committed these mistakes do not agree with us. The only difference is
that in Ethics, owing to the intricacy of its subject matter, it is far more difficult to
persuade anyone either that he has made a mistake or that that mistake affects his
result. (§ 87 ¶ 1)
In this second division of my subject—the division which is occupied with the
question, What is good in itself?—I have hitherto only tried to establish one definite
result, and that a negative one: namely that pleasure is not the sole good. This result,
if true, refutes half, or more than half, of the ethical theories which have ever been
held, and is, therefore, not without importance. It will, however, be necessary
presently to deal positively with the question: What things are good and in what
degrees? (§ 87 ¶ 2)

§ 88.
But before proceeding to this discussion I propose, first, to deal with the third kind of
ethical question—the quesiton: What ought we to do? (§ 88 ¶ 1)
The answering of this question constitutes the third great division of ethical enquiry;
and its nature was briefly explained in Chap. I (§§ 15—17). It introduces into Ethics,
as was there pointed out, an entirely new question—the question what things are
related as causes to that which is good in itself; and this question can only be
answered by an entirely new method—the method of empirical investigation; by
means of which causes are discovered in the other sciences. To ask what kind of
actions we ought to perform, or what kind of conduct is right, is to ask what kind of
effects such action and conduct will produce. Not a single question in practical Ethics
can be answered except by a causal generalisation. All such questions do, indeed, also
involve an ethical judgment proper—the judgment that certain effects are better, in
themselves, than others. But they do assert that these better things are effects—are
causally connected with the actions in question. Every judgment in practical Ethics
may be reduced to the form: This is a cause of that good thing. (§ 88 ¶ 2)

§ 89.
That this is the case, that the questions, What is right? what is my duty? what ought I
to do? belong exclusively to this third branch of ethical enquiry, is the first point to
which I wish to call attention. All moral laws, I wish to shew, are merely statements
that certain kinds of actions will have good effects. The very opposite of this view has
been generally prevalent in Ethics. The right and the useful have been supposed to be
at least capable of conflicting with one another, and, at all events, to be essentially
distinct. It has been characteristic of a certain school of moralists, as of moral
common sense, to declare that the end will never justify the means. What I wish first
to point out is that right does and can mean nothing but cause of a good result, and is
thus identical with useful; whence it follows that the end always will justify the
means, and that no action which is not justified by its results can be right. That there
may be a true proposition, meant to be conveyed by the assertion The end will not

justify the means, I fully admit: but that, in another sense, and a sense far more
fundamental for ethical theory, it is utterly false, must first be shewn. (§ 88 ¶ 3)
That the assertion I am morally bound to perform this action is identical with the
assertion This saction will produce the greatest amount of good in the Universe has
already been briefly shewn in Chap I (§ 17); but it is important to insist that this
fundamental point is demonstrably certain. This may, perhaps, be best made evident
in the following way. It is plain that when we assert that a certain action is our
absolute duty, we are asserting that the performance of that action at that time is
unique in respect of value. But no dutiful action can possibly have unique value in the
sense that it is the sole thing of value in the world; since, in that case, every such
action would be the sole good thing, which is a manifest contradiction. And for the
same reason its value cannot be unique in the sense that it has more intrinsic value
than anything else in the world, since every act of duty would then be the best thing in
the world, which is also a contradiction. It can, therefore, be unique only in the sense
that the whole world will be better, if it be performed, than if any possible alternative
were taken. And the question whether this is so cannot possibly depend solely on the
question of its own intrinsic value. For any action will also have effects different from
those of any other action; and if any of these have intrinsic value, their value is
exactly as relevant to the total goodness of the Universe as that of their cause. It is, in
fact, evident that, however valuable an action may be in itself, yet, owing to its
existence, the sum of good in the Universe may conceivably be made less than if
some other action, less valuable in itself, had been performed. But to say that this is
the case is to say that it would have been better that the action should not have been
done; and this again is obviously equivalent to the statement that it ought not to have
been done—that it was not what duty required. Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum can only be
justified on the ground that by the doing of justice the Universe gains more than it
loses by the falling of the heavens. It is, of course, possible that this is the case: but, at
all events, to assert that justice is a duty, in spite of such consequences, is to assert
that it is the case. (§ 89 ¶ 2)
Our duty, therefore, can only be defined as that action, which will cause more good to
exist in the Universe than any possible alternative. And what is right or morally
permissible only differs from this, as what will not cause less good than any possible
alternative. When, therefore, Ethics presumes to assert that certain ways of acting are
duties it presumes to assert that to act in those ways will always produce the greatest
possible sum of good. If we are told that to do no murder is a duty, we are told that the
action, whatever it may be, which is called murder, will under no circumstances cause
so much good to exist in the Universe as its avoidance. (§ 89 ¶ 3)

§ 90.
But, if this be recognised, several most important consequences follow, with regard to
the relation of Ethics to conduct. (§ 90 ¶ 1)
(1) It is plain that no moral law is self-evident, as has commonly been held by the
Intuitional school of moralists. The Intuitional view of Ethics consists in the
supposition that certain rules, stating that certain actions are always to be done or to
be omitted, may be taken as self-evident premisses. I have shewn with regard to
judgments of what is good in itself, that this is the case; no reason can be given for

them. But it is the essence of Intuitionism to suppose that rules of action—statements
not of what ought to be, but of what we ought to do—are in the same sense intuitively
certain. Plausibility has been lent to this view by the fact that we do undoubtedly
make immediate judgments that certain actions are obligatory or wrong: we are thus
often intuitively certain of our duty, in a psychological sense. But, nevertheless, these
judgments are not self-evident and cannot be taken as ethical premisses, since, as has
now been shewn, they are capable of being confirmed or refuted by an investigation
of causes and effects. It is, indeed, possible that some of our immediate intuitions are
true; but since what we intuit, what conscience tells us, is that certain actions will
always produce the greatest sum of good possible under the circumstances, it is plain
that reasons can be given, which will shew the deliverances of conscience to be true
or false. (§ 90 ¶ 2)

§ 91.
(2) In order to shew that any action is a duty, it is necessary to know both what are the
other conditions, which will, conjointly with it, determine its effects; to know exactly
what will be the effects of these conditions; and to know all the events which will be
in any way affected by our action throughout an infinite future. We must have all this
causal knowledge, and further we must know accurately the degree of value both of
the action itself and of all these effects; and must be able to determine how, in
conjunction with the other things in the Universe, they will affect its value as an
organic whole. And not only this: we must also possess all this knowledge with regard
to the effects of every possible alternative; and must then be able to see by
comparison that the total value due to the existence of the action in question will be
greater. But it is obvious that our causal knowledge alone is far too incomplete for us
ever to assure ourselves of this result, that an action is our duty: we can never be sure
that any action will produce the greatest value possible. (§ 91 ¶ 1)
Ethics, therefore, is quite unable to give us a list of duties: but there still remains a
humbler task which may be possible for Practical Ethics. Although we cannot hope to
discover which, in a given situation, is the best of all possible alternative actions,
there may be some possibility of shewing which among the alternatives, likely to
occur to any one, will produce the greatest sum of good. This second task is certainly
all that Ethics can ever have accomplished: and it is certainly all that it has ever
collected materials for proving; since no one has ever attempted to exhaust the
possible alternative actions in any particular case. Ethical philosophers have in fact
confined their attention to a very limited class of actions, which have been selected
because they are those which most commonly occur to mankind as possible
alternatives. With regard to these they may possibly have shewn that one alternative is
better, i.e. produces a greater total of value, than others. But it seems desirable to
insist, that though they have represented this result as a determination of duties, it can
never really have been so. For the term duty is certainly so used that, if we are
subsequently persuaded that any possible action would have produced more good than
the one we adopted, we admit that we failed to do our duty. It will, however, be a
useful task if Ethics can determine which among alternatives likely to occur will
produce the greatest total value. For, though this alternative cannot be proved to be
the best possible, yet it may be better than any course of action which we should
otherwise adopt. (§ 91 ¶ 2)

§ 92.
A difficulty in distinguishing this task, which Ethics may perhaps undertake with
some hope of success, from the hopeless task of finding duties, arises from an
ambiguity in the use of the term possible. An action may, in one perfectly legitimate
sense, be said to be impossible solely because the idea of doing it does not occur to
us. In this sense, then, the alternatives which do actually occur to a man would be the
only possible alternatives; and the best of these would be the best possible action
under the circumstances, and hence would conform to our definition of duty. But
when we talk of the best possible action as our duty, we mean by the term any action
which no other known circumstance would prevent, provided the idea of it occurred
to us. And this use of the term is in accordance with popular usage. For we admit that
a man may fail to do his duty, through neglecting to think of what he might have
done. Since, therefore, we say that he might have done, what nevertheless did not
occur to him, it is plain that we do not limit his possible actions to those of which he
thinks. It might be urged, with more plausibility, that we mean by a man's duty only
the best of those actions of which he might have thought. And it is true that we do not
blame any man very severely for omitting an action which, as we say, he could not be
expected to think. But even here it is plain that we recognise a distinction between
what he might have done and what he might have thought of doing: we regard it as a
pity that he did not do otherwise. And duty is certainly used in such a sense, that it
would be a contradiction in terms to say that it was a pity that a man did his duty. (§
92 ¶ 1)
We must, therefore, distinguish a possible action from an action of which it is possible
to think. By the former we mean an action which no known cause would prevent,
provided the idea of it occurred to us: and that one among such actions, which will
produce the greatest total good, is what we mean by duty. Ethics certainly cannot
hope to discover what kind of action is always our duty in this sense. It may, however,
hope to decide which among one or two such possible actions is the best: and those
which it has chosen to consider are, as a matter of fact, the most important of those
with regard to which men deliberate whether they shall or shall not do them. A
decision with regard to these may therefore be easily confounded with a decision with
regard to which is the best possible action. But it is to be noted that even though we
limit ourselves to considering which is the better among alternatives likely to be
thought of, the fact that these alternatives might be thought of is not included in what
what we mean by calling them possible alternatives. Even if in any particular case it
was impossible that the idea of them should have occurred to a man, the question we
are concerned with is, which, if it had occurred, would have been the best alternative?
If we say that murder is always a worse alternative, we mean to assert that it is so,
even where it was impossible for the murderer to think of doing anything else. (§ 92 ¶
2)
The utmost, then, that Practical Ethics can hope to discover is which, among a few
alternatives possible under certain circumstances, will, on the whole, produce the best
result. It may tell us which is the best, in this sense, of certain alternatives about
which we are likely to deliberate; and since we may also know that, even if we choose
none of these, what we shall, in that case, do is unlikely to be as good as one of them,
it may thus tell us which of the alternatives, among which we can choose, it is best to
choose. If it could do this it would be sufficient for practical guidance. (§ 92 ¶ 3)

§ 93.
But (3) it is plain that even this is a task of immense difficulty. It is difficult to see
how we can establish even a probability that by doing one thing we shall obtain a
better total result than by doing another. I shall merely endeavour to point out how
much is assumed, when we assume that there is such a probability, and on what lines
it seems possible that this assumption may be justified—that no sufficient reason has
ever yet been found for considering one action more right or more wrong than
another. (§ 93 ¶ 1)
(a) The first difficulty in the way of establishing a probability that one course of
action will give a better total result than another, lies in the fact that we have to take
account of the effects of both throughout an infinite future. We have no certainty but
that, if we do one action now, the Universe will, throughout all time, differ in some
way from what it would have been, if we had done another; and, if there is such a
permanent difference, it is certainly relevant to our calculation. But it is quite certain
that our causal knowledge is utterly insufficient to tell us what different effects will
probably result from two different actions, except within a comparatively short space
of time; we can certainly only pretend to calculate the effects of actions within what
may be called an immediate future. No one, when he proceeds upon what he considers
a rational consideration of effects, would guide his choice by any forecast that went
beyond a few centuries at most; and, in general, we consider that we have acted
rationally, if we think we have secured a balance of good within a few years or
months or days. Yet, if a choice guided by such considerations is to be rational, we
must certainly have some reason to believe that no consequences of our action in a
further future will generally be such as to reverse the balance of good that is probable
in the future which we can forsee. This large postulate must be made, if we are ever to
assert that the results of one action will be even probably better than those of another.
Our utter ignorance of the far future gives us no justification for saying that it is even
probably right to choose the greater good within the region over which a probable
forecast may extend. We do, then, assume that it is improbable that effects, after a
certain time, will, in general, be such as to reverse the comparative value of the
alternative results within that time. And that this assumption is justified must be
shewn before we can claim to have given any reason whatever for acting in one way
rather than in another. It may, perhaps, be justified by some such considerations as the
following. As we proceed further and further from the time at which alternative
actions are open to us, the events of which either action would be part cause become
increasingly dependent on those other circumstances, which are the same, whichever
action we adopt. The effects of any individual action seem, after a sufficient space of
time, to be found only in trifling modifications spread over a very wide area, whereas
its immediate effects consist in some prominent modification of a comparatively
narrow area. Since, however, most of the things which have any great importance for
good or evil are things of this prominent kind, there may be a probability that after a
certain time all the effects of any particular action become so nearly indifferent, that
any difference between their value and that of the effects of another action, is very
unlikely to outweigh an obvious difference in the value of the immediate effects. It
does in fact appear to be the case that, in most cases, whatever action we now adopt, it
will be all the same a hundred years hence, so far as the existence at that time of
anything greatly good or bad is concerned: and this might, perhaps, be shewn to be
true, by an investigation of the manner in which the effects of any particular event

become neutralsed by lapse of time. Failing such a proof, we can certainly have no
rational ground for asserting that one of two alternatives is even probably right
another wrong. If any of our judgments of right and wrong are to pretend to
probability, we must have reason to think that the effects of our actions in the far
future will not have value sufficient to outweigh any superiority of one set of effects
over another in the immediate future. (§ 93 ¶ 2)

§ 94.
(b) We must assume, then, that if the effects of one action are generally better than
those of another, so far forward in the future as we are able to forsee any probable
difference in their effects at all, then the total effect upon the Universe of the former
action is also generally better. We certainly cannot hope directly to compare their
effects except within a limited future; and all the arguments, which have ever been
used in Ethics, and upon which we commonly act in common life, directed to shewing
that one course is superior to another, are (apart from theological dogmas) confined to
pointing out such probable immediate advantages. The question remains then; Can we
lay down any general rules to the effect that one among a few alternative actions will
generally produce a greater total of good in the immediate future? (§ 94 ¶ 1)
It is important to insist that this question, limited as it is, is the utmost, to which, with
any knowledge we have at present or are likely to have for a long time to come,
Practical Ethics can hope to give an answer. I have already pointed out that we cannot
hope to discover which is the best possible alternative in any given circumstances, but
only which, among a few, is better than the others. And I have also pointed out that
there is certainly no more than a probability, even if we are entitled to assert so much,
that what is better in regard to its immediate effects will also be better on the whole. It
now remains to insist that, even with regard to these immediate effects, we can only
hope to discover which, among a few alternatives, will generally produce the greatest
balance of good in the immediate future. We can secure no title to assert that
obedience to such commands as Thou shalt not lie, or even Thou shalt do no murder,
is universally better than the alternatives of lying and murder. Reasons why no more
than a general knowledge is possible have already been given in Chap. I. (§ 16); but
they may be recapitulated here. In the first place, of the effects, which principally
concern us in ethical discussions, as having intrinsic value, we know the causes so
little, that we can scarcely claim, with regard to any single one, to have obtained even
a hypothetical universal law, such as has been obtained in the exact sciences. We
cannot even say: If this action is performed, under exactly these circumstances, and if
no others interfere, this important effect, at least, will always be produced. But, in the
second place, an ethical law is not merely hypothetical. If we are to know that it will
always be better to act in a certain way, under certain circumstances, we must know
not merely wha effects such actions will produce, provided no other circumstances
interfere, but also that no other circumstances will interfere. And this it is obviouisly
impossible to know with more than probability. An ethical law has the nature not of a
scientific law but of a scientific prediction: and the latter is always merely probable,
although the probability may be very great. An engineer is entitled to assert that, if a
bridge be built in a certain way, it will probably bear certain loads for a certain time;
but he can never be absolutely certain that it has been built in the way required, nor
that, even if it has, some accident will not intervene to falsify his prediction. With any
ethical law, the same must be the case; it can be no more than a generalisation: and

here, owing to the comparative absence of accurate hypothetical knowledge, on which
the prediction should be based, the probability is comparatively small. But finally, for
an ethical generalisation, we require to know not only what effects will be produced,
but also what are the comparative values of those effects; and on this question too, it
must be admitted, considering what a prevalent opinion Hedonism has been, that we
are very likely to be mistaken. It is plain, then, that we are not soon likely to know
more than that one kind of action will generally produce better effects than another;
and that more than this has certainly never been proved. In no two cases will all the
effects of any kind of action be precisely the same, because in each case some of the
circumstances will differ; and although the effects, that are important for good or evil,
may be generally the same, it is extremely unlikely that they will always be so. (§ 94 ¶
2)

§ 95.
(c) If, now, we confine ourselves to a search for actions which are generally better as
means than any probable alternative, it seems possible to establish as much as this in
defence of most of the rules most universally recognised by Common Sense. I do not
propose to enter upon this defence in detail, but merely to point out what seem to be
the chief distinct principles by the use of which it can be made. (§ 95 ¶ 1)
In the first place, then, we can only shew that one action is generally better than
another as a means, provided that certain other circumstances are given. We do, as a
matter of fact, only observe its good effects under certain circumstances, and it may
be easily seen that a sufficient change in these would render doubtful what seem to be
the most universally certain of general rules. Thus, the general disutility of murder
can only be proved, provided the majority of the human race will certainly persist in
existing. In order to prove that murder, if it were so universally adopted as to cause
the speedy extermination of the race, would not be good as a means, we should have
to disprove the main contention of pessimism—namely that the existence of human
life is on the whole an evil. And the view of pessimism, however strongly we may be
convinced of its truth or falsehood, is one which never has been either proved or
refuted conclusively. That universal murder would not be a good thing at this moment
can therefore not be proved. But, as a matter of fact, we can and do assume with
certainty that, even if a few people are willing to murder, most people will not be
willing. When, therefore, we say that murder is in general to be avoided, we only
mean that it is so, so long as the majority of mankind will certainly not agree to it, but
will persist in living. And that, under these circumstances, it is generally wrong for
any single person to commit murder seems capable of proof. For, since there is in any
case no hope of exterminating the race, the only effects which we have to consider are
those which the action will have upon the increase of the goods and the diminution of
the evils of human life. Where the best is not attainable (assuming extermination the
best) one alternative may still be better than another. And, apart from the immediate
evils which murder generally produces, the fact that, if it were common practice, the
feeling of insecurity, thus caused, would absorb much time, which might be spent to
better purpose, is perhaps conclusive against it. So long as men desire to live as
strongly as they do, and so long as it is certain that they will continue to do so,
anything which hinders them from devoting their energy to the attainment of positive
goods, seems plainly bad as a means. And the general practice of murder, falling so

far short of universality as it certainly must in all known conditions of society, seems
certainly to be a hindrance of this kind. (§ 95 ¶ 2)
A similar defence seems possible for most of the rules, most universally enforced by
legal sanctions, such as respect of property; and for some of those most commonly
recognised by Common Sense, such as industry, temperance and the keeping of
promises. In any state of society in which men have that intense desire for property of
some sort, which seems to be universal, the common legal rules for the protection of
property must serve greatly to facilitate the best possible expenditure of energy. And
similarly: Industry is a means to the attainment of those necessaries, without which
the further attainment of any great positive goods is impossible; temperance merely
enjoins the avoidance of those excesses, which, by injuring health, would prevent a
man from contributing as much as possible to the acquirement of these necessaries;
and the keeping of promises greatly facilitates cooperation in such acquirement. (§ 95
¶ 3)
Now all these rules seem to have two characteristics to which it is desirable to call
attention. (1) They seem all to be such that, in any known state of society, a general
observance of them would be good as a means. The conditions upon which their
utility depends, namely the tendency to preserve and propagate life and the desire of
property, seem to be so universal and so strong, that it would be impossible to remove
them; and, this being so, we can say that, under any conditions which could actually
be given, the general observance of these rules would be good as a means. For, while
there seems to be no reason to think that their observance ever makes a society worse
than one in which they are not observed, it is certainly necessary as a means for any
state of things in which the greatest possible goods can be attained. And (2) these
rules, since they can be recommended as a means to that which is itself only a
necessary condition for the existence of any great good, can be defended
independently of correct views upon the primary ethical question of what is good in
itself. On any view commonly taken, it seems certain that the preservation of civilised
society, which these rules are necessary effect, is necessary for the existence, in any
great degree, of anything which may be held to be good in itself. (§ 95 ¶ 4)

§ 96.
But not by any means all the rules commonly recognised combine these two
characteristics. The arguments offered in defence of Common Sense morality very
often presupposes the existence of conditions, which cannot be fairly assumed to be
so universally necessary as the tendency to continue life and to desire property. Such
arguments, accordingly, only prove the utility of the rule, so long as certain
conditions, which may alter, remain the same: it cannot be claimed of the rules thus
defended, that they would be generally good as means in every state of society: in
order to establish this universal general utility, it would be necessary to arrive at a
correct view of what is good or evil in itself. This, for instance, seems to be the case
with most of the rules comprehended under the name of Chastity. These rules are
commonly defended, by Utilitarian writers who assume as their end the conservation
of society, with arguments which presuppose the necessary existence of such
sentiments as conjugal jealousy and paternal affection. These sentiments are no doubt
sufficiently strong and general to make the defence valid for many conditions of
society. But it is not difficult to imagine a civilised society existing without them; and,

in such a case, if chastity were still to be defended, it would be necessary to establish
that its violation produced evil effects, other than htose due to the assumed tendency
of such violation to disintegrate society. Such a defence may, no doubt, be made; but
it would require an examination into the primary ethical question of what is good and
bad in itself, far more thorough than any ethical writer has ever offered to us. Whether
this be so in this particular case or not, it is certain that a distinction, not commonly
recognised, should be made between those rules, of which the social utility depends
upon the existence of circumstances, more or less likely to alter, and those of which
the utility seems certain under all possible conditions. (§ 96 ¶ 1)

§ 97.
It is obvious that all the rules, which were enumerated above as likely to be useful in
almost any state of society, can also be defended owing to results which they produce
under conditions which exist only in particular states of society. And it should be
noticed that we are entitled to reckon among these conditions the sanctions of legal
penalties, of social disapproval, and of private remorse, where these exist. These
sanctions are, indeed, commonly treated by Ethics only as motives for the doing of
actions of which the utility can be proved independently of the existence of these
sanctions. And it may be admitted that sanctions ought not to be attached to actions
which would not be right independently. Nevertheless it is plain that, where they do
exist, they are not only motives but also justifications for the actions in question. One
of the chief reasons why an action should not be done in any particular state of society
is that it will be punished; since the punishment is in general itself a greater evil than
would have been caused by the omission of the action punished. Thus the existence of
a punishment may be an adequate reason for regarding an action as generally wrong,
even though it has no other bad effects but even slightly good ones. The fact that an
action will be punished is a condition of exactly the same kind as others of more or
less permanence, which must be taken into account in discussing the general utility or
disutility of an action in a particular state of society. (§ 97 ¶ 1)

§ 98.
It is plain, then, that the rules commonly recognised by Common Sense, in the society
in which we live, and commonly advocated as if they were all equally and universally
right and good, are of very different orders. Even those which seem to be most
universally good as means, can only be shewn to be so, because of the existence of
conditions, which, though perhaps evils, may be taken to be necessary; and even these
owe their more obvious utilities to the existence of conditions, which cannot be taken
to be necessary except over longer or shorter periods of history, and many of which
are evils. Others seem to be justifiable solely by the existence of such more or less
temporary conditions, unless we abandon the attempt to shew that they are means to
that preservation of society, which is itself a mere means, and are able to establish that
they are directly means to things good or evil in themselves, but which are not
commonly recognised to be such. (§ 98 ¶ 1)
If, then, we ask what rules are or would be useful to be observed in the society in
which we live, it seems possible to prove a definite utility in most of those which are
in general both recognised and practised. But a great part of ordinary moral
exhortation and social discussion consists in the advocating of rules, which are not

generally practised; and with regard to these it seems very doubtful whether a case for
their general utility can ever be conclusively made out. Such proposed rules
commonly suffer from three main defects. In the first place (1) the actions which they
advocate are very commonly such as it is impossible for most individuals to perform
by any volition. It is far too usual to find classed together with actions, which can be
performed, if only they be willed, others, of which the possibility depends on the
possession of a peculiar disposition, which is given to few and cannot even be
acquired. It may, no doubt, be useful to point out that those who have the necessary
disposition should obey these rules; and it would, in many cases, be desirable that
everybody should have this disposition. But it should be recognised that, when we
regard a thing as a moral rule or law, we mean that it is one which almost everybody
can observe by an effort of volition, in that state of society to which the rule is
supposed to apply. (2) Actions are often advocated, of which, though they themselves
are possible, yet the proposed good effects are not possible, because the conditions
necessary for their existence are not sufficiently general. A rule, of which the
observance would produce good effects, if human nature were in other respects
different from what it is, is advocated as if its general observance would produce the
same effects now and at once. In fact, however, by the time that the conditions
necessary to make its observance useful have arisen, it is quite as likely that other
conditions, rendering its observance unnecessary or positively harmful, may also have
arisen; and yet this state of things may be a better one than that in which the rule in
question would have been useful. (3) There also occurs the case in which the
usefulness of a rule depends upon conditions likely to change, or of which the change
would be as easy and more desirable than the observance of the proposed rule. It may
even happen that the general observance of the proposed rule would itself destroy the
conditions upon which its utility depends. (§ 98 ¶ 2)
One or other of these objections seems generally to apply to proposed changes in
social custom, advocated as being better rules to follow than those now actually
followed; and, for this reason, it seems doubtful whether Ethics can establish the
utility of any rules other than those generally practised. But the inability to do so is
fortunately of little practical moment. The question whether the general observance of
a rule not generally observed, would or would not be desirable, cannot much affect
the question how any individual ought to act; since, on the one hand, there is a large
probability that he will not, by any means, be able to bring about its general
observance, and, on the other hand, the fact that its general observance would be
useful could, in any case, give him no reason to conclude that he himself ought to
observe it, in the absence of such general observance. (§ 98 ¶ 3)
With regard, then, to the actions commonly classed in Ethics, as duties, crimes, or
sins, the following points seem deserving of notice. (1) By so classing them we mean
that they are actions which it is possible for an individual to perform or avoid, if he
only wills to do so; and that they are actions which everybody ought to perform or
avoid, when occasion arises. (2) We can certainly not prove of any such action that it
ought to be done or avoided under all circumstances; we can only prove that its
performance or avoidance will generally produce better results than the alternative.
(3) If further we ask of what actions as much as this can be proved, it seems only
possible to prove it with regard to those which are actually generally practised among
us. And of these some only are such that their general performance would be useful in

any state of society that seems possible; of others the utility depends upon conditions
which exist now, but which seem to be more or less alterable. (§ 98 ¶ 4)

§ 99.
(d) So much, then, for moral rules or laws, in the ordinary sense—rules which assert
that it is generally useful, under more or less common circumstances, for everybody to
perform or omit some definite kind of action. It remains to say something with regard
to the principles by which the individual should decide what he ought to do, (J) with
regard to those actions as to which some general rule is certainly true, and (K) with
regard to those where such a certain rule is wanting. (§ 99 ¶ 1)
(J) Since, as I have tried to shew, it is impossible to establish that any kind of action
will produce a better total result than its alternative in all cases, it follows that in some
cases the neglect of an established rule will probably be the best course of action
possible. The question then arises: Can the individual ever be justified in assuming
that his is one of these exceptional cases? And it seems that this question may be
definitely answered in the negative. For, if it is certain that in a large majority of cases
the observance of a certain rule is useful, it follows that there is a large probability
that it would be wrong to break the rule in any particular case; and the uncertainty of
our knowledge both of effects and of their value, in particular cases, is so great, that it
seems doubtful whether the individual’s judgment that the effects will probably be
good in his case can ever be sent against the general probability that that kind of
action is wrong. Added to this general ignorance is the fact that, if the question arises
at all, our judgment will generally be biased by the fact that we strongly desire one of
the results which we hope to obtain by breaking the rule. It seems, then, that with
regard to any rule which is generally useful, we may assert that it ought always to be
observed, not on the ground that in every particular case it will be useful, but on the
ground that in any particular case the probability of its being so is greater than that of
our being likely to decide rightly that we have before us an instance of its disutility. In
short, though we may be sure that there are cases where the rule should be broken, we
can never know which those cases are, and ought, therefore, never to break it. It is this
fact which seems to justify the stringency with which moral rules are usually enforced
and sanctioned, and to give a sense in which we may accept as true the maxims that
The end never justifies the means and That we should never do evil that good may
come. The means and the evil, intended by these maxims, are, in fact, the breaking of
moral rules generally recognised and practised, and which, therefore, we may assume
to be generally useful. Thus understood, these maxims merely point out that, in any
particular case, although we cannot clearly perceive any balance of good produced by
keeping the rule and do seem to see one that would follow from breaking it,
nevertheless the rule should be observed. It is hardly necessary to point out that this is
so only because it is certain that, in general, the end does justify the means in
question, and that therefore there is a probability that in this case it will do so also,
although we cannot see that it will. (§ 99 ¶ 2)
But moreover the universal observance of a rule which is generally useful has, in
many cases, a special utility, which seems deserving of notice. This arises from the
fact that, even if we can clearly discern that our case is one where to break the rule is
advantageous, yet, so far as our example has any effect at all in encouraging similar
action, it will certainly tend to encourage breaches of the rule which are not

advantageous. We may confidently assume that what will impress the imagination of
others will not be the circumstances in which our case differs from ordinary cases and
which justify our exceptional action, but the points in which it resembles other actions
that are really criminal. In cases, then, where example has any influence at all, the
effect of an exceptional right action will generally be to encourage wrong ones. And
this effect will probably be exercised not only on other persons but on the agent
himself. For it is impossible for any one to keep his intellect and sentiments so clear,
but that, if he has once approved of a generally wrong action, he will be more likely to
approve of it also under other circumstances than those which justified it in the first
instance. This inability to discriminate exceptional cases offers, of course, a still
stronger reason for the universal enforcement, by legal or social sanctions, of actions
generally useful. It is undoubtedly well to punish a man, who has done an action, right
in his case but generally wrong, even if his example would not be likely to have a
dangerous effect. For sanctions have, in general, much more influence upon conduct
than example; so that the effect of relaxing them in an exceptional case will almost
certainly be an encouragement of similar action in cases which are not exceptional. (§
99 ¶ 3)
The individual can therefore be confidently recommended always to conform to rules
which are both generally useful and generally practised. In the case of rules of which
the general observance would be useful but does not exist, or of rules which are
generally practised but which are not useful, no such universal recommendations can
be made. In many cases the sanctions attached may be decisive in favor of conformity
to the existing custom. But it seems worth pointing out that, even apart from these, the
general utility of an action most commonly depends upon the fact that it is generally
practised: in a society where certain kinds of theft are the common rule, the utility of
abstinence from such theft on the part of a single individual becomes exceedingly
doubtful, even though the common rule is a bad one. There is, therefore, a strong
probability in favour of adherence to an existing custom, even if it be a bad one. But
we cannot, in this case, assert with any confidence that this probability is always
greater than that of the individual’s power to judge that an exception will be useful;
since we are here supposing certain one relevant fact—namely, that the rule, which he
proposes to follow, would be better than that which he proposes to break, if it were
generally observed. Consequently the effect of his example, so far as it tends to break
down the existing custom, will here be for the good. The cases, where another rule
would certainly be better than that generally observed, are, however, according to
what was said above, very rare; and cases of doubt, which are those which arise most
frequently, carry us into the next division of our subject. (§ 99 ¶ 4)

§ 100.
(K) This next division consists in the discussion of the method by which an individual
should decide what to do with regard to possible actions of which the general utility
cannot be proved. And it should be observed, that, according to our previous
conclusions, this discussion will cover almost all actions, except those which, in our
present state of society, are generally practised. For it has been urged that a proof of
general utility is so difficult, that it can hardly be conclusive except in a very few
cases. It is certainly not possible with regard to all actions which are generally
practised; though here, if the sanctions are sufficiently strong, they are sufficient by
themselves to prove the general utility of the individual’s conformity to custom. And

if it is possible to prove a general utility in the case of some actions, not generally
practised, it is certainly not possible to do so by the ordinary method, which tries to
shew in them a tendency to that preservation of society, which is itself a mere means,
but only by the method, by which in any case, as will be urged, the individual ought to
guide his judgment—namely, by shewing their direct tendency to produce what is
good in itself or to prevent what is bad. (§ 100 ¶ 1)
The extreme improbability that any general rule with regard to the utility of an action
will be correct seems, in fact, to be the chief principle which should be taken into
account in discussing how the individual should guide his choice. If we except those
rules which are both generally practised and strongly sanctioned among us, there
seem to be hardly any of such a kind that equally good arguments cannot be found
both for and against them. The most that can be said for the contradictory principles
which are urged by moralists of different schools as universal duties is, in general,
that they point out actions which, for persons of a particular character and in
particular circumstances, would and do lead to a balance of good. It is, no doubt,
possible that the particular dispositions and circumstances which generally render
certain kinds of action advisable, might to some degree be formulated. But it is certain
that this has never yet been done; and it is important to notice that, even if it were
done, it would not give us, what moral laws are usually supposed to be—rules which
it would be desirable for every one, or even for most people, to follow. Moralists
commonly assume that, in the matter of actions or habits of action, usually recognised
as duties or virtues, it is desirable that every one should be alike. Whereas it is certain
that, under actual circumstances, and possible that, even in a much more ideal
condition of things, the principle of division of labour, according to special capacity,
which is recognised in respect of employments, would also give a better result in
respect of virtues. (§ 100 ¶ 2)
It seems, therefore, that, in cases of doubt, instead of following rules, of which he is
unable to see the good effects in his particular case, the individual should rather guide
his choice by a direct consideration of the intrinsic value or vilness of the effects
which his action may produce. Judgments of intrinsic value have this superiority over
judgments of means that, if once true, they are always true; whereas what is a means
to a good effect in one case, will not be so in another. For this reason the department
of Ethics, which it would be most useful to elaborate for practical guidance, is that
which discusses what things have intrinsic value and in what degrees; and this is
precisely that department which has been most uniformly neglected, in favour of
attempts to formulate rules of conduct. (§ 100 ¶ 3)
We have, however, not only to consider the relative goodness of different effects, but
also the relative probability of their being attained. A less good, that is more likely to
be attained, is to be preferred to a greater, that is less probable, if the difference in
probability is great enough to outwiegh the difference in goodness. And this fact
seems to entitle us to assert the general truth of three principles, which ordinary moral
rules are apt to neglect. (1) That a lesser good, for which any individual has a strong
preference (if only it be a good, and not an evil), is more likely to be a proper object
for him to aim at, than a greater one, which he is unable to appreciate. For natural
inclination renders it immensely more easy to attain that for which such inclination is
felt. (2) Since almost every one has a much stronger preference for things which
closely concern himself, it will in general be right for a man to aim rather at goods

affecting himself and those in whom he has a strong personal interest, than to attempt
a more extended beneficence. Egoism is undoubtedly superior to Altruism as a
doctrine of means: in the immense majority of cases the best thing we can do is to aim
at securing some good in which we are concerned, since for that very reason we are
far more likely to secure it. (3) Goods, which can be secured in a future so near as to
be called the present, are in general to be preferred to those which, being in a further
future, are, for that reason, far less certain of attainment. If that is to say as a mere
means to good, we are apt to neglect one fact, at least, which is certain; namely that a
thing that is really good in itself, if it exist now, has precisely the same value as a
thing of the same kind which may be caused to exist in the future. Moreover moral
rules, as has been said, are, in general, not directly means to positive goods but to
what is necessary for the existence of positive goods; and so much of our labour must
in any case be devoted to securing the continuance of what is thus a mere means—the
claims of industry and attention to health determine the employment of so large a part
of our time, that, in cases where choice is open, the certain attainment of a present
good will in general have the strongest claims upon us. If it were not so, the whole of
life would be spent in merely assuring its continuance; and, so far as the same rule
were continued in the future, that for the sake of which it is worth having, would
never exist at all. (§ 100 ¶ 4)

§ 101.
(4) A fourth conclusion, which follows from the fact that what is right or what is our
duty must in any case be defined as what is a means to good, is, as was pointed out
above (§ 89), that the common distinction between these and the expedient or useful,
disappears. Our duty is merely that which will be a means to the best possible, and the
expedient, if it is really expedient, must be just the same. We cannot distinguish them
by saying that the former is something which we ought to do, whereas of the latter we
cannot say we ought. In short the two concepts are not, as is commonly assumed by
all except Utilitarian moralists, simple concepts ultimately distinct. There is no such
distinction in Ethics. The only fundamental distinction is between what is good in
itself and what is good as a means, the latter of which implies the former. But it has
been shewn that the distinction between duty and expediency does not correspond to
this: both must be defined as means to good, though both may also be ends in
themselves. The question remains, then: What is the distinction between duty and
expediency? (§ 101 ¶ 1)
One distinction to which these distinct words refer is plain enough. Certain classes of
action commonly excite the specifically moral sentiments, whereas other classes do
not. And the word duty is commonly applied only to the class of actions which excite
moral approval, or of which the omission excites moral disapproval—especially to the
latter. Why this moral sentiment should have become attached to some kinds of
actions and not to others is a question which certainly not yet be answered; but it may
be observed that we have no reason to think that the actions to which it was attached
were or are, in all cases, such as aided or aid the survival of a race: it was probably
originally attached to many religious rites and ceremonies which had not the smallest
utility in this respect. It appears, however, that, among us, the classes of action to
which it is attached also have two other characteristics in enough cases to have
influenced the meaning of the words duty and expediency. One of these is that duties
are, in general, actions which a considerable number of individuals are strongly

tempted to omit. The second is that the omission of duty generally entails
consequences markedly disagreeable to some one else. The first of these is a more
univeral characteristic than the second: since the disagreeable effects on other people
of the self-regarding duties, prudence and temperance, are not so marked as those on
the future of the agent himself; whereas the temptations to imprudence and
intemperance are very strong. Still, on the whole, the class of actions called duties
exhibit both characteristics: they are not only actions, against the performance of
which there are strong natural inclinations, but also actions of which the most obvious
effects, commonly considered goods, are effects on other people. Expedient actions,
on the other hand, are actions to which strong natural inclinations prompt us almost
universally, and of which all the most obvious effects, commonly considered good,
are effects upon the agent. We may then roughly distinguish duties from expedient
actions, as actions with regard to which there is a moral sentiment, which we are often
tempted to omit, and of which the most obvious effects are effects upon others than
the agent. (§ 101 ¶ 2)
But it is to be noticed that none of these characteristics, by which a duty is
distinguished from an expedient action, gives us any reason to infer that the former
class of actions are more useful than the latter—that they tend to produce a greater
balance of good. Nor, when we ask the question, Is this my duty? do we mean to ask
whether the action in question has these characteristics: we are asking simply whether
it will produce the best possible result on the whole. And if we asked this question
with regard to expedient actions, we should quite as often have to answer it in the
affirmative as when we ask it with regard to actions which have the three
characteristics of duties. It is true that when we ask the question, Is this expedient? we
are making a different question—namely, whether it will have certain kinds of effect,
with regard to which we do not enquire whether they are good or not. Nevertheless, if
it should be doubted in any particular case whether these effects were good, this doubt
is understood as throwing doubt upon the action’s expediency: if we are required to
prove an action’s expediency, we can only do so by asking precisely the same
question by which we should prove it a duty—namely, Has it the best possible effects
on the whole? (§ 101 ¶ 3)
Accordingly the question whether an action is a duty or merely expedient, is one
which has no bearing on the ethical question whether we ought to do it. In the sense in
which either duty or expediency are taken as ultimate reasons for doing an action,
they are taken in exactly the same sense: if I ask whether an action is really my duty
or really expedient, the predicate of which I question the applicability to the action in
question is precisely the same. In both cases I am asking, Is this event the best on the
whole that I can effect?; and whether the event in question be some effect upon what
is mine (as it usually is, where we talk of expediency) or some other event (as is usual,
where we talk of duty), this distinction has no more relevance to my answer than the
distinction between two different effects on me or two different effects on others. The
true distinction between duties and expedient actions is not that the former are actions
which it is in any sense more useful or obligatory or better to perform, but that they
are actions which it is more useful to praise and to enforce by sanctions, since they are
actions which there is a temptation to omit. (§ 101 ¶ 4)

§ 102.

With regard to interested actions, the case is somewhat different. When we ask the
question, Is this really to my interest? we appear to be asking exclusively whether its
effects upon me are the best possible; and it may well happen that what will effect me
in the manner, which is really the best possible, will not produce the best possible
results on the whole. Accordingly my true interest may be different from the course
which is really expedient and dutiful. To assert that an action is to my interest, is,
indeed, as was pointed out in Chap. III. (§§ 59—61), to assert that its effects are really
good. My own good only denotes some event affecting me, which is good absolutely
and objectively; it is the thing, and not its goodness, which is mine; everything must
be either a part of universal good or else not good at all; there is no third alternative
conception good for me. But my interest, though it must be something truly good, is
only one among possible good effects; and hence, by effecting it, though we shall be
doing some good, we may be doing less good on the whole, than if we had acted
otherwise. Self-sacrifice may be a real duty; just as the sacrifice of any single good,
whether affecting ourselves or others, may be necessary in order to obtain a better
total result. Hence the fact that an action is really to my interest, can never be a
sufficient reason for doing it: by shewing that it is not a means to the best possible, we
do not shew that it is not to my interest, as we do shew that it is not expedient.
Nevertheless there is no necessary conflict between duty and interest: what is to my
interest may also be a means to the best possible. And the chief distinction conveyed
by the distinct words duty and interest seems to be not this source of possible conflict,
but the same which is conveyed by the contrast between duty and expediency. By
interested actions are mainly meant those which, whether a means to the best possible
or not, are such as have their most obvious effects on the agent; which he generally
has no temptation to omit; and with regard to which we feel no moral sentiment. That
is to say, the distinction is not primarily ethical. Here too duties are not, in general,
more useful or obligatory than interested actions; they are only actions which it is
more useful to praise. (§ 102 ¶ 1)

§ 103.
(5) A fifth conclusion, of some importance, in relation to Practical Ethics concerns the
manner in which virtues are to be judged. What is meant by calling a thing a virtue?
(§ 103 ¶ 1)
There can be no doubt that Aristotle's definition is right, in the main, so far as he says
that it is an habitual disposition to perform certain actions: this is one of the marks by
which we should distinguish a virtue from other things. But virtue and vice are also
ethical terms: that is to say, when we use them seriously, we mean to convey praise by
the one and dispraise by the other. And to praise a thing is to assert either that it is
good in itself or else that it is a means to good. Are we then to include in our
definition of virtue that it must be a thing good in itself? (§ 103 ¶ 2)
Now it is certain that virtues are commonly regarded as good in themselves. The
feeling of moral approbation with which we generally regard them partly consists in
an attribution to them of intrinsic value. Even a Hedonist, when he feels a moral
sentiment towards them, is regarding them as good-in-themselves; and Virtue has
been the chief competitor with Pleasure for the position of sole good. Nevertheless I
do not think we can regard it as part of the definition of virtue that it should be good
in itself. For the name has so far an independent meaning, that if in any particular case

a disposition commonly considered virtuous were proved not to be good in itself, we
should not think that a sufficient reason for saying that it was not a virtue but was
only thought to be so. The test for the ethical connotation of virtue is the same as that
for duty: What should we required to be proved about a particular instance, in order to
say that the name was wrongly applied to it? And the test which is thus applied both
to virtues and to duties, and considered to be final, is the question: Is it a means to
good? If it could be shewn of any particular disposition, commonly considered
virtuous, that it was generally harmful, we should at once say: Then it is not really
virtuous. Accordingly a virtue may be defined as an habitual disposition to perform
certain actions, which generally produce the best possible results. Nor is there any
doubt as to the kind of actions which it is virtuous habitually to perform. They are, in
general, those which are duties, with this modification that we also include those
which would be duties, if only it were possible for people in general to perform them.
Accordingly with regard to virtues, the same conclusion holds as with regard to
duties. If they are really virtues they must be generally good as means; nor do I wish
to dispute that most virtues, commonly considered as such, as well as most duties,
really are means to good. But it does not follow that they are a bit more useful than
those dispositions and inclinations which lead us to perform interested actions. As
duties from expedient actions, so virtues are distinguished from other useful
dispositions, which it is particularly useful to praise and to sanction, because there are
strong and common temptations to neglect the actions to which they lead. (§ 103 ¶ 3)
Virtues, therefore, are habitual dispositions to perform actions which are duties, or
which would be duties if a volition were sufficient on the part of most men to ensure
their performance. And duties are a particular class of those actions, of which the
performance has, at least generally, better total results than the omission. They are,
that is to say, actions generally good as means: but not all such actions are duties; the
name is confined to that particular class which it is often difficult to perform, because
there are strong temptations to the contrary. It follows that in order to decide whether
any particular disposition or action is a virtue or a duty, we must face all the
difficulties enumerated in section (3) of this chapter. We shall not be entitled to assert
that any disposition or action is a virtue or duty except as a result of an investigation,
such as was there described. We must be able to prove that the disposition or action in
question is generally better as a means than any alternatives possible and likely to
occur; and this we shall only be able to prove for particular states of society; and this
we shall only be able to prove for particular states of society: what is a virtue or a duty
in one state of society may not be so in another. (§ 103 ¶ 3)

§ 104.
But there is another question with regard to virtues and duties which must be settled
by intuition alone—by the properly guarded method which was explained in
discussing Hedonism. This is the question whether the dispositions and actions,
commonly regarded (rightly or not) as virtues or duties, are good in themselves;
whether they have intrinsic value. Virtue or the exercise of virtue has very commonly
been asserted by moralists to be either the sole good, or, at least, the best of goods.
Indeed, so far as moralists have discussed the question what is good in itself at all,
they have generally assumed that it must be either virtue or pleasure. It would hardly
have been possible that such a gross difference of opinion should exist, or that it
should have been assumed the discussion must be limited to two such alternatives, if

the meaning of the question had been clearly apprehended. And we have already seen
that the meaning of the question has hardly ever been clearly apprehended. Almost all
ethical writers have committed the naturalistic fallacy—they have failed to perceive
that the notion of intrinsic value is simple and unique; and almost all have failed, in
consequence, to distinguish clearly between means and end—they have discussed, as
if it were simple and unambiguous, the question What ought we to do? or What ought
to exist now? without distinguishing whether the reason why a thing ought to be done
or to exist now, is that it is itself possessed of intrinsic value, or that it is a means to
what has intrinsic value. We shall, therefore, be prepared to find that virtue has as
little claim to be considered the sole or chief good as pleasure; more especially after
seeing that, so far as definition goes, to call a thing a virtue is merely to declare that it
is a means to good. The advocates of virtue have, we shall see, this superiority over
the Hedonists, that inasmuch as virtues are very complex mental facts, there are
included in them many things which are good in themselves and good in a much
higher degree than pleasures. The advocates of Hedonism, on the other hand, have the
superiority that their method emphasizes the distinction between means and ends;
although they have not apprehended the distinction clearly enough to perceive that the
special ethical predicate, which they assign to pleasure as not being a mere means,
must also apply to many other things. (§ 104 ¶ 1)

§ 105.
With regard, then, to the intrinsic value of virtue, it may be stated broadly: (1) that the
majority of dispositions, which we call by that name, and which really do conform to
the definition, so far as that they are dispositions generally valuable as means, at least
in our society, have no intrinsic value whatever; and (2) that no one element which is
contained in the minority, nor even all the different elements put together, can without
gross absurdity be regarded as the sole good. As to the second point it may be
observed that even those who hold the view that the sole good is to be found in virtue,
almost invariably hold other views contradictory of this, owing chiefly to a failure to
analyse the meaning of ethical concepts. The most marked instance of this
inconsistency is to be found in the common Christian conception that virtue, though
the sole good, can yet be rewarded by something other than virtue. Heaven is
commonly considered as the reward of virtue; and yet it is also commonly considered,
that, in order to be such a reward, it must contain some element, called happiness,
which is certainly not completely identical with the mere exercise of those virtues
which it rewards. But if so, then something which is not virtue must be either good in
itself or an element in what has most intrinsic value. It is not commonly observed that
if a thing is really to be a reward, it must be something good in itself: it is absurd to
talk of rewarding a person by giving him something, which is less valuable than what
he already has or which has no value at all. Thus Kant’s view that virtue renders us
worthy of happiness is in flagrant contradiction with the view, which he implies and
which is associated with his name, that a Good Will is the only thing having intrinsic
value. It does not, indeed, entitle us to make the charge sometimes made, that Kant is,
inconsistently, an Eudaemonist or Hedonist: for it does not imply that happiness is the
sole good. But it does imply that the Good Will is not the sole good: that a state of
things in which we are both virtuous and happy is better in itself than one in which the
happiness is absent. (§ 105 ¶ 1)

§ 106.

In order, however, justly to consider the claims of virtue to intrinsic value, it is
necessary to distinguish several very different mental states, all of which fall under
the general definition that they are habitual dispositions to perform duties. We may
thus distinguish three very different states, all of which are liable to be confused with
one another, upon each of which different moral systems have laid great stress, and
for each of which the claim has been made that it alone constitutes virtue, and, by
implication, that it is the sole good. We may first of all distinguish between (a) that
permanent characteristic of mind, which consists in the fact that the performance of
duty has become in the strict sense a habit, like many of the operations performed in
the putting on of clothes, and (b) that permanent characteristic, which consists in the
fact that what may be called good motives habitually help to cause the performance of
duties. And in the second division we may distinguish between the habitual tendency
to be actuated by one motive, namely, the desire to do duty for duty’s sake, and all
other motives, such as love, benevolence, etc. We thus get the three kinds of virtue, of
which we are now to consider the intrinsic value. (§ 106 ¶ 1)
(a) There is no doubt that a man’s character may be such that he habitually performs
certain duties, without the thought ever occurring to him, when he wills them, either
that they are duties or that any good will result from them. Of such a man we cannot
and do not refuse to say that he possesses the virtue consisting in the disposition to
perform those duties. I, for instance, am honest in the sense that I habitually abstain
from any of the actions legally qualified as thieving, even where some other persons
would be strongly tempted to commit them. It would be grossly contrary to common
usage to deny that, for this reason, I really have the virtue of honesty: it is quite
certain that I have an habitual disposition to perform a duty. And that as many people
as possible should have a like disposition is, no doubt, of great utility: it is good as a
means. Yet I may safely assert that neither my various performances of this duty, nor
my disposition to perform them, have the smallest intrinsic value. It is because the
majority of instances of virtue seem to be of this nature, that we may venture to assert
that virtues have, in general, no intrinsic value whatsoever. And there seems to be
good reason to think that the more generally they are of this nature the more useful
they are; since a great economy of labour is effected when a useful action becomes
habitual or instinctive. But to maintain that a virtue which includes no more than this,
is good in itself is a gross absurdity. And of this gross absurdity, it may be observed,
the Ethics of Aristotle is guilty. For his definition of virtue does not exclude a
disposition to perform actions in this way, whereas his descriptions of the particular
virtues plainly include such actions: that an action, in order to exhibit virtue, must be
done Va bJca dWbJ is a qualification which he allows often to drop out of sight.
And, on the other hand, he seems certainly to regard the exercise of all virtues as an
end in itself. His treatment of Ethics is indeed, in the most important points, highly
unsystematic and confused, owing to his attempt to base it on the naturalistic fallacy;
for strictly we should be obliged by his words to regard RWUefJ as the only thing good
in itself, in which case the goodness which he attributes to the practical virtues cannot
be intrinsic value; while on the other hand he does not seem to regard it merely as
utility, since he makes no attempt to shew that they are means to RWUefJ. But there
seems no doubt that on the whole he regards the exercise of the practical virtues as a
good of the same kind as (i.e. having intrinsic value), only in a less degree than,
RWUefJ; so that he cannot avoid the charge that he recommends as having intrinsic
value, such instances of the exercise of virtue as we are at present discussing—
instances of a disposition to perform actions which, in the modern phrase, have

merely an external rightness. That he is right in applying the word virtue to such a
disposition cannot be doubted. But the protest against the view that external rightness
is sufficient to constitute either duty or virtue—a protest which is commonly, and with
some justice, attributed as a merit to Christian morals—seems, in the main, to be a
mistaken way of pointing out an important truth: namely, that where there is only
external rightness there is certainly no intrinsic value. It is commonly assumed
(though wrongly) that to call a thing a virtue means that it has intrinsic value: and on
this assumption the view that virtue does not consist in a mere disposition to do
externally right actions does really constitute an advance in ethical truth beyond the
Ethics of Aristotle. The inference that, if virtue includes in its meaning good in itself,
then Aristotle’s definition of virtue is not adequate and expresses a false ethical
judgment, is perfectly correct: only the premise that virtue does include this in its
meaning is mistaken. (§ 106 ¶ 2)

§ 107.
(b) A man’s character may be such that, when he habitually performs a particular
duty, there is, in each case of his performance, present in his mind, a love of some
intrinsically good consequence which he expects to produce by his action or a hatred
of some intrinsically evil consequence which he hopes to prevent by it. In such a case
this love or hatred will generally be part cause of his action, and we may then call it
one of his motives. Where such a feeling as this is present habitually in the
performance of duties, it cannot be denied that the state of the man’s mind, in
performing it, contains something intrinsically good. Nor can it be denied that, where
a disposition to perform duties consists in the disposition to be moved to them by such
feelings, we call that disposition a virtue. Here, therefore, we have instances of virtue,
the exercise of which really contains something that is good in itself. And, in general,
we may say that wherever a virtue does consist in a disposition to have certain
motives, the exercise of that virtue may be intrinsically good; although the degree of
its goodness may vary indefinitely according to the precise nature of the motives and
their objects. In so far, then, as Christianity tends to emphasize the importance of
motives, of the inward disposition with which a right action is done, we may say that
it has done a service to Ethics. But it should be noticed that, when Christian Ethics, as
represented by the New Testament, are praised for this, two distinctions of the utmost
importance, which they entirely neglect, are very commonly overlooked. In the first
place the New Testament is largely occupied with continuing the tradition of the
Hebrew prophets, by recommending such virtues as justice and mercy as against mere
ritual observances; and, in so far as it does this, it is recommending virtues which may
be merely good as means, exactly like the Aristotelian virtues. This characteristic of
its teaching must therefore be rigorously distinguished from that which consists in its
enforcement of such a view as that to be angry without a cause is as bad as actually to
commit murder. And, in the second place, though the New Testament does praise
some things which are only good as means, and others which are good in themselves,
it entirely fails to recognise the distinction. Though the state of the man who is angry
may be really as bad in itself as that of the murderer, and so far Christ may be right,
His language would lead us to suppose that it is also as bad in every way, that it also
causes as much evil: and this is utterly false. In short, when Christian Ethics approves,
it does not distinguish whether its approval asserts This is a means to good or This is
good in itself; and hence it both praises things merely good as means, as if they were
good in themselves, and things merely good in themselves as if they were also good

as means. Moreover it should be noticed, that if Christian Ethics does draw attention
to those elements in virtues which are good in themselves, it is by no means alone in
this. The Ethics of Plato are distinguished by upholding, far more clearly and
consistently than any other system, the view that intrinsic value belongs exclusively to
those states of mind which consist in love of what is good or hatred of what is evil. (§
107 ¶ 1)

§ 108.
But (c) the Ethics of Christianity are distinguished from those of Plato by
emphasizing the value of one particular motive—that which consists in the emotion
excited by the idea, not of any intrinsically good consequences of the action in
question, nor even of the action itself, but by that of its rightness. This idea of abstract
rightness and the various degrees of the specific emotion excited by it are what
constitute the specifically moral sentiment or conscience. An action seems to be most
properly termed internally right, solely in virtue of the fact that the agent has
previously regarded it as right: the idea of rightness must have been present to his
mind, but need not necessarily have been among his motives. And we mean by a
conscientious man, one who, when he deliberates, always has this idea in his mind,
and does not act until he believes that his action is right. (§ 108 ¶ 1)
§ 108, n. 1: This sense of the term must be carefully distinguished from that in which
the agent’s intention may be said to be right, if only the results he intended would
have been the best possible.
The presence of this idea and its action as a motive certainly seem to have become
more common objects of notice and commendation owing to the influence of
Christianity; but it is important to observe that there is no ground for the view, which
Kant implies, that it is the only motive which the New Testament regards as
intrinsically valuable. There seems little doubt that when Christ tells us to Love our
neighbours as ourselves, He did not mean merely what Kant calls practical love—
beneficience of which the sole motive is the idea of its rightness or the emotion
caused by that idea. Among the inward dispositions of which the New Testament
inculcates the value, there are certainly included what Kant terms mere natural
inclinations, such as pity, etc. (§ 108 ¶ 2)
But what are we to say of virtue, when it consists in a disposition to be moved to the
performance of duties by this idea? It seems difficult to deny that the emotion excited
by rightness as such has some intrinsic value; and still more difficult to deny that its
presence may heighten the value of some wholes into which it enters. But, on the
other hand, it certainly has not more value than many of the motives treated in our last
section—emotions of love towards things really good in themselves. And as for
Kant’s implication that it is the sole good, this is inconsistent with other of his own
views. For he certainly regards it as better to perform the actions, to which he
maintains that it prompts us—namely, material duties—than to omit them. But, if
better at all, then, these actions must be better either in themselves or as a means. The
former hypothesis would directly contradict the statement that this motive was sole
good, and the latter is excluded by Kant himself since he maintains that no actions can
cause the existence of this motive. And it may also be observed that the other claim
which he makes for it, namely, that it is always good as a means, can also not be

maintained. It is as certain as anything can be that very harmful actions may be done
from conscientious motives; and that Conscience does not always tell us the truth
about what actions are right. Nor can it be maintained even that it is more useful than
many other motives. All that can be admitted is that it is one of the things which are
generally useful. (§ 108 ¶ 3)
§ 108, n. 2: Kant, so far as I know, never expressly states this view, but it is implied
e.g. in his argument against Heteronomy.
What more I have to say with regard to those elements in some virtues which are good
in themselves, and with regard to their relative degrees of excellence, as well as the
proof that all of them together cannot be the sole good, may be deferred to the next
chapter. (§ 108 ¶ 4)

§ 109.
The main points in this chapter, to which I desire to direct attention, may be
summarized as follows:—(1) I first pointed out how the subject-matter with which it
deals, namely, ethical judgments on conduct, involves a question, utterly different in
kind from the two previously discussed, namely: (a) What is the nature of the
predicate peculiar to Ethics? and (b) What kinds of things themselves possess this
predicate? Practical Ethics asks, not What ought to be? but What ought we to do?; it
asks what actions are duties, what actions are right, and what wrong: and all these
questions can only be answered by shewing the relation of the actions in question, as
causes or necessary conditions, to what is good in itself. The enquiries of Practical
Ethics thus fall entirely under the third division of ethical questions—questions which
ask, What is good as a means? which is equivalent to What is a means to good—what
is cause or necessary condition of things good in themselves? (86—88). But (2) it
asks this question, almost exclusively, with regard to actions which it is possible for
most men to perform, if only they will them; and with regard to these, it does not ask
merely, which among them will have some good or bad result, but which, among all
the actions possible to volition at any moment, will produce the best total result. To
assert that an action is a duty, is to assert that it is such a possible action, which will
always, in certain known circumstances, produce better results than any other. It
follows that universal propositions of which duty is predicate, so far from being selfevident, always require a proof, which it is beyond our present means of knowledge
ever to give (89—92). But (3) all that Ethics has attempted or can attempt, is to shew
that certain actions, possible by volition, generally produce better or worse total
results than any probable alternative: and it must obviously be very difficult to shew
this with regard to the total results even in a comparatively near future; whereas that
what has the best results in such a near future, also has the best on the whole, is a
point requiring an investigation which it has not received. If it is true, and if,
accordingly, we give the name of duty to actions which generally produce better total
results in the near future than any possible alternative, it may be possible to prove that
a few of the commonest rules of duty are true, but only in certain conditions of
society, which may be more or less universally presented in history; and such a proof
is only possible in some cases without a correct judgment of what things are good or
bad in themselves—a judgment which has never yet been offered by ethical writers.
With regard to actions of which the general utility is thus proved, the individual
should always perform them; but in other cases, where rules are commonly offered,

he should rather judge of the probable results in his particular case, guided by a
correct conception of what things are intriniscally good or bad (93—100). (4) In order
that any action may be shewn to be a duty, it must be shewn to fulfil the above
conditions; but the actions commonly called duties do not fulfil them to any greater
extent than expedient or interested actions: by calling them duties we only mean that
they have, in addition, certain non-ethical predicates. Similarly by virtue is mainly
meant a permanent disposition to perform duties in this restricted sense: and
accordingly a virtue, if it is really a virtue, must be good as a means, in the sense that
it fulfils the above conditions; but it is not better as a means than non-virtuous
dispositions; it generally has no value in itself; and, where it has, it is far from being
the sole good or the best of goods. Accordingly virtue is not, as is commonly implied,
an unique ethical predicate (101—109). (§ 109 ¶ 1)

Chapter VI: The Ideal.
§ 110.
The title of this chapter is ambiguous. When we call a state of things ideal we may
mean three distinct things, which have only this in common: that we always do mean
to assert, of the state of things in question, not only that it is good in itself, but that it
is good in itself in a much higher degree than many other things. The first of these
meanings of ideal is (1) that to which the phrase The Ideal is most properly confined.
By this is meant the best state of things conceivable, the Summum Bonum or
Absolute Good. It is in this sense that a right conception of Heaven would be a right
conception of the Ideal: we mean by the Ideal a state of things which would be
absolutely perfect. But this conception may be quite clearly distinguished from a
second, namely, (2) that of the best possible state of things in this world. This second
conception may be identified with that which has frequently figured in philosophy as
the Human Good, or the ultimate end towards which our action should be directed. It
is in this sense that Utopias are said to be Ideals. the constructor of an Utopia may
suppose many things to be possible, which are in fact impossible; but he always
assumes that some things, at least, are rendered impossible by natural laws, and hence
his construction differs essentially from one which may disregard all natural laws,
however certainly established. At all events the question What is the best state of
things which we could possibly bring about? is quite distinct from the question What
would be the best state of things conceivable? But, thirdly, we may mean by calling a
state of things ideal merely (3) that it is good in itself in a high degree. And it is
obvious that the question what things are ideal in this sense is one which must be
answered before we can pretend to settle what is the Absolute or the Human Good. It
is with the Ideal, in this third sense, that this chapter will be principally concerned. Its
main object is to arrive at some positive answer to the fundamental question of
Ethics—the question: What things are goods or ends in themselves? To this question
we have hitherto obtained only a negative answer: the answer that pleasure is
certainly not the sole good. (§ 110 ¶ 1)

§ 111.
I have just said that it is upon a correct answer to this question that correct answers to
the two other questions, What is the Absolute Good? and What is the Human Good?
must depend; and, before proceeding to discuss it, it may be well to point out the
relation which it has to these two premises. (§ 111 ¶ 1)
(1) It is just possible that the Absolute Good may be entirely composed of qualities
which we cannot even imagine. This is possible, because, though we certainly do
know a great many things that are good-in-themselves, and good in a high degree, yet
what is best does not necessarily contain all the good things there are. That this is so
follows from the principle explained in Chap. I. (§§ 18—22), to which it was there
proposed that the name principle of organic unities should be confined. This principle
is that the intrinsic value of a whole is neither identical with nor proportional to the
sum of the values of its parts. It follows from this that, though in order to obtain the
greatest possible sum of values in its parts, the Ideal would necessarily contain all the
things which have all these parts might not be so valuable as some other whole, from

which certain positive goods were omitted. But if a whole, which does not contain all
positive goods, may yet be better than a whole which does, it follows that the best
whole may be one, which contains none of the positive goods with which we are
acquainted. (§ 111 ¶ 2)
It is, therefore, possible that we cannot discover what the Ideal is. But it is plain that,
though this possibility cannot be denied, no one can have any right to assert that it is
realised—that the Ideal is something unimaginable. We cannot judge of the
comparative values of things, unless the things we judge are before our minds. We
cannot, therefore, be entitled to assert that anything, which we cannot imagine, would
be better than some of the things which we can; although we are also not entitled to
deny the possibility that this may be the case. Consequently our search for the Ideal
must be limited to a search for that one, among all the wholes composed of elements
known to us, which seems to be better than all the rest. We shall never be entitled to
assert that this whole is Perfection, but we shall be entitled to assert that it is better
than any other which may be presented as a rival. (§ 111 ¶ 3)
But, since anything which we can have any reason to think ideal must be composed of
things that are known to us, it is plain that a comparative valuation of these must be
our chief instrument for deciding what is ideal. The best ideal we can construct will be
that state of things which contains the greatest number of things having positive value,
and which contains nothing evil or indifferent—provided that the presence of none of
these goods, or the absence of things evil or indifferent, seems to diminish the value
of the whole. And, in fact, the chief defect of such attempts as have been made by
philosophers to construct such an Ideal—to describe the Kingdom of Heaven—seems
to consist in the fact that they omit many things of very great positive value, although
it is plain that this omission does not enhance the value of the whole. Where this is the
case, it may be confidently asserted that the ideal proposed is not ideal. And the
review of positive goods, which I am about to undertake, will, I hope, shew that no
ideals yet proposed are satisfactory. Great positive goods, it will appear, are so
numerous, that any whole, which shall contain them all, must be of vast complexity.
And though this fact renders it difficult, or, humanly speaking, impossible, to decide
what is The Ideal, what is the absolutely best state of things imaginable, it is sufficient
to condemn those Ideals, which are formed by omission, without any visible gain in
consequence of such omission. Philosophers seem usually to have sought only for the
best of single things; neglecting the fact that a whole composed of two great goods,
even though one of these be obviously inferior to the other, may yet be often seen to
be decidedly superior to either by itself. (§ 111 ¶ 4)
(2) On the other hand, Utopias—attempted descriptions of a Heaven upon Earth—
commonly suffer not only from this, but also from the opposite defect. They are
commonly constructed on the principle of merely omitting the great positive evils,
which exist at present, with utterly inadequate regard to the goodness of what they
retain: the so-called goods, to which they have regard, are, for the most part, things
which are, at best, mere means to good—things, such as freedom, without which,
possibly nothing very good can exist in this world, but which are of no value in
themselves and are by no means certain even to produce anything of value. It is, of
course, necessary to the purpose of their authors, whose object is merely to construct
the best that may be possible in this world, that they should include, in the state of
things which they describe, many things which are themselves indifferent, but which,

according to natural laws, seem to be absolutely necessary for the existence of
anything which is good. But, in fact, they are apt to include many things, of which the
necessity is by no means apparent, under the mistaken idea that these things are
goods-in-themselves, and not merely, here and now, a means to good: while, on the
other hand, they also omit from their description great positive goods, of which the
attainment seems to be quite as possible as many of the changes which they
recommend. That is to say, conceptions of the Human Good commonly err, not only,
like those of the Absolute Good, in omitting some great goods, but also by including
things indifferent; and they both omit and include in cases where the limitations of
natural necessity, by the consideration of which they are legitimately differentiated
from conceptions of the Absolute Good, will not justify the omission and inclusion. It
is, in fact, obvious that in order to decide correctly at what state of things we ought to
aim, we must not only consider what results it is possible for us to obtain, but also
which, among equally possible results, will have the greatest value. And upon this
second enquiry the comparative valuation of known goods has a no less important
bearing than upon the investigation of the Absolute Good. (§ 111 ¶ 5)

§ 112.
The method which must be employed in order to decide the question What things
have intrinsic value, and in what degrees? has already been explained in Chap. III. (§§
55, 57). In order to arrive at a correct decision on the first part of this question, it is
necessary to consider what things are such that, if they existed by themselves, in
absolute isolation, we should yet judge their existence to be good; and, in order to
decide upon the relative degrees of value of different things, we must similarly
consider what comparative value seems to attach to the isolated existence of each. By
employing this method, we shall guard against two errors, which seem to have been
the chief causes which have vitiated previous conclusions on the subject. The first of
these is (1) that which consists in supposing that what seems absolutely necessary
here and now, for the existence of anything good—what we cannot do without—is
therefore good in itself. If we isolate such things, which are mere means to good, and
suppose a world in which they alone, and nothing but they, existed, their intrinsic
worthlessness becomes apparent. And, secondly, there is the more subtle error (2)
which consists in neglecting the principle of organic unities. This error is committed,
when it is supposed, that, if one part of a whole has no intrinsic value, the value of the
whole must reside entirely in the other parts. It has, in this way, been commonly
supposed, that, if all valuable wholes could be seen to have one and only one common
property, the wholes must be valuable solely because they possess this property; and
the illusion is greatly strengthened, if the common property in question seems,
considered by itself, to have more value than the other parts of such wholes,
considered by themselves. But, if we consider the property in question, in isolation,
and then compare it with the whole, of which it forms a part, it may become easily
apparent that, existing by itself, the property in question has not nearly so much value,
as has the whole to which it belongs. Thus, if we compare the value of a certain
amount of pleasure, existing absolutely by itself, with the value of certain enjoyments,
containing an equal amount of pleasure, it may become apparent that the enjoyment is
much better than the pleasure, and also, in some cases, much worse. In such a case it
is plain that the enjoyment does not owe its value solely to the pleasure it contains,
although it might easily have appeared to do so, when we only considered the other
constituents of the enjoyment, and seemed to see that, without the pleasure, they

would have had no value. It is now apparent, on the contrary, that the whole
enjoyment owes its value quite equally to the presence of the other constituents, even
though it may be true that the pleasure is the only constituent having any value by
itself. And similarly, if we are told that all things owe their value solely to the fact that
they are realisations of the true self, we may easily refute this statement, by asking
whether the predicate that is meant by realising the true self, supposing that it could
exist alone, would have any value whatsoever. Either the thing, which does realise the
true self, has intrinsic value or it has not; and if it has, then it certainly does not owe
its value solely to the fact that it realises the true self. (§ 112 ¶ 1)

§ 113.
If, now, we use this method of absolute isolation, and guard against these errors, it
appears that the question we have to answer is far less difficult than the controversies
of Ethics might have led us to expect. Indeed, once the meaning of the question is
clearly understood, the answer to it, in its main outlines, appears to be so obvious, that
it runs the risk of seeming to be a platitude. By far the most valuable things, which we
know or can imagine, are certain states of consciousness, which may be roughly
described as the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful
objects. No one, probably, who has asked himself the question, has ever doubted that
personal affection and the appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good
in themselves; nor, if we consider strictly what things are worth having purely for
their own sakes, does it appear probable that any one will think that anything else has
nearly so great a value as the things which are included under these two heads. I have
myself urged in Chap. III. (§ 50) that the mere existence of what is beautiful does
appear to have some intrinsic value; but I regard it as indubitable that Prof. Sidgwick
was so far right, in the view there discussed, that such mere existence of what is
beautiful has value, so small as to be negligible, in comparison with that which
attaches to the consciousness of beauty. This simple truth may, indeed, be said to be
universally recognised. What has not been recognised is that it is the ultimate and
fundamental truth of Moral Philosophy. That it is only for the sake of these things—in
order that as much of them as possible may at some time exist—that any one can be
justified in performing any public or private duty; that they are the raison d’être of
virtue; that it is they—these complex wholes themselves, and not any constituent or
characteristic of them—that form the rational ultimate end of human action and the
sole criterion of social progress: these appear to be truths which have been generally
overlooked. (§ 113 ¶ 1)
That they are truths—that personal affections and aesthetic enjoyments include all the
greatest, and by far the greatest, goods we can imagine, will, I hope, appear more
plainly in the course of that analysis of them, to which I shall now proceed. All the
things, which I have meant to include under the above descriptions, are highly
complex organic unities; and in discussing the consequences, which follow from this
fact, and the elements of which they are composed, I may hope at the same time both
to confirm and to define my position. (§ 113 ¶ 2)

§ 114.
I. I propose to begin by examining what I have called aesthetic enjoyments, since the
case of personal affections presents some additional complications. It is, I think,

universally admitted that the proper appreciation of a beautiful object is a good thing
in itself; and my question is: What are the main elements included in such an
appreciation? (§ 114 ¶ 1)
(1) It is plain that in those instances of aesthetic appreciation, which we think most
valuable, there is included, not merely a bare cognition of what is beautiful in the
object, but also some kind of feeling or emotion. It is not sufficient that a man should
merely see the beautiful qualities in a picture and know that they are beautiful, in
order that we may give his state of mind the highest praise. We require that he should
also appreciation the beauty of that which he sees and which he knows to be
beautiful—that he should feel and see its beauty. And by these expressions we
certainly mean that he should have an appropriate emotion towards the beautiful
qualities which he cognises. It is perhaps the case that all aesthetic emotions have
some common quality; but it is certain that differences in the emotion seem to be
appropriate to differences in the kind of beauty perceived: and by saying that different
emotions are appropriate to different kinds of beauty, we mean that the whole which
is formed by the consciousness of that kind of beauty together with the emotion
appropriate to it, is better than if any other emotion had been felt in contemplating that
particular beautiful object. Accordingly we have a large variety of different emotions,
each of which is a necessary constituent in some state of consciousness which we
judge to be good. All of these emotions are essential elements in great positive goods;
they are parts of organic wholes, which have great intrinsic value. But it is important
to observe that these wholes are organic, and that, hence, it does not follow that the
emotion, by itself, would have any value whatsoever, nor yet that, if it were directed
to a different object, the whole thus formed might not be positively bad. And, in fact,
it seems to be the case that if we distinguish the emotional element, in any aesthetic
appreciation, from the cognitive element, which accompanies it and is, in fact,
commonly thought of as a part of the emotion; and if we consider what value this
emotional element would have, existing by itself, we can hardly think that it has any
great value, even if it has any at all. Whereas, if the same emotion be directed to a
different object, if, for instance, it is felt towards an object that is positively ugly, the
whole state of consciousness is certainly often positively bad in a high degree. (§ 114
¶ 2)

§ 115.
(2) In the last paragraph I have pointed out the two facts, that the presence of some
emotion is necessary to give any very high value to a state of aesthetic appreciation,
and that, on the other hand, this same emotion, in itself, may have little or no value: it
follows that these emotions give to the wholes of which they form a part a value far
greater than that which they themselves possess. The same is obviously true of the
cognitive element which must be combined with these emotions in order to form these
highly valuable wholes; and the present paragraph will attempt to define what is
meant by this cognitive element, so far as to guard against a possible
misunderstanding. When we talk of seeing a beautiful object, or, more generally, of
the cognition or consciousness of a beautiful object, we may mean by these
expressions something which forms no part of any valuable whole. There is an
ambiguity in the use of the term object, which has probably been responsible for as
many enormous errors in philosophy and psychology as any other single cause. This
ambiguity may easily be detected by considering the proposition, which, though a

contradiction in terms, is obviously true: That when a man sees a beautiful picture, he
may see nothing beautiful whatever. The ambiguity consists in the fact that, by the
object of vision (or cognition), may be meant either the qualities actually seen or all
the qualities possessed by the thing seen. Thus in our case: when it is said that the
picture is beautiful, it is meant that it contains qualities which are beautiful; when it is
said that the man sees the picture, it is meant that he sees a great number of the
qualities contained in the picture; and when it is said that, nevertheless, he sees
nothing beautiful, it is meant that he does not see those qualities of the picture which
are beautiful. When, therefore, I speak of the cognition of a beautiful object, as an
essential element in a valuable aesthetic appreciation, I must be understood to mean
only the cognition of the beautiful qualities possessed by that object, and not the
cognition of other qualities of the object possessing them. And this distinction must
itself be carefully distinguished from the other distinction expressed above by the
distinct terms seeing the beauty of a thing and seeing its beautiful qualities. By seeing
the beauty of a thing we commonly mean the having an emotion towards its beautiful
qualities; whereas in the seeing of its beautiful qualities we do not include any
emotion. By the cognitive element, which is equally necessary with emotions to the
existence of a valuable appreciation, I mean merely the actual cognition or
consciousness of any or all of an object’s beautiful qualities—that is to say, any or all
of those elements in the object which possess any positive beauty. That such a
cognitive element is essential to a valuable whole may be easily seen, by asking:
What value should we attribute to the proper emotion excited by hearing Beethoven’s
Fifth Symphony, if that emotion were entirely unaccompanied by any consciousness,
either of the notes, or of the melodic and harmonic relations between them? And that
the mere hearing of the Symphony, even accompanied by the appropriate emotion, is
not sufficient, may be easily seen, if we consider what would be the state of a man,
who should hear all the notes, but should not be aware of any of those melodic and
harmonic relations, which are necessary to constitute the smallest beautiful elements
in the Symphony. (§ 115 ¶ 1)

§ 116.
(3) Connected with the distinction just made between object in the sense of the
qualities actually before the mind and object in the sense of the whole thing which
possesses the qualities actually before the mind, is another distinction of the utmost
importance for a correct analysis of the constituents necessary to a valuable whole. It
is commonly and rightly thought that to see beauty in a thing which has no beauty is
in some way inferior to seeing beauty in that which really has it. But under this single
description of seeing beauty in that which has no beauty, two very different facts, and
facts of very different value, may be included. We may mean either the attribution to
an object of really beautiful qualities which it does not possess or the feeling towards
qualities, which the object does possess but which are in reality not beautiful, an
emotion which is appropriate only to qualities really beautiful. Both these facts are of
very frequent occurrence; and in most instances of emotion both no doubt occur
together: but they are obviously quite distinct, and the distinction is of the utmost
importance for a correct estimate of values. The former may be called an error of
judgment, and the latter an error of taste; but it is important to observe that the error of
taste commonly involves a false judgment of value; whereas the error of judgment is
merely a false judgment of fact. (§ 116 ¶ 1)

Now the case which I have called an error of taste, namely, where the actual qualities
we admire (whether possessed by the object or not) are ugly, can in any case have no
value, except such as may belong to the emotion by itself; and in most, if not in all,
cases it is a considerable positive evil. In this sense, then, it is undoubtedly right to
think that seeing beauty in a thing which has no beauty is inferior in value to seeing
beauty where beauty really is. But the other case is much more difficult. In this case
there is present all that I have hitherto mentioned as necessary to constitute a great
positive good: there is a cognition of qualities really beautiful, together with an
appropriate emotion towards these qualities. There can, therefore, be no doubt that we
have here a great positive good. But there is present also something else; namely, a
belief that these beautiful qualities exist, and that they exist in a certain relation to
other things—namely, to some properties of the object to which we attribute these
qualities: and further the object of this belief is false. And we may ask, with regard to
the whole thus constituted, whether the presence of the belief, and the fact that what is
believed is false, make any difference to its value? We thus get three different cases of
which it is very important to determine the relative values. Where both the cognition
of beautiful qualities and the appropriate emotion are present we may also have either
(1) a belief in the existence of these qualities, of which the object, i.e. that they exist,
is true: or (2) a mere cognition, without belief, when it is (a) true, (b) false, that the
object of the cognition, i.e. the beautiful qualities, exists: or (3) a belief in the
existence of the beautiful qualities, when they do not exist. The importance of these
cases arises from the fact that the second defines the pleasures of imagination,
including a great part of the appreciation of those works of art which are
representative; whereas the first contrasts with these the appreciation of what is
beautiful in Nature, and the human affections. The third, on the other hand, is
contrasted with both, in that it is chiefly exemplified in what is called misdirected
affection; and it is possible also that the love of God, in the case of a believer, should
fall under this head. (§ 116 ¶ 2)

§ 117.
Now all these three cases, as I have said, have something in common, namely, that, in
them all, we have a cognition of really beautiful qualities together with an appropriate
emotion towards those qualities. I think, therefore, it cannot be doubted (nor is it
commonly doubted) that all three include great positive goods; they are all things of
which we feel convinced that they are worth having for their own sakes. And I think
that the value of the second, in either of its two subdivisions, is precisely the same as
the value of the element common to all three. In other words, in the case of purely
imaginative appreciations we have merely the cognition of really beautiful qualities
together with the appropriate emotion; and the question, whether the object cognised
exists or not, seems here, where there is no belief either in its existence or in its nonexistence, to make absolutely no difference to the value of the total state. But it seems
to me that the two other cases do differ in intrinsic value both from the one and from
one another, even though the object cognised and the appropriate emotion should be
identical in all three cases. I think that the additional presence of a belief in the reality
of the object makes the total state much better, if the belief is true; and worse, if the
belief is false. In short, where there is belief, in the sense in which we do believe in
the existence of Nature and horses, and do not believe in the existence of an ideal
landscape and unicorns, the truth of what is believed does make a great difference to
the value of the organic whole. If this be the case, we shall have vindicated the belief

that knowledge, in the ordinary sense, as distinguished on the one hand from belief in
what is false and on the other from the mere awareness of what is true, does
contribute towards intrinsic value—that, at least in some cases, its presence as a part
makes a whole more valuable than it could have been without. (§ 117 ¶ 1)
Now I think there can be no doubt that we do judge that there is a difference of value,
such as I have indicated, between the three cases in question. We do think that the
emotional contemplation of a natural scene, supposing its qualities equally beautiful,
is in some way a better state of things than that of a painted landscape: we think that
the world would be improved if we could substitute for the best works of
representative art real objects equally beautiful. And similarly we regard a
misdirected affection or admiration, even where the error involved is a mere error of
judgment and not an error of taste, as in some way unfortunate. And further, those, at
least, who have a strong respect for truth, are inclined to think that a merely poetical
contemplation of the Kingdom of Heaven would be superior to that of the religious
believer, if it were the case that the Kingdom of Heaven does not and will not really
exist. Most persons, on a sober, reflective judgment, would feel some hesitation even
in preferring the felicity of a madman, convinced that the world was ideal, to the
condition either of a poet imagining an ideal world, or of themselves enjoying and
appreciating the lesser goods which do and will exist. But, in order to assure ourselves
that these judgments are really judgments of intrinsic value upon the question before
us, and to satisfy ourselves that they are correct, it is necessary clearly to distinguish
our question from two others which have a very important bearing upon our total
judgment of the cases in question. (§ 117 ¶ 2)

§ 118.
In the first place (a) it is plain that, where we believe, the question whether what we
believe is true or false, will generally have a most important bearing upon the value of
our belief as a means. Where we believe, we are apt to act upon our belief, in a way in
which we do not act upon our cognition of the events in a novel. The truth of what we
believe is, therefore, very important as preventing the pains of disappointment and
still more serious consequences. And it might be thought that a misdirected
attachment was unfortunate solely for this reason: that it leads us to count upon
results, which the real nature of its object is not of a kind to ensure. So too the Love of
God, where, as usual, it includes the belief that he will annex to certain actions
consequences, either in this life or the next, which the course of nature gives no
reason to expect, may lead the believer to perform actions of which the actual
consequences, supposing no such God to exist, may be much worse than he might
otherwise have effected: and it might be thought that this was the sole reason (as it is
a sufficient one) why we should hesitate to encourage the Love of God, in the absence
of any proof that he exists. And similarly it may be thought that the only reason why
beauty in Nature should be held superior to an equally beautiful landscape or
imagination, is that its existence would ensure greater permanence and frequency in
our emotional contemplation of that beauty. It is, indeed, certain that the chief
importance of most knowledge—of the truth of most of the things which we believe—
does, in this world, consist in its extrinsic advantages: it is immediately valuable as a
means. (§ 118 ¶ 1)

And secondly, (b) it may be the case that the existence of that which we contemplate
is itself a great positive good, so that, for this reason alone, the state of things
described by saying, that the object of our emotion really exists, would be intrinsically
superior to that in which it did not. This reason for superiority to that in which it did
not. This reason for superiority is undoubtedly of great importance in the case of
human affections, where the object of our admiration is the mental qualities of an
admirable person; for that two such admirable persons should exist is greatly better
than that there should be only one: and it would also discriminate the admiration of
inanimate nature from that of its representations in art, in so far as we may allow a
small intrinsic value to the existence of a beautiful object, apart from any
contemplation of it. But it is to be noticed that this reason would not account for any
difference in value between the cases where the truth was believed and that in which
it was merely cognised, without either belief or disbelief. In other words, so far as this
reason goes, the difference between the two subdivisions of our second class (that of
imaginative contemplation) would be as great as between our first class and the
second subdivision of our second. The superiority of the mere cognition of a beautiful
object, when that object also happened to exist, over the same cognition when the
object did not exist, would, on this account, be as great as that of the knowledge of a
beautiful object over the mere imagination of it. (§ 118 ¶ 2)

§ 119.
These two reasons for discriminating between the value of the three cases we are
considering, must, I say, be carefully distinguished from that, of which I am now
questioning the validity, if we are to obtain a correct answer concerning this latter.
The question I am putting is this: Whether the whole constituted by the fact that there
is an emotional contemplation of a beautiful object, which is both believed to be and
is real, does not derive some of its value from the fact that the object is real? I am
asking whether the value of this whole, as a whole, is not greater than that of those
which differ from it, either by the absence of belief, with or without truth, or, belief
being present, by the mere absence of truth? I am not asking either whether it is not
superior to them as a means (which it certainly is), nor whether it may contain a more
valuable part, namely, the existence of the object in question. My question is solely
whether the existence of its object does not constitute an addition to the value of the
whole, quite distinct from the addition constituted by the fact that this whole does
contain a valuable part. (§ 119 ¶ 1)
If, now, we put this question, I cannot avoid thinking that it should receive an
affirmative answer. We can put it clearly by the method of isolation; and the sole
decision must rest with our reflective judgment upon it, as thus clearly put. We can
guard against the bias produced by a consideration of value as a means by supposing
the case of an illusion as complete and permanent as illusions in this world never can
be. We can imagine the case of a single person, enjoying throughout eternity the
contemplation of scenery as beautiful, and intercourse with persons as admirable, as
can be imagined; while yet the whole of the objects of his cognition are absolutely
unreal. I think we should definitely pronounce the existence of a universe, which
consisted solely of such a person, to be greatly inferior in value to one in which the
objects, in the existence of which he believes, did really exist just as he believes them
to do; and that it would be thus inferior not only because it would lack the goods
which consist in the existence of the objects in question, but also merely because his

belief would be false. That it would be inferior for this reason alone follows if we
admit, what also appears to me certain, that the case of a person, merely imagining,
without believing, the beautiful objects in question, would, although these objects
really existed, be yet inferior to that of the person who also believed in their existence.
For here all the additional good, which consists in the existence of the objects, is
present, and yet there still seems to be a great difference in value between this case
and that in which their existence is believed. But I think that my conclusion may
perhaps be exhibited in a more convincing light by the following considerations. (1) It
does not seem to me that the small degree of value which we may allow to the
existence of beautiful inanimate objects is nearly equal in amount to the difference
which I feel that there is between the appreciation (accompanied by belief) of such
objects, when they really exist, and the purely imaginative appreciation of them when
they do not exist. This inequality is more difficult to verify where the object is an
admirable person, since a great value must be allowed to his existence. But yet I think
it is not paradoxical to maintain that the superiority of reciprocal affection, where both
objects are worthy and both exist, over an unreciprocated affection, where both are
worthy but one does not exist, does not lie solely in the fact that, in the former case,
we have two good things instead of one, but also in the fact that each is such as the
other believes him to be. (2) It seems to me that the important contribution to value
made by true belief may be very plainly seen in the following case. Suppose that a
worthy object of affection does really exist and is believed to do so, but that there
enters into the case this error of fact, that the qualities loved, though exactly like, are
yet not the same which really do exist. This state of things is easily imagined, and I
think we cannot avoid pronouncing that, although both persons here exist, it is yet not
so satisfactory as where the very person loved and believed to exist is also the one
which actually does exist. (§ 119 ¶ 2)

§ 120.
If all this be so, we have, in this third section, added to our two former results the
third result that a true belief in the reality of an object greatly increases the value of
many valuable wholes. Just as in sections (1) and (2) it was maintained that aesthetic
and affectionate emotions had little or no value apart from the cognition of
appropriate objects, and that the cognition of these objects had little or no value apart
from the appropriate emotion, so that the whole, in which both were combined, had a
value greatly in excess of the sum of the values of its parts; so, according to this
section, if there be added to these wholes a true belief in the reality of the object, the
new whole thus formed has a value greatly in excess of the sum obtained by adding
the value of the true belief, considered in itself, to that of our original wholes. This
new case only differs from the former in this, that, whereas the true belief, by itself,
has quite as little value as either of the two other constituents taken singly, yet they,
taken together, seem to form a whole of very great value, whereas this is not the case
with the two wholes which might be formed by adding the true belief to either of the
others. (§ 120 ¶ 1)
The importance of the result of this section seems to lie mainly in two of its
consequences. (1) That it affords some justification for the immense intrinsic value,
which seems to be commonly attributed to the mere knowledge of some truths, and
which was expressly attributed to some kinds of knowledge by Plato and Aristotle.
Perfect knowledge has indeed competed with perfect love for the position of Ideal. If

the results of this section are correct, it appears that knowledge, though having little or
no value by itself, is an absolutely essential constituent in the highest goods, and
contributes immensely to their value. And it appears that this function may be
performed not only by that case of knowledge, which we have chiefly considered,
namely knowledge of the reality of the beautiful object cognised, but also by
knowledge of the numerical identity of this object with that which really exists, and
by the knowledge that the existence of that object is truly good. Indeed all knowledge,
which is directly concerned with the nature of the constituents of a beautiful object,
would seem capable of adding greatly to the value of the contemplation of that object,
although, by itself, such knowledge would have no value at all.—And (2) The second
important consequence, which follows from this section, is that the presence of true
belief may, in spite of a great inferiority in the value of the emotion and the beauty of
its objects, constitute with them a whole equal or superior in value to wholes, in
which the emotion and beauty are superior, but in which a true belief is wanting or a
false belief present. In this way may justify the attribution of equal or superior value
to an appreciation of an inferior real object, as compared with the appreciation of a
greatly superior object which is a mere creature of the imagination. Thus a just
appreciation of nature and of real persons may maintain its equality with an equally
just appreciation of the products of artistic imagination, in spite of much greater
beauty in the latter. And similarly though God may be admitted to be a more perfect
object than any actual human being, the love of God may yet be inferior to human
love, if God does not exist. (§ 120 ¶ 2)

§ 121.
(4) In order to complete the discussion of this first class of goods—goods which have
an essential reference to beautiful objects—it would be necessary to attempt a
classification and comparative valuation of all the different forms of beauty, a task
which properly belongs to the study called Aesthetics. I do not, however, propose to
attempt any part of this task. It must only be understood that I intend to include
among the essential constituents of the goods I have been discussing, every form and
variety of beautiful object, if only it be truly beautiful; and, if this be understood, I
think it may be seen that the consensus of opinion with regard to what is positively
beautiful and what is positively ugly, and even with regard to great differences in
degree of beauty, is quite sufficient to allow us a hope that we need not greatly err in
our judgments of good and evil. In anything which is thought beautiful by any
considerable number of persons, there is probably some beautiful quality; and
differences of opinion seem to be far more often due to exclusive attention, on the part
of different persons, to different qualities in the same object, than to the positive error
of supposing a quality that is ugly to be really beautiful. When an object, which some
think beautiful, is denied to be so by others, the truth is usually that it lacks some
beautiful quality or is deformed by some ugly one, which engage the exclusive
attention of the critics. (§ 121 ¶ 1)
I may, however, state two general principles, closely connected with the results of this
chapter, the recognition of which would seem to be of great importance for the
investigation of what things are truly beautiful. The first of these is (1) a definition of
beauty, of what is meant by saying that a thing is truly beautiful. The naturalistic
fallacy has been quite as commonly committed with regard to beauty as with regard to
good: its use has introduced as many errors into Aesthetics as into Ethics. It has been

even more commonly supposed that the beautiful may be defined as that which
produces certain effects upon our feelings; and the conclusion which follows from
this—namely, that judgments of taste are merely subjective—that precisely the same
thing may, according to circumstances, be both beautiful and not beautiful—has very
frequently been drawn. The conclusions of this chapter suggest a definition of beauty,
which may partially explain and entirely remove the difficulties which have led to this
error. It appears probable that the beautiful should be defined as that of which the
admiring contemplation is good in itself. That is to say: To assert that a thing is
beautiful is to assert that the cognition of it is an essential element in one of the
intrinsically valuable wholes we have been discussing; so that the question, whether it
is truly beautiful or not, depends upon the objective question whether the whole in
question is or is not truly good, and does not depend upon the question whether it
would or would not excite particular feelings in particular persons. This definition has
the double recommendation that it accounts both for the apparent connection between
goodness and beauty and for the no less apparent difference between these two
conceptions. It appears, at first sight, to be a strange coincidence, that there should be
two different objective predicates of value, good and beautiful, which are nevertheless
so related to one another that whatever is beautiful is also good. But, if our definition
be correct, the strangeness disappears; since it leaves only one unanalysable predicate
of value, namely good, while beautiful, though not identical with, is to be defined by
reference to this, being thus, at the same time, different from and necessarily
connected with it. In short, on this view, to say that a thing is beautiful is to say, not
indeed that it is itself good, but that it is a necessary element in something which is: to
prove that a thing is truly beautiful is to prove that a whole, to which it bears a
particular relation as a part, is truly good. And in this way we should explain the
immense predominance, among objects commonly considered beautiful, of material
objects—objects of the external senses; since these objects, though themselves
having, as has been said, little or no intrinsic value, are yet essential constituents in
the largest group of wholes which have intrinsic value. These wholes themselves may
be, and are, also beautiful; but the comparative rarity, with which we regard them as
themselves objects of contemplation, seems sufficient to explain the association of
beauty with external objects. (§ 121 ¶ 2)
And secondly (2) it is to be observed that beautiful objects are themselves, for the
most part, organic unities, in this sense, that they are wholes of great complexity, such
that the contemplation of any part, by itself, may have no value, and yet that, unless
the contemplation of the whole includes the contemplation of that part, it will lose in
value. From this it follows that there can be no single criterion of beauty. It will never
be true to say: This object owes its beauty solely to the presence of this characteristic;
nor yet that: Wherever this characteristic is present, the object must be beautiful. All
that can be true is that certain objects are beautiful, because they have certain
characteristics, in the sense that they would not be beautiful unless they had them.
And it may be possible to find that certain characteristics are more or less universally
present in all beautiful objects, and are, in this sense, more or less important
conditions of beauty. But it is important to observe that the very qualities, which
differentiate one beautiful object from all others, are, if the object be truly beautiful,
as essential to its beauty, as those which it has in common with ever so many others.
The object would no more have the beauty it has, without its specific qualities, than
without those that are generic; and the generic qualities, by themselves, would fail, as
completely, to give beauty, as those which are specific. (§ 121 ¶ 3)

§ 122.
II. It will be remembered that I began this survey of great unmixed goods, by dividing
all the greatest goods we know into the two classes of aesthetic enjoyments, on the
one hand, and the pleasures of human intercourse or of personal affection, on the
other. I postponed the consideration of the latter on the ground that they presented
additional complications. In what this additional complication consists, will now be
evident; and I have already been obliged to take account of it, in discussing the
contribution to value made by true belief. It consists in the fact that in the case of
personal affection, the object itself is not merely beautiful, while possessed of little or
no intrinsic value, but is itself, in part at least, of great intrinsic value. All the
constituents which we have found to be necessary to the most valuable aesthetic
enjoyments, namely, appropriate emotion, cognition of truly beautiful qualities, and
true belief, are equally necessary here; but here we have the additional fact that the
object must be not only truly beautiful, but also truly good in a high degree. (§ 122 ¶
1)
It is evident that this additional complication only occurs in so far as there is included
in the object of personal affection some of the mental qualities of the person towards
whom the affection is felt. And I think it may be admitted that, wherever the affection
is most valuable, the appreciation of mental qualities must form a large part of it, and
that the presence of this part makes the whole far more valuable than it could have
been without it. But it seems very doubtful whether this appreciation, by itself, can
possess as much value as the whole in which it is combined with an appreciation of
the appropriate corporeal expression of the mental qualities in question. It is certain
that in all actual cases of valuable affection, the bodily expressions of character,
whether by looks, by words, or by actions, do form a part of the object towards which
the affection is felt, and that the fact of their inclusion appears to heighten the value of
the whole state. It is, indeed, very difficult to imagine what the cognition of mental
qualities alone, unaccompanied by any corporeal expression, would be like; and, in so
far as we succeed in making this abstraction, the whole considered certainly appears
to have less value. I therefore conclude that the importance of an admiration of
admirable mental qualities lies chiefly in the immense superiority of a whole, in
which it forms a part, to one in which it is absent, and not in any high degree of
intrinsic value which it possesses by itself. It even appears to be doubtful, whether, in
itself, it possesses so much value as the appreciation of mere corporeal beauty
undoubtedly does possess; that is to say, whether the appreciation of what has great
intrinsic value is so valuable as the appreciation of what is merely beautiful. (§ 122 ¶
2)
But further if we consider the nature of admirable mental qualities, by themselves, it
appears that a proper appreciation of them involves a reference to purely material
beauty in yet another way. Admirable mental qualities do, if our previous conclusions
are correct, consist very largely in an emotional contemplation of beautiful objects;
and hence the appreciation of them will consist essentially in the contemplation of
such contemplation. It is true that the most valuable appreciation of persons appears to
be that which consists in the appreciation of their appreciation of other persons: but
even here a reference to material beauty appears to be involved, both in respect of the
fact that what is appreciated in the last instance may be the contemplation of what is
merely beautiful, and in respect of the fact that the most valuable appreciation of a

person appears to include an appreciation of his corporeal expression. Though,
therefore, we may admit that the appreciation of a person’s attitude towards other
persons, or, to take one instance, the love of love, is far the most valuable good we
know, and far more valuable than the mere love of beauty, yet we can only admit this
if the first be understood to include the latter, in various degrees of directness. (§ 122
¶ 3)
With regard to the question what are the mental qualities of which the cognition is
essential to the value of human intercourse, it is plain that they include, in the first
place, all those varieties of aesthetic appreciation, which formed our first class of
goods. They include, therefore, a great variety of different emotions, each of which is
appropriate to some different kind of beauty. But we must now add to these the whole
range of emotions, which are appropriate to persons, and which are different from
those which are appropriate to mere corporeal beauty. It must also be remembered
that just as these emotions have little value in themselves, and as the state of mind in
which they exist may have its value greatly heightened, or may entirely lose it and
become positively evil in a great degree, according as the cognitions accompanying
the emotions are appropriate or inappropriate; so too the appreciation of these
emotions, though it may have some value in itself, may yet form part of a whole
which has far greater value or no value at all, according as it is or is not accompanied
by a perception of the appropriateness of the emotions to their objects. It is obvious,
therefore, that the study of what is valuable in human intercourse is a study of
immense complexity; and that there may be much human intercourse which has little
or no value, or is positively bad. Yet here too, as with the question what is beautiful,
there seems no reason to doubt that a reflective judgment will in the main decide
correctly both as to what are positive goods and even as to any great differences in
value between these goods. In particular, it may be remarked that the emotions, of
which the contemplation is essential to the greatest values, and which are also
themselves appropriately excited by such contemplation, appear to be those which are
commonly most highly prized under the name of affection. (§ 122 ¶ 4)

§ 123.
I have now completed my examination into the nature of those great positive goods,
which do not appear to include among their constituents anything positively evil or
ugly, though they include much which is in itself indifferent. And I wish to point out
certain conclusions which appear to follow, with regard to the nature of the Summum
Bonum, or that state of things which would be the most perfect we can conceive.
Those idealistic philosophers, whose views agree most closely with those here
advocated, in that they deny pleasure to be the sole good and regard what is
completely good as having some complexity, have usually represented a purely
spiritual state of existence as the Ideal. Regarding matter as essentially imperfect, if
not positively evil, they have concluded that the total absence of all material
properties is necessary to a state of perfection. Now, according to what has been said,
this view would be correct so far as it asserts that any great good must be mental, and
so far as it asserts that a purely material existence, by itself, can have little or no value.
The superiority of the spiritual over the material has, in a sense, been amply
vindicated. But it does not follow, from this superiority, that a perfect state of things
must be one, from which all material properties are rigidly excluded: on the contrary,
if our conclusions are correct, it would seem to be the case that a state of things, in

which they are included, must be vastly better than any conceivable state in which
they were absent. In order to see that this is so, the chief thing necessary to be
considered is exactly what it is which we declare to be good when we declare that the
appreciation of beauty in Art and Nature is so. That this appreciation is good, the
philosophers in question do not for the most part deny. But, if we admit it, then we
should remember Butler’s maxim that: Everything is what it is, and not another thing.
I have tried to shew, and I think it is too evident to be disputed, that such appreciation
is an organic unity, a complex whole; and that, in its most undoubted instances, part
of what is included in this whole is a cognition of material qualities, and particularly
of a vast variety of what are called secondary qualities. If, then, it is this whole, which
we know to be good, and not another thing, then we know that material qualities, even
though they be perfectly worthless in themselves, are yet essential constituents of
what is far from worthless. What we know to be valuable is the apprehension of just
these qualities, and not of any others; and, if we propose to subtract them from it, then
what we have left is not that which we know to have value, but something else. And it
must be noticed that this conclusion holds, even if my contention that a true belief in
the existence of these qualities adds to the value of the whole in which it is included,
be disputed. We should then, indeed, be entitled to assert that the existence of a
material world was wholly immaterial to perfection; but the fact that what we knew to
be good was a cognition of material qualities (though purely imaginary), would still
remain. It must, then, be admitted on pain of self-contradiction—on pain of holding
that things are not what they are, but something else—that a world, from which
material qualities were wholly banished, would be a world which lacked many, if not
all, of those things, which we know most certainly to be great goods. That it might
nevertheless be a far better world than one which retained these goods, I have already
admitted (§ 111 (1)). But in order to shew that any such world would be thus better, it
would be necessary to shew that the retention of these things, though good in
themselves, impaired, in a more than equal degree, the value of some whole, to which
they might belong; and the task of shewing this has certainly never been attempted.
Until it be performed, we are entitled to assert that material qualities are a necessary
constituent of the Ideal; that, though something utterly unknown might be better than
any world containing them or any other good we know, yet we have no reason to
suppose that anything whatever would be better than a state of things in which they
were included. To deny and exclude matter, is to deny and exclude the best we know.
That a thing may retain its value, while losing some of its qualities, is utterly untrue.
All that is true is that the changed thing may have more value than, or as much value
as, that of which the qualities have been lost. What I contend is that nothing, which
we know to be good, and which contains no material qualities, has such great value
that we can declare it, by itself, to be superior to the whole which would be formed by
the addition to it of an appreciation of material qualities. That a purely spiritual good
may be the best of single things, I am not much concerned to dispute, although, in
what has been said with regard to the nature of personal affection, I have given
reasons for doubting it. But that by adding to it some appreciation of material
qualities, which, though perhaps inferior by itself, is certainly a great positive good,
we should obtain a greater sum of value, which no corresponding decrease in the
value of the whole, as a whole, could counterbalance—this, I maintain, we have
certainly no reason to doubt. (§ 123 ¶ 1)

§ 124.

In order to complete this discussion of the main principles involved in the
determination of intrinsic value, the chief remaining topics, necessary to be treated,
appear to be two. The first of these is the nature of great intrinsic evils, including what
I may call mixed evils; that is to say, those evil wholes, which nevertheless contain, as
essential elements, something positively good or beautiful. And the second is the
nature of what I may similarly call mixed goods; that is to say, those wholes, which,
though intrinsically good as wholes, nevertheless contain, as essential elements,
something positively evil or ugly. It will greatly facilitate this discussion, if I may be
understood throughout to use the terms beautiful and ugly, not necessarily with
reference to things of the kind which most naturally occur to us as instances of what is
beautiful and ugly, but in accordance with my own proposed definition of beauty.
Thus I shall use the word beautiful to denote that of which the admiring
contemplation is good in itself; and ugly to denote that of which the admiring
contemplation is evil in itself. (§ 124 ¶ 1)
I. With regard, then, to great positive evils, I think it is evident that, if we take all due
precautions to discover precisely what those things are, of which, if they existed
absolutely by themselves, we should judge the existence to be a great evil, we shall
find most of them to be organic unities of exactly the same nature as those which are
the greatest positive goods. That is to say, they are cognitions of some object,
accompanied by some emotion. Just as neither a cognition nor an emotion, by itself,
appeared capable of being greatly good, so (with one exception), neither a cognition
nor an emotion, by itself, appears capable of being greatly evil. And just as a whole
formed of both, even without the addition of any other element, appeared undoubtedly
capable of being a great good, so such a whole, by itself, appears capable of being a
great evil. With regard to the third element, which was discussed as capable of adding
greatly to the value of a good, namely, true belief, it will appear that it has different
relations towards different kinds of evils. In some cases the addition of true belief to a
positive evil seems to constitute a far worse evil; but in other cases it is not apparent
that it makes any difference. (§ 124 ¶ 2)
The greatest positive evils may be divided into the following three classes. (§ 124 ¶ 3)

§ 125.
(1) The first class consists of those evils, which seem always to include an enjoyment
or admiring contemplation of things which are themselves either evil or ugly. That is
to say these evils are characterised by the fact that they include precisely the same
emotion, which is also essential to the greatest unmixed goods, from which they are
differentiated by the fact that this emotion is directed towards an inappropriate object.
In so far as this emotion is either a slight good in itself or a slightly beautiful object,
these evils would therefore be cases of what I have called mixed evils; but, as I have
already said, it seems very doubtful whether an emotion, completely isolated from its
object, has either value or beauty: it certainly has not much of either. It is, however,
important to observe that the very same emotions, which are often loosely talked of as
the greatest or the only goods, may be essential constituents of the very worst wholes:
that, according to the nature of the cognition which accompanies them, they may be
conditions either of the greatest good, or of the greatest evil. (§ 125 ¶ 1)

In order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class, I may take two instances—cruelty
and lasciviousness. That these are great intrinsic evils, we may, I think, easily assure
ourselves, by imagining the state of a man, whose mind is solely occupied by either of
these passions, in their worst form. If we then consider what judgment we should pass
upon a universe which consisted solely of minds thus occupied, without the smallest
hope that there would ever exist in it the smallest consciousness of any object other
than those proper to these passions, or any feeling directed to any such object, I think
we cannot avoid the conclusion that the existence of such a universe would be a far
worse evil than the existence of none at all. But, if this be so, it follows that these two
vicious states are not only, as is commonly admitted, bad as means, but also bad in
themselves.—And that they involve in their nature that complication of elements,
which I have called a love of what is evil or ugly, is, I think, no less plain. With
regard to the pleasures of lust, the nature of the cognition, by the presence of which
they are to be defined, is somewhat difficult to analyse. But it appears to include both
cognitions of organic sensations and perceptions of states of the body, of which the
enjoyment is certainly an evil in itself. So far as these are concerned, lasciviousness
would, then, include in its essence an admiring contemplation of what is ugly. But
certainly one of its commonest ingredients, in its worst forms, is an enjoyment of the
same state of mind in other people: and in this case it would therefore also include a
love of what is evil. With regard to cruelty, it is easy to see an enjoyment of pain in
other people as essential to it; and, as we shall see, when we come to consider pain,
this is certainly a love of evil: while, in so far as it also includes a delight in the bodily
signs of agony, it would also comprehend a love of what is ugly. In both cases, it
should be observed, the evil of the state is heightened not only by an increase in the
evil or ugliness of the object, but also by an increase in the enjoyment. (§ 125 ¶ 2)
It might be objected, in the case of cruelty, that our disapproval of it, even in the
isolated case supposed, where no considerations of its badness as a means could
influence us, may yet be really directed to the pain of the persons, which it takes
delight in contemplating. This objection may be met, in the first place, by the remark
that it entirely fails to explain the judgment, which yet, I think, no one, on reflection,
will be able to avoid making, that even though the amount of pain contemplated be
the same, yet the greater the delight in its contemplation, the worse the state of things.
But it may also, I think, be met by notice of a fact, which we were unable to urge in
considering the similar possibility with regard to goods—namely the possibility that
the reason why we attribute greater value to a worthy affection for a real person, is
that we take into account the additional good consisting in the existence of that
person. We may I think urge, in the case of cruelty, that its intrinsic odiousness is
equally great, whether the pain contemplated really exists or is purely imaginary. I, at
least, am unable to distinguish that, in this case, the presence of true belief makes any
difference to the intrinsic value of the whole considered, although it undoubtedly may
make a great difference to its value as a means. And so also with regard to other evils
of this class: I am unable to see that a true belief in the existence of their objects
makes any difference in the degree of their positive demerits. On the other hand, the
presence of another class of beliefs seems to make a considerable difference. When
we enjoy what is evil or ugly, in spite of our knowledge that it is so, the state of things
seems considerably worse than if we made no judgment at all as to the object’s value.
And the same seems also, strangely enough, to be the case when we make a false
judgment of value. When we admire what is ugly or evil, believing that it is beautiful
and good, this belief seems also to enhance the intrinsic vileness of our condition. It

must, of course, be understood that, in both these cases, the judgment in question is
merely what I have called a judgment of taste: that is to say, it is concerned with the
worth of the qualities actually cognised and not with the worth of object, to which
those qualities may be rightly or wrongly attributed. (§ 125 ¶ 3)
Finally it should be mentioned that evils of this class, beside that emotional element
(namely enjoyment and admiration) which they share with great unmixed goods,
appear always also to include some specific emotion, which does not enter in the
same way into the constitution of any good. The presence of this specific emotion
seems certainly to enhance the badness of the whole, though it is not plain that, by
itself, it would be either evil or ugly. (§ 125 ¶ 4)

§ 126.
(2) The second class of great evils are undoubtedly mixed evils; but I treat them next,
because, in a certain respect, they appear to be the converse of the class last
considered. Just as it is essential to this last class that they should include an emotion,
appropriate to the cognition of what is good or beautiful, but directed to an
inappropriate object; so to this second class it is essential that they should include a
cognition of what is good or beautiful, but accompanied by an inappropriate emotion.
In short, just as the last class may be described as cases of the love of what is evil or
ugly, so this class may be described as cases of the hatred of what is good or
beautiful. (§ 126 ¶ 1)
With regard to these evils it should be remarked: First, that the vices of hatred, envy
and contempt, where these vices are evil in themselves, appear to be instances of
them; and that they are frequently accompanied by evils of the first class, for example,
where a delight is felt in the pain of a good person. Where they are thus accompanied,
the whole thus formed is undoubtedly worse than if either existed singly. (§ 126 ¶ 2)
And secondly: That in their case a true belief in the existence of the good or beautiful
object, which is hated, does appear to enhance the badness of the whole, in which it is
present. Undoubtedly also, as in our first class, the presence of a true belief as to the
value of the objects contemplated, increases the evil. But, contrary to what was the
case in our first class, a false judgment of value appears to lessen it. (§ 126 ¶ 3)

§ 127.
(3) The third class of great positive evils appears to be the class of pains. (§ 127 ¶ 1)
With regard to these it should first be remarked that, as in the case of pleasure, it is
not pain itself, but only the consciousness of pain, towards which our judgments of
value are directed. Just as in Chap. III., it was said that pleasure, however intense,
which no one felt, would be no good at all; so it appears that pain, however intense, of
which there was no consciousness, would be no evil at all. (§ 127 ¶ 2)
It is, therefore, only the consciousness of intense pain, which can be maintained to be
a great evil. But that this, by itself, may be a great evil, I cannot avoid thinking. The
case of pain thus seems to differ from that of pleasure: for the mere consciousness of
pleasure, however intense, does not, by itself, appear to be a great good, even if it has

some slight intrinsic value. In short, pain (if we understand by this expression, the
consciousness of pain) appears to be a far worse evil than pleasure is a good. But, if
this be so, then pain must be admitted to be an exception from the rule which seems to
hold both of all other great evils and of all great goods: namely that they are all
organic unities to which both a cognition of an object and an emotion directed
towards that object are essential. In the case of pain and of pain alone, it seems to be
true that a mere cognition, by itself, may be a great evil. It is, indeed, an organic
unity, since it involves both the cognition and the object, neither of which, by
themselves, has either merit or demerit. But it is a less complex organic unity than any
other great evil and than any great good, both in respect of the fact that it does not
involve, beside the cognition, an emotion directed towards its object, and also in
respect of the fact that the object may here be absolutely simple, whereas in most, if
not all, other cases, the object itself is highly complex. (§ 127 ¶ 3)
This want of analogy between the relation of pain to intrinsic evil and of pleasure to
intrinsic good, seems also to be exhibited in a second respect. Not only is it the case
that consciousness of intense pain is, by itself, a great evil, whereas consciousness of
intense pleasure is, by itself, no great good; but also the converse difference appears
to hold of the contribution which they make to the value of the whole, when they are
combined respectively with another great evil or with a great good. That is to say, the
presence of pleasure (though not in proportion to its intensity) does appear to enhance
the value of a whole, in which it is combined with any of the great unmixed goods
which we have considered: it might even be maintained that it is only wholes, in
which some pleasure is included, that possess any great value: it is certain, at all
events, that the presence of pleasure makes a contribution to the value of good wholes
greatly in excess of its own intrinsic value. On the contrary, if a feeling of pain be
combined with any of the evil states of mind which we have been considering, the
difference which its presence makes to the value of the whole, as a whole, seems to be
rather for the better than the worse: in any case, the only additional evil which it
introduces, is that which it, by itself, intrinsically constitutes. Thus, whereas pain is in
itself a great evil, but makes no addition to the badness of a whole, in which it is
combined with some other bad thing, except that which consists in its own intrinsic
badness; pleasure, conversely, is not in itself a great good, but does make a great
addition to the goodness of a whole in which it is combined with a good thing, quite
apart from its own intrinsic value. (§ 127 ¶ 4)

§ 128.
But finally, it must be insisted that pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this:
that we cannot assume either that the presence of pleasure always makes a state of
things better on the whole, or that the presence of pain always makes it worse. This is
the truth which is most liable to be overlooked with regard to them; and it is because
this is true, that the common theory, that pleasure is the only good and pain the only
evil, has its grossest consequences in misjudgments of value. Not only is the
pleasantness of a state not in proportion to its intrinsic worth; it may even add
positively to its vileness. We do not think the successful hatred of a villain the less
vile and odious, because he takes the keenest delight in it; nor is there the least need,
in logic, why we should think so, apart from an unintelligent prejudice in favour of
pleasure. In fact it seems to be the case that wherever pleasure is added to an evil state
of either of our first two classes, the whole thus formed is always worse than if no

pleasure had been there. And similarly with regard to pain. If pain be added to an evil
state of either of our first two classes, the whole thus formed is always better, as a
whole, than if no pain had been there; though here, if the pain be too intense, since
that is a great evil, the state may not be better on the whole. It is in this way that the
theory of vindictive punishment may be vindicated. The infliction of pain on a person
whose state of mind is bad may, if the pain be not too intense, create a state of things
that is better on the whole than if the evil state of mind had existed unpunished.
Whether such a state of things can ever constitute a positive good, is another question.
(§ 128 ¶ 1)

§ 129.
II. The consideration of this other question belongs properly to the second topic,
which was reserved above for discussion—namely the topic of mixed goods. Mixed
goods were defined above as things, which, though positively good as wholes,
nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something intrinsically evil or ugly. And
there certainly seem to be such goods. But for the proper consideration of them, it is
necessary to take into account a new distinction—the distinction just expressed as
being between the value which a thing possesses as a whole, and that which it
possesses on the whole. (§ 129 ¶ 1)
When mixed goods were defined as things positively good as wholes, the expression
was ambiguous. It is meant that they were positively good on the whole; but it must
now be observed that the value which a thing possesses on the whole may be said to
be equivalent to the sum of the value which it possesses as a whole, together with the
intrinsic values which may belong to any of its parts. In fact, by the value which a
thing possesses as a whole, there may be meant two quite distinct things. There may
be meant either (1) That value which arises solely from the combination of two or
more things; or else (2) The total value formed by the addition to (1) of any intrinsic
value which may belong to the things combined. The meaning of the distinction may
perhaps be most easily seen by considering the supposed case of vindictive
punishment. If it is true that the combined existence of two evils may yet constitute a
less evil than would be constituted by the existence of either singly, it is plain that this
can only be because there arises from the combination a positive good which is
greater than the difference between the sum of the two evils and the demerit of either
singly: this positive good would then be the value of the whole, as a whole, in sense
(1). Yet if this value be not so great a good as the sum of the two evils is an evil, it is
plain that the value of the whole state of things will be a positive evil; and this value is
the value of the whole, as a whole, in sense (2). Whatever view may be taken with
regard to the particular case of vindictive punishment, it is plain that we have here two
distinct things, with regard to either of which a separate question may be asked in the
case of every organic unity. The first of these two things may be expressed as the
difference between the value of the whole thing and the sum of the value of its parts.
And it is plain that where the parts have little or no intrinsic value (as in our first class
of goods, §§ 114, 115), this difference will be nearly or absolutely identical with the
value of the whole thing. The distinction, therefore, only becomes important in the
case of wholes, of which one or more parts have a great intrinsic value, positive or
negative. The first of these cases, that of a whole, in which one part has a great
positive value, is exemplified in our 2nd and 3rd classes of great unmixed goods (§§
120, 122); and similarly the Summum Bonum is a whole of which many parts have a

great positive value. Such cases, it may be observed, are also very frequent and very
important objects of Aesthetic judgment; since the essential distinction between the
classical and the romantic styles consists in the fact that the former aims at obtaining
the greatest possible value for the whole, as a whole, in sense (1), whereas the latter
sacrifices this in order to obtain the greatest possible value for some part, which is
itself an organic unity. It follows that we cannot declare either style to be necessarily
superior, since an equally good result on the whole, or as a whole in sense (2), may be
obtained by either method; but the distinctively aesthetic temperament seems to be
characterised by a tendency to prefer a good result obtained by the classical, to an
equally good result obtained by the romantic method. (§ 129 ¶ 2)

§ 130.
But what we have now to consider are cases of wholes, in which one or more parts
have a great negative value—are great positive evils. And first of all, we may take the
strongest cases, like that of retributive punishment, in which we have a whole,
exclusively composed of two great positive evils—wickedness and pain. Can such a
whole ever be positively good on the whole? (§ 130 ¶ 1)
(1) I can see no reason to think that such wholes ever are positively good on the
whole. But from the fact that they may, nevertheless, be less evils, than either of their
parts taken singly, it follows that they have a characteristic which is most important
for the correct decision of practical questions. It follows that, quite apart from
consequences or any value which an evil may have as a mere means, it may,
supposing one evil already exists, be worth while to create another, since, by the mere
creation of this second, there may be constituted a whole less bad than if the original
evil had been left to exist by itself. And similarly, with regard to all the wholes which
I am about to consider, it must be remembered, that, even if they are not goods on the
whole, yet, where an evil already exists, as in this world evils do exist, the existence
of the other part of these wholes will constitute a thing desirable for its own sake—
that is to say, not merely a means to future goods, but one of the ends which must be
taken into account in estimating what that best possible state of things is, to which
every right action must be a means. (§ 130 ¶ 2)

§ 131.
(2) But, as a matter of fact, I cannot avoid thinking that there are wholes, containing
something positively evil and ugly, which are, nevertheless, great positive goods on
the whole. Indeed, it appears to be to this class that those instances of virtue, which
contain anything intrinsically good, chiefly belong. It need not, of course, be denied
that there is sometimes included in a virtuous disposition more or less of those
unmixed goods which were first discussed—that is to say, a real love of what is good
or beautiful. But the typical and characteristic virtuous dispositions, so far as they are
not mere means, seem rather to be examples of mixed goods. We may take as
instances (a) Courage and Compassion, which seem to belong to the second of the
three classes of virtues distinguished in our last chapter (§ 107); and (b) the
specifically moral sentiment, by reference to which the third of those three classes
was defined (§ 108). (§ 131 ¶ 1)

Courage and compassion, in so far as they contain an intrinsically desirable state of
mind, seem to involve essentially a cognition of something evil or ugly. In the case of
courage the object of the cognition may be an evil of any of our three classes; in the
case of compassion, the proper object is pain. Both these virtues, accordingly, must
contain precisely the same cognitive element, which is also essential to evils of class
(1); and they are differentiated from these by the fact that the emotion directed to
these objects is, in their case, an emotion of the same kind which was essential to evils
of class (2). In short, just as evils of class (2) seemed to consist in a hatred of what
was good or beautiful, and evils of class (1) in a love of what was evil or ugly; so
these virtues involve a hatred of what is evil or ugly. Both these virtues do, no doubt,
also contain other elements, and, among these, each contains its specific emotion; but
that their value does not depend solely upon these other elements, we may easily
assure ourselves, by considering what we should think of an attitude of endurance or
of defiant contempt toward an object intrinsically good or beautiful, or of the state of
a man whose mind was filled with pity for the happiness of a worthy admiration. Yet
pity for the undeserved sufferings of others, endurance of pain to ourselves, and a
defiant hatred of evil dispositions in ourselves or in others, seem to be undoubtedly
admirable in themselves; and if so, there are admirable things, which must be lost, if
there were no cognition of evil. (§ 131 ¶ 2)
Similarly the specifically moral sentiment, in all cases where it has any considerable
intrinsic value, appears to include a hatred of evils of the first and second classes. It is
true that the emotion is here excited by the idea that an action is right or wrong; and
hence the object of the idea which excites it is generally not an intrinsic evil. But, as
far as I can discover, the emotion with which a conscientious man views a real or
imaginary right action, contains, as an essential element, the same emotion with
which he views a wrong one: it seems, indeed, that this element is necessary to make
his emotion specifically moral. And the specifically moral emotion excited by the
idea of a wrong action, seems to me to contain essentially a more or less vague
cognition of the kind of intrinsic evils, which are usually caused by wrong actions,
whether they would or would not be caused by the particular action in question. I am,
in fact, unable to distinguish, in its main features, the moral sentiment excited by the
idea of rightness and wrongness, wherever it is intense, from the total state constituted
by a cognition of something intrinsically evil together with the emotion of hatred
directed towards it. Nor need we be surprised that this mental state should be the one
chiefly associated with the idea of rightness, if we reflect on the nature of those
actions which are most commonly recognised as duties. For by far the greater part of
the actions, of which we commonly think as duties, are negative: what we feel to be
our duty is to abstain from some action to which a strong natural impulse tempts us.
And these wrong actions, in the avoidance of which duty consists, are usually such as
produce, very immediately, some bad consequence in pain to others; while, in many
prominent instances, the inclination, which prompts us to them, is itself an intrinsic
evil, containing, as where the impulse is lust or cruelty, an anticipatory enjoyment of
something evil or ugly. That right action does thus so frequently entail the suppression
of some evil impulse, is necessary to explain the plausibility of the view that virtue
consists in the control of passion by reason. Accordingly, the truth seems to be that,
whenever a strong moral emotion is excited by the idea of rightness, this emotion is
accompanied by a vague cognition of the kind of evils usually suppressed or avoided
by the actions which most frequently occur to us as instances of duty; and that the
emotion is directed towards this evil quality. We may, then, conclude that the specific

moral emotion owes almost all its intrinsic value to the fact that it includes a cognition
of evils accompanied by a hatred of them: mere rightness, whether truly or untruly
attributed to an action, seems incapable of forming the object of an emotional
contemplation, which shall be any great good. (§ 131 ¶ 3)

§ 132.
If this be so, then we have, in many prominent instances of virtue, cases of a whole,
greatly good in itself, which yet contains the cognition of something, whereof the
existence would be a great evil: a great good is absolutely dependent for its value,
upon its inclusion of something evil or ugly, although it does not owe its value solely
to this element in it. And, in the case of virtues, this evil object does, in general,
actually exist. But there seems no reason to think that, when it does exist, the whole
state of things thus constituted is therefore the better on the whole. What seems
indubitable, is only that the feeling contemplation of an object, whose existence would
be a great evil, or which is ugly, may be essential to a valuable whole. We have
another undoubted instance of this in the appreciation of tragedy. But, in tragedy, the
sufferings of Lear, and the vice of Iago may be purely imaginary. And it seems certain
that, if they really existed, the evil thus existing, while it must detract from the good
consisting in a proper feeling towards them, will add no positive value to that good
great enough to counterbalance such a loss. It does, indeed, seem that the existence of
a true belief in the object of these mixed goods does add some value to the whole in
which it is combined with them: a conscious compassion for real suffering seems to
be better, as a whole, than a compassion for sufferings merely imaginary; and this
may well be the case, even though the evil involved in the actual suffering makes the
total state of things bad on the whole. And it certainly seems to be true that a false
belief in the actual existence of its object makes a worse mixed good than if our state
of mind were that with which we normally regard pure fiction. Accordingly we may
conclude that the only mixed goods, which are positively good on the whole, are those
in which the object is something which would be a great evil, if it existed, or which is
ugly. (§ 132 ¶ 1)

§ 133.
With regard, then, to those mixed goods, which consist in an appropriate attitude of
the mind towards things evil or ugly, and which include among their number the
greater part of such virtues as have any intrinsic value whatever, the following three
conclusions seem to be those chiefly requiring to be emphasised:— (§ 133 ¶ 1)
(1) There seems no reason to think that where the object is a thing evil in itself, which
actually exists, the total state of things is ever positively good on the whole. The
appropriate mental attitude towards a really existing evil contains, of course, an
element which is absolutely identical with the same attitude towards the same evil,
where it is purely imaginary. And this element, which is common to the two cases,
may be a great positive good, on the whole. But there seems no reason to doubt that,
where the evil is real, the amount of this real evil is always sufficient to reduce the
total sum of value to a negative quantity. Accordingly we have no reason to maintain
the paradox that an ideal world would be one in which vice and suffering must exist in
order that it may contain the goods consisting in the appropriate emotion towards
them. It is not a positive good that suffering should exist, in order that we may

compassionate it; or wickedness, that we may hate it. There is no reason to think that
any actual evil whatsoever would be contained in the Ideal. It follows that we cannot
admit the actual validity of any of the arguments commonly used in Theodicies; no
such argument succeeds in justifying the fact that there does exist even the smallest of
the many evils which this world contains. The most that can be said for such
arguments is that, when they make appeal to the principle of organic unity, their
appeal is valid in principle. It might be the case that the existence of evil was
necessary, not merely as a means, but analytically, to the existence of the greatest
good. But we have no reason to think that this is the case in any instance whatever. (§
133 ¶ 2)
But (2) there is reason to think that the cognition of things evil or ugly, which are
purely imaginary, is essential to the Ideal. In this case the burden of proof lies the
other way. It cannot be doubted that the appreciation of tragedy is a great positive
good; and it seems almost equally certain that the virtues of compassion, courage, and
self-control contain such goods. And to all these the cognition of things which would
be evil, if they existed, is analytically necessary. Here then we have things of which
the existence must add value to any whole in which they are contained; nor is it
possible to assure ourselves that any whole, from which they were omitted, would
thereby gain more in its value as a whole, than it would lose by their omission. We
have no reason to think that any whole, which did not contain them, would be so good
on the whole as some whole in which they were obtained. The case for their inclusion
in the Ideal is as strong as that for the inclusion of material qualities (§ 123, above).
Against the inclusion of these goods nothing can be urged except a bare possibility. (§
133 ¶ 3)
Finally (3) it is important to insist that, as was said above, these mixed virtues have a
great practical value, in addition to that which they possess either in themselves or as
mere means. Where evils do exist, as in this world they do, the fact that they are
known and properly appreciated, constitutes a state of things having greater value as a
whole even than the same appreciation of purely imaginary evils. This state of things,
it has been said, is never positively good on the whole; but where the evil, which
reduces its total value to a negative quantity, already unavoidably exists, to obtain the
intrinsic value which belongs to it as a whole will obviously produce a better state of
affairs than if the evil had existed by itself, quite apart from the good element in it
which is identical with the appreciation of imaginary evils, and from any ulterior
consequences which its existence may bring about. The case is here the same as with
retributive punishment. Where an evil already exists, it is well that it should be pitied
or hated or endured, according to its nature; just as it may be well that some evils
should be punished. Of course, as in all practical cases, it often happens that the
attainment of this good is incompatible with the attainment of another and a greater
one. But it is important to insist that we have here a real intrinsic value, which must
be taken into account in calculating the greatest possible balance of intrinsic value,
which it is always our duty to produce. (§ 133 ¶ 4)

§ 134.
I have now completed such remarks as seemed most necessary to be made concerning
intrinsic values. It is obvious that for the proper answering of this, the fundamental
question of Ethics, there remains a field of investigation as wide and as difficult, as

was assigned to Practical Ethics in my last chapter. There is as much to be said
concerning what results are intrinsically good, and in what degrees, as concerning
what results it is possible for us to bring about: both questions demand, and will
repay, an equally patient enquiry. Many of the judgments, which I have made in this
chapter, will, no doubt, seem unduly arbitrary: it must be confessed that some of the
attributions of intrinsic value, which have seemed to me to be true, do not display that
symmetry and system which is wont to be required of philosophers. But if this be
urged as an objection, I may respectfully point out that it is none. We have no title
whatever to assume that the truth on any subject-matter will display such symmetry as
we desire to see—or (to use the common vague phrase) that it will possess any
particular form of unity. To search for unity and system, at the expense of truth, is not,
I take it, the proper business of philosophy, however universally it may have been the
practice of philosophers. And that all truths about the Universe possess to one another
all the various relations, which may be meant by unity, can only be legitimately
asserted, when we have carefully distinguished those various relations and discovered
what those truths are. In particular, we can have no title to assert that ethical truths are
unified in any particular manner, except in virtue of an enquiry conducted by the
method which I have endeavoured to follow and to illustrate. The study of Ethics
would, no doubt, be far more simple, and its results far more systematic, if, for
instance, pain were an evil of exactly the same magnitude as pleasure is a good; but
we have no reason whatever to assume that the Universe is such that ethical truths
must display this kind of symmetry: no argument against my conclusion, that pleasure
and pain do not thus correspond, can have any weight whatever, failing a careful
examination of the instances which have led me to form it. Nevertheless I am content
that the results of this chapter should be taken rather as illustrating the method which
must be pursued in answering the fundamental question of Ethics, and the principles
which must be observed, than as giving the correct answer to that question. That
things intrinsically good or bad are many and various; that most of them are organic
unities, in the peculiar and definite sense to which I have confined the term; and that
our only means of deciding upon their intrinsic value and its degree, is by carefully
distinguishing exactly what the thing is, about which we ask the question, and then
looking to see whether it has or has not the unique predicate good in any of its various
degrees: these are the conclusions, upon the truth of which I desire to insist. Similarly,
in my last chapter, with regard to the question What ought we to do? I have
endeavoured rather to shew exactly what is the meaning of the question, and what
difficulties must consequently be faced in answering it, than to prove that any
particular answers are true. And that these two questions, having precisely the nature
which I have assigned to them, are the questions which it is the object of Ethics to
answer, may be regarded as the main result of the preceding chapters. These are the
questions which ethical philosophers have always been mainly concerned to answer,
although they have not recognised what their question was—what predicate they were
asserting to attach to things. The practice of asking what things are virtues or duties,
without distinguishing what these terms mean; the practice of asking what ought to be
here and now, without distinguishing whether as means or end—for its own sake or
for that of its results; the search for one single criterion of right and wrong, without
the recognition that in order to discover a criterion we must first know what things are
right and wrong; and the neglect of the principle of organic unities—these sources of
error have hitherto been almost universally prevalent in Ethics. The conscious
endeavour to avoid them all, and to apply to all the ordinary objects of ethical
judgment these two questions and these only: Has it intrinsic value? and Is it a means

to the best possible?—this attempt, so far as I know, is entirely new; and its results,
when compared with those habitual to moral philosophers, are certainly sufficiently
surprising: that to Common Sense they will not appear so strange, I venture to hope
and believe. It is, I think, much to be desired that the labour commonly devoted to
answering such questions as whether certain ends are more or less comprehensive or
more or less consistent with one another—questions, which, even if a precise meaning
were given to them, are wholly irrelevant to the proof of any ethical conclusion—
should be diverted to the separate investigation of these two clear problems. (§ 134 ¶
1)

§ 135.
The main object of this chapter has been to define roughly the class of things, among
which we may expect to find either great intrinsic goods or great intrinsic evils; and
particularly to point out that there is a vast variety of such things, and that the simplest
of them are, with one exception, highly complex wholes, composed of parts which
have little or no value in themselves. All of them involve consciousness of an object,
which is itself usually highly complex, and almost all involve also an emotional
attitude towards this object; but, though they thus have certain characteristics in
common, the vast variety of qualities in respect of which they differ from one another
are equally essential to their value: neither the generic character of all, nor the specific
character of each, is either greatly good or greatly evil by itself; they owe their value
or demerit, in each case, to the presence of both. My discussion falls into three main
divisions, dealing respectively (1) with unmixed goods, (2) with evils, and (3) with
mixed goods. (1) Unmixed goods may all be said to consist in the love of beautiful
things or of good persons: but the number of different goods of this kind is as great as
that of beautiful objects, and they are also differentiated from one another by the
different emotions appropriate to different objects. These goods are undoubtedly
good, even where the things or persons loved are imaginary; but it was urged that,
where the thing or person is real and is believed to be so, these two facts together,
when combined with the mere love of the qualities in question, constitute a whole
which is greatly better than that mere love, having an additional value quite distinct
from that which belongs to the existence of the object, where that object is a good
person. Finally it was pointed out that the love of mental qualities, by themselves,
does not seem to be so great a good as that of mental and material qualities together;
and that, in any case, an immense number of the best things are, or include, a love of
material qualities (113—123). (2) Great evils may be said to consist either (a) in the
love of what is evil or ugly, or (b) in the hatred of what is good or beautiful, or (c) in
the consciousness of pain. Thus the consciousness of pain, if it be a great evil, is the
only exception to the rule that all great goods and great evils involve both a cognition
and an emotion directed towards its object (124—128). (3) Mixed goods are those
which include some element which is evil or ugly. They may be said to consist either
in hatred of what is ugly or of evils of classes (a) and (b), or in compassion for pain.
But where they include an evil, which actually exists, its demerit seems to be always
great enough to outweigh the positive value which they possess (129—133). (§ 135 ¶
1)