BUT YOU HAVE NONE TO SHOW... And have you not a similar way
of speaking about pain? You call pain a good when it takes away greater
pains than those which it has, or gives pleasures greater than the
pains." He then goes on to explain the need of morality,-to guide us,
in the face of the foreshortening effects of our particular situation,
to what will make for the greatest happiness in the long run (p. 356):
"Do not the same magnitudes appear larger to your sight when near,
and smaller when at a distance? Now suppose happiness to consist
in doing or choosing the greater, and in not doing or avoiding the
less, what would be the saving principle of human life? Would not the
ACT OF MEASURING be the saving principle?"] is best which will in the
long run bring into being the greatest possible amount of intrinsic
goodness and the least intrinsic evil. For goodness of conduct we
commonly use the term "virtue"; and for intrinsic good the most widely
accepted name-though one which is misleading to many is "happiness."
So we may say, in sum, that virtue is that manner of life that tends
to happiness. Objection is occasionally made that happiness is too
vague a term, too elusive a concept, to be set forth as the ultimate
aim of conduct. "Alas!" says Bradley, "the one question which no one
can answer is, what is happiness?" But this is a palpable confusion
of thought. If we mean by the question, "Wherein is happiness to be
found, by doing what can we attain it?" then the answer is, indeed,
uncertain in its completeness; it is precisely to answer it that we
study ethics.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111