Carlyle goes so far in his tirades as to call our
happiness-morality a "pig philosophy," which makes the universe out
to be a huge "swine's trough" from which mankind is trying to get the
maximum "pigs" wash. Again he calls it a "Mechanical Profit-and-Loss
theory" In such picturesque language he embodies a point of view
which in milder terms has been expressed by many.] But to say that we
must often oppose inclination in the name of duty is by no means to say
that we must do what in the end will make against happiness. The trouble
with inclination and passion is precisely that they are often ruiners of
happiness. The very real and frequent opposition of desire and duty is
no support of the view that duty is irrelevant to happiness, but quite
consistent with the rational account of morality-that dates at least back
to the ancient Greeks-which shows it to be the means to man's most
lasting and widespread happiness.
Must we deny that duty is the servant of happiness?
We may go on to point out various flaws in the doctrine, of which
Carlyle is one of the extreme representatives, that the account of
morality as a means to happiness is immoral and leads to shocking
results.
(1) The plausibility of the doctrine rests largely on its confusion
with the very different truth that we should not make happiness our
conscious aim. It is one of the surest fruits of experience that
happiness is best won by forgetting it; he that loses his life shall
truly find it.
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