The IMPULSIVE QUALITY of mental
states is an attribute behind which we cannot go." [Footnote: W. James,
Psychology, vol. II, p. 550.] It is not true, then, that love of pleasure
and fear of pain are the universal motives. It is not true that we
inevitably act along the line of least hedonic resistance, that pain
necessarily veers us off and pleasure irresistibly attracts. By force
of will, by "suggestion" or training, we can go directly counter to
the pull of pleasure. It is true that we should not have the instincts
and habits and impulses that we do were they not in general useful
for our existence or happiness. But the evolutionary process has been
clumsy; we are not properly adjusted; we become the victims of ideas
fixes; ideas and activities obsess us quite without relation to their
hedonic value. So pleasure and pain are not usually the impelling force
or conscious motive behind conduct. What they are is-the touchstone,
the criterion, the justification.
We do not act in ways that bring the greatest happiness, but we ought
to. We do not consciously seek happiness, and we ought not to. We ought
to continue to care for THINGS and for IDEALS; but the things and
ideals we care and work for ought to be such that through them man's
welfare is advanced.
Are pleasures and pains incommensurable?
An objection commonly raised is that pleasures and pains of various
sorts are incommensurable; that therefore no calculation of relative
advantage is possible; and that the eudaemonistie criterion for action
is thereby made impracticable and useless.
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