(1) To this we may reply that the estimation of the relative worth
of different kinds of experience is, indeed, often very difficult.
But on any theory the decision as to the right is equally complicated
and puzzling. The fact that the criterion is difficult to use is no
evidence that it is not the right criterion. Which set of consequences
will be of most intrinsic worth, it is sometimes impossible to know.
But one set is, nevertheless, of more intrinsic worth, and the act
that secures them is the best act, even though we do not recognize
it as such. There will continue to be, many differences of judgment
as to which of alternative possible experiences is the more desirable.
But that uncertainty does not alter the fundamental fact that some
experiences ARE intrinsically more desirable than others and more
deserving of pursuit.
"A debtor who cannot pay me offers to compound for his debt by making
over one of sundry things he possesses- a diamond ornament, a silver
vase, a picture, a carriage. Other questions being set aside, I assert
it to be my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable of these,
but I cannot say which is the most valuable. Does the proposition that
it is my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable, therefore,
become doubtful? Must I not choose as well as I can, and if I choose
wrongly, must I give up my ground of choice? Must I infer that in
matters of business I may not act on the principle that, other things
equal, the more profitable transaction is to be preferred, because,
in many cases, I cannot say which is the more profitable and have often
chosen the less profitable? Because I believe that of many dangerous
courses I ought to take the least dangerous, do I make 'the fundamental
assumption' that courses can be arranged according to a scale of
dangerousness, and must I abandon my belief if I cannot so arrange
them?" [Footnote: H.
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