Chapter III: Hedonism

    § 36. The prevalence of Hedonism is mainly due to the naturalistic fallacy. …
    § 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. 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. 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. yet he gives a proof of the first proposition, which consists in (1) the fallacious confusion of ‘desirable’ with ‘desired’, …
    § 41. (2) an attempt to shew that nothing but pleasure is desired. …
    § 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. 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. Summary of Mill's argument and of my criticism.

B.

    § 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. 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. Mill's doctrine that some pleasures are superior ‘in quality’ to others implies both (1) that judgments of ends must be ‘intuitions’; …
    § 48. and (2) that pleasure is not the sole good. …
    § 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. Prof. Sidgwick first tries to show that nothing outside of Human Existence can be good. Reasons are given for doubting this. …
    § 51. He then goes on to the far more important proposition that no part of Human Existence, except pleasure, is desirable. …
    § 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. …

C.

    § 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. 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. This confusion is further brought out by an examination of Prof. Sidgwick's contrary view; …
    § 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. The same confusion is involved in the attempt to infer Utilitarianism from Psychological Hedonism, as commonly held, e.g. by Mill. …
    § 63. Egoism proper seems also to owe its plausibility to its confusion with Egoism, as a doctrine of means. …
    § 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. Summary of chapter.