Chapter 73
It must be confessed that to put one's parents, one's children, one's neighbors, strangers, foreigners, the brutes, all upon the same level, is contrary to the moral judgment of savage and civilized alike. It would seem contrary to the sentiments which lie at the root of the family, the community, and the state. Nor have we reason to look forward to any future state of human society in which such lesser groups within the broad circle of humanity will be done away with, though they tend to become less exclusive in their demands upon human sympathy.
(2) Suppose that the greatest sum of happiness on the whole could be best attained by an unequal distribution--by making a limited number very happy at the expense of the rest. Would this be justifiable? It would be in harmony with the Greatest Happiness Principle, though not with the principle of the greatest happiness equally shared.
III. The question of the distribution of happiness in the life of the individual is not one to be ignored. If we are concerned only with the quantity of happiness, may we not take as the ethical precept "a short life and a merry one"--provided the brief span of years be merry enough, and there be no objection to the choice on the score of harm to others?
This problem is closely analogous to that of the distribution of pleasures to those who compose the "greatest number" taken into account. There we were concerned with the shares allotted to individuals; here we are concerned with the shares assigned to the different parts of a single life. In the attempt to solve the problem, Bentham's criteria of intensity, certainty, purity, etc., might naturally be appealed to.
110. THE CALCULUS OF PLEASURES.--Nor are the problems which meet us less perplexing when we pass from questions of the distribution of pleasures to that of the calculus of pleasures. How are delights and miseries to be weighed, and reasonably balanced?
(1) Men desire pleasure, and they desire to avoid pain. The two seem to be opposed. But men constantly accept pleasures which entail some suffering, and they avoid pains even at the expense of some pleasure. Are, however, pleasures and pains strictly commensurable? How much admixture of pain is called for to reduce the value of a pleasure to zero? and how much pleasure, added to a pain, will make the whole emotional state predominantly a pleasurable one? A disagreeable taste and an agreeable odor may be experienced together, but they cannot be treated as an algebraic sum. If we do so treat them, we seem to fall back upon the assumption that the mere fact that the heterogeneous complex is accepted or rejected is evidence that its ingredients have been measured and compared. This is an ungrounded assumption.
(2) Undoubtedly men prefer intense pleasures to mild ones, and those long-continued to those which are fleeting. But what degree of intensity will overbalance what period of duration? Here, again, we appear to be without a unit of measure, both in the case of pleasures and of pains.
(3) Obviously, he who would distribute pleasures with impartiality must take into consideration the natures and capacities of the recipients. All are not susceptible of pleasure in the same degree, nor are all capable of enjoying the same pleasures. It is small kindness to a cat to offer it hay; nor will the miser thank us for the opportunity to enjoy the pleasures of liberality. The gift which arouses deep emotion in one man, will leave another cold. The diversity of natures would make the calculus of pleasures, in any accurate sense of the expression, a most difficult problem, even if such a calculus were admissible in the case of a single individual. [Footnote: This difficulty has not been overlooked by the Utilitarian, see BENTHAM, _Principles of Morals and Legislation_,