Part 29

My judgment, then, is not merely a judgment about my own psychology: but, if so, about whose psychology is it a judgment? It cannot be a judgment that all men desire the one state more than the other; because that would include the judgment that I myself do so, which, as we have seen, I often know to be false, even while I judge that the one state really is better. And it cannot, I think, be a judgment merely about the feelings or desires of an impartial spectator in my own society; since that would involve the paradox that men belonging to different societies could never differ in opinion as to what was better. But we have here to consider an alternative, which did not arise in the case of moral obligation. It is a notorious fact that the satisfaction of some of our desires is incompatible with the satisfaction of others, and the satisfaction of those of some men with the satisfaction of those of others. And this fact has suggested to some philosophers that what we mean by saying that one state of things would be better than another, is merely that it is a state in which more of the desires, of those who were in it, would be satisfied at once, than would be the case with the other. But to this view the fundamental objection seems to me to be that whether the one state was better than the other would depend not merely upon the number of desires that were simultaneously satisfied in it, but upon what the desires were desires for. I can imagine a state of things in which all desires were satisfied, and yet can judge of it that it would not be so good as another in which some were left unsatisfied. And for this reason I cannot assent to the view that my judgment, that one state of things is better than another is merely a judgment about the psychology of the people concerned in it.

This is why I find it hard to believe that either the idea of moral obligation or the idea of intrinsic value is merely a psychological idea. It seems to me that Moral Philosophy cannot be merely a department of Psychology. But no doubt there may be arguments on the other side to which I have not done justice.

[1] E Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, Vol. I, pp. 4, 13, 17-18, 100-101. On p. 105, however, Westermarck suggests a view inconsistent with this one; namely that, when I judge an action to be wrong, I am not _merely_ asserting that it has a tendency to excite moral indignation in me, but am also asserting that other people _would be_ convinced that it has a tendency to excite moral indignation in them, if they "knew the act and all its attendant circumstances as well as [I do], and if, at the same time their emotions were as refined as [mine]."

[2] Ibid. p. 89.

THE END

INDEX

Abstractions, "illegitimate" Agnosticism "Analytic" truths Apprehension, direct Aristotle's Ethics Attention Awareness

"Being" and "Reality" Berkeley Bradley Causal connection necessity Consciousness "Content"

Deduction Difference, numerical and qualitative intrinsic Direct apprehension observation perception Duty and Wrong "objectivity" of

Entails and "implies" _Esse_ and _percipi,_ Existence and "reality" of physical objects "Experience," ambiguity of External objects and facts relations

Fact, matters of "Follows"

"Given," ambiguity of "Good," ambiguity of objectivity of "for man"

Hegel Hume

"I." Idealism Ideas Identity of Indiscernibles "Implication," Indiscernibles, Identity of Induction, conditions necessary for Internal relations, dogma of two senses of Intrinsic difference nature predicates value

James, William Joachim, H. H.

Kant Knowledge and belief by description

Leibniz

"Manifestation of" Material objects or things Mill. J. S. Minds, "in our" "Modify" Moral rules, two kinds of

Necessary truths Necessity, three senses of logical unconditional

"Objectivity," ambiguity of of kinds of value

Objects, external material physical, and sensibles

Observation Organic unities "Ought," two meanings of objectivity of and "wrong"

Part, physical and whole

"Perception," ambiguity of direct _Percipi_ and _esse_ Physical objects and sensibles Pickwickian senses "Possible," three senses of Pragmatist theory of truth "Presented," ambiguity of

Reality Reason, "dictates of" Reasons Reid, T. Relational properties Relations, dogma of internal external internal Right, objectivity of Russell, B.

"See," ambiguity of "Seems" Sensations proper Sense-data Sensibles Solipsism Spiritual Strachey, O. "Subjective" "Synthetic" truths

Taylor, A. E., 8 "Time" Truth, and mutability pragmatist theory of and utility and verification of words Truths, "analytic" and "synthetic" "man-made" necessary

Value, intrinsic objectivity of

Westermarck, E. "Wrong," objectivity of and "ought"

End of Project Gutenberg's Philosophical Studies, by George Edward Moore