ist and the teleologist on this point. Both may agree that conscience is a means to an end, and that this end, in some way, accounts for its existence. The question concerning the origin of conscience will not necessarily affect this view. The teleologist may believe that conscience is innate, or that it is the product of experience, or that it contains both a priori and a posteriori elements, without contradicting his general theory, that morality serves a purpose in the world, and that this purpose is its final ground.

CHAPTER VI

THEORIES OF THE HIGHEST GOOD: HEDONISM1

1. The Standard of Morality and the Highest Good. The conclusion reached in the last chapter was that the effects of acts constitute the ultimate ground of moral distinctions. Acts are, in the last analysis, right or wrong, good or bad, because of the end or purpose which they tend to realize. We have attempted to show what this means and what it does not mean. The question now confronts us, What is this end or purpose at which human conduct aims? Mankind enjoins certain modes of conduct in its moral codes, and insists upon their performance. The end realized by these must, therefore, represent what the race ultimately desires and approves; it must in a measure represent the ideal of the race, or a good. The race desires and approves of the forms of conduct embraced in the moral code, for the sake of the end realized by that code, and desires and approves of the end for its own sake. The end must be something which it desires absolutely, otherwise it would be no end, but a means. Our original question, What is the ground of moral distinctions, may therefore be reduced to this: What is the 1 See references under chap. ii.

highest end, or the highest good, the summum bonum? What is it that mankind strives for, what does it prize above all else, what is its ideal?

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2. The Greek Formulation of the Problem. - This is the form in which the ancient Greeks put the problem. They do not analyze moral facts as we do, in order to discover the principles underlying them, but simply inquire into the nature of the highest good. "Every art and every scientific inquiry," says Aristotle, at the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics, and similarly every action and purpose, may be said to aim at some good. Hence the good has been defined as that at which things aim.. But it is clear that there is a difference in the ends; for the ends are sometimes activities, and sometimes results beyond the mere activities. Also, where there are certain ends beyond the actions, the results are naturally superior to the activities. As there are certain arts and sciences, it follows that the ends are also various. Thus health is the end of medicine, a vessel of ship-building, and wealth of domestic economy."1

"What, then, is the good in each of these instances? It is presumably that for the sake of which all else is done. This in medicine is health; in strategy, victory; in domestic architecture, a house; and so on. But in every action and purpose it is the end, as it is for the sake of the end that people all do everything else. If, then, there is a certain end of all action, 1 Bk. I, chap. i.

it will be this which is the practicable good, and if there are several such ends it will be these.

As it appears that there are more ends than one, and some of these, e.g., wealth, flutes, and instruments generally, we desire as means to something else, it is evident that they are not all final ends. But the highest good is clearly something final. Hence, if there is only one final end, this will be the object of which we are in search, and if there are more than one, it will be the most final of them. We speak of that which is sought after for its own sake as more final than that which is sought after as a means to something else; we speak of that which is never desired as a means to something else as more final than the things which are desired both in themselves and as a means to something else; and we speak of a thing as absolutely final, if it is always desired in itself and never as a means to something else."1

Let us see how this question of the highest good was answered in the past.

The question usually receives one of two answers: (1) According to one school, pleasure is the highest

1 Bk. I, chap. v, Welldon's translation. Compare with this Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. i: "Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. The medical art is proved to be good by its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove that health is good? The art of music is good for the reason, among others, that it produces pleasure; but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good?" See also Hume, Principles of Morals, Appendix I, v., quoted in note on p. 141.

good, end, or purpose; (2) according to another, it is action, or preservation, or perfection, or reason. We shall discuss the different theories in what follows, under the heads of hedonism and energism.1

3. The Cyrenaics. Aristippus of Cyrene, who lived in the third century before Christ and founded the Cyrenaic school,2 regards pleasure (ýdový) as the ultimate aim of life, for all normal beings desire it. "We are from childhood attracted to it without any deliberate choice of our own; and when we have obtained it, we do not seek anything further, and there is nothing which we avoid so much as its opposite, which is pain." By pleasure he means the positive enjoyment of the moment (ýdový év kivńoei), not merely repose of spirit, "a sort of undisturbedness," or permanent state of happiness. The chief good is a particular pleasure. Only the present is ours, the past is gone, the future uncertain. Therefore, Carpe diem," "Gather the rosebuds while ye may," ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die."

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But shall the pleasure be bodily or mental? Well, bodily pleasures are superior to mental ones,

1 See chap. iv, § 6.

2 See Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Bk. II; Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math., Bk. VII, 191– 192; Ritter and Preller, Historia Philosophiæ Græcæ, pp. 207 ff.; Mullach, Fragments, Vol. II, 397 ff.; the histories of ethics, etc., mentioned under chap. ii, especially Paulsen, Seth, Sidgwick, Hyslop, Lecky, chap i. For fuller bibliographies on the thinkers mentioned in this chapter, see the histories of philosophy, especially English translation of Weber's History of Philosophy.

8 Diogenes Laertius, translated in Bohn's Library, p. 89.