Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/271

 PLEASURE AS ETHICAL STANDARD 2$?

the one is chosen because of its quality ; because it is regarded as of more value than the other, for some other reason than its pleasantness. And may it not be replied that it is possible to state this added value in terms of feeling also ? I choose the one because I am in the habit of acting in that way and not in the other, that is, a greater feeling of ease attends this action. I prefer an intellectual to a gustatory pleasure which seems to promise as much, because there is a fitness or slightly more pleasure in it. Of prospective actions which I can equally well perform, the thought of the farther-reaching character of the one, of the more joys it will create, makes it more pleasant for me, and I will it.

It seems possible in this way to reduce all preferability to degrees of pleasantness. It is logically possible to do so, although it is difficult. Might not one even say that that view which claims to regard conduct as good, not because it leads to any further result as pleasure, nor because it is fated by some inexplicable idea of good, but in virtue of the equilibrium it establishes inside the parts of experience may not one say that even this condition is best, since it is most pleasant, and, when reflected upon, means the very maximum of pleasure for the society about me ? We are told that the act of the Good Samaritan is good, not because he brought pleasure to him who had fallen among thieves, but because it evidenced a good character ; but may not a good character be interpreted in terms of conduct, and this again in terms of pleasure ? Is there any moral good which does not become pleasure, someone's pleasure, in some far-distant clime and time, perhaps, but still someone's pleasure, which I, the actor, can prefigure in my imagination, and so make mine ?

The dream of mathematics is appealing. Cannot one imagine the whole moral judgment that the drunkard's state is lower than the philosopher's expressed in this way ? Tam trades the pains of days of sobering the painfully wrecked hopes of his home, their fears of his stick, the pains which he will transmit to structurally weak children, the jeopardy of society all these Tam trades for a few moments of wild delight. Surely we may