Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/150

134 the abstraction of a quantitatively determinable pleasure-continuum the middle term to which it may reduce the values of each series. The rationalistic doctrine, on the other hand, in order to get an objective measure which shall establish an equivalence between subjective and objective values, conceives of the external order as a system of rational universals, and determines the degree of inner value by the extent to which compulsory universals are present in consciousness. It is clear that in either case we have to do with an abstraction, which, in order to get a common term for the two different series, ignores characteristic qualities of the subjective series. In the interests of the quantitative conception, hedonism abstracts from the second, inner, aspect of the valued states of the subject, namely, their breadth and depth in the personality, the extent to which they implicate the entire experience of the subject. To measure the value of a sentiment or disposition of a subject in terms of its objective universality or capability of universalization, is again to abstract wholly from the element of affective intensity, which, as a condition of all volition, is involved in all valuation. We cannot escape the conclusion that both of these doctrines of objective sanction are built upon abstractions ; that the establishment of equivalences of value, which constitutes the sufficient reason of ethical valuation, is not possible between subjective and objective values, but is rather a process of the valuing subject alone, among his own states.

In the second place, if these equivalences are to be established between the values of the individual and social series, then for the second principle of progressive imputation of value to get any meaning, side by side with the subjective imputation of the developing personality, there must be a corresponding increase of value, in terms either of quantity or universality, ascribed to the latter's phenomenal acts as social goods. That is, with the Steigerungs-fähigkeit of his disposition should follow a corresponding Steigerungs-fähigkeit of the social value or good. The logical consequences of this external doctrine of sanction are