Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/270

254 theory upon ethics Patten discusses in his pamphlet, Economic Causes of Moral Progress. Simply put, it is this. At least many of the so-called ethical ideals of men are but qualitative expressions for these complementary goods to which new value or pleasure has been imputed. Thus undoubtedly 'comfort,' 'saving,' and 'cleanliness,' are qualitative expressions for the process of harmonizing goods, and the ejection of inharmonious elements. The 'home,' and its attendant virtues, the 'state,' with its justice, are groups of such utilities, partly moral, partly economic. The force of the virtues, as complementary goods, is that they are the source of nearly all of the utilities imputed to the elements. Moral judgment is then, from this point of view, the creation of new utilities, and the increase of the sense of value, through the complementary goods that arise in the harmonious arrangement of the elements of consumption and of life generally, and the ejection of the discordant elements or passions. By this same principle, as we have seen, Ehrenfels seeks to account for the more exclusively inner values, inner freedom, peace, and perfection, out of which the absolute moment in personal sanction arises. The point of importance here is that, in this conception of 'harmonious grouping,' the quantitative point of view has really been transformed into a qualitative. Increase of value is no longer measured in terms of mere intensity of pleasure. Patten, himself, recognizes that this harmonization involves decrease of intensity. Indeed, he finds the value of this conception in the consequence that values may be imputed indefinitely without reaching the point of satiety. Obviously, for this to have any meaning, value must be reckoned in other terms than quantities of intensity; for, from this point of view, as we have seen, the 'paradox of value' holds as surely for the subjective as for the social values. As a matter of fact, another measure of value has been introduced, which, in the last analysis, is qualitative. As Meinong expresses it, in accounting for the meaning of personal values, the moment of spontaneity of the subject must be brought into the reckoning; or as Krueger formulates the principle, personal values are measured not only in terms of intensities, but in terms of the depth and breadth of the disposition in the