Page:Philosophical Review Volume 27.djvu/120

108 is referred to no objective standard; religion and virtue are irrelevant to it. To interpret happiness we must then seriously consider the various and diverse types of mankind. The elements of unhappiness or happiness are to be found in the particular, cognitive states of consciousness which, taken in order of their intensity, include emotions, sensations, pleasant and unpleasant sentiments and some unnameable ones. The pleasant emotions are those most favorable to happiness. Every satisfied or unsatisfied inclination gives rise to these various states of consciousness. The robust appetite experiences satisfaction in the various odors of foods while the excesses of the gourmand are accompanied by regret and shame, even though the physiological effects are not felt for some time afterwards. The proper subordination and coordination of inclinations depend upon the individual's scale of values. Such a scale is fundamentally necessary for the happiness of the individual and must depend upon the individual's particular character. For the intellectual, who suppress physical desires, intellectual pursuits occasion the greatest happiness. For the type with superabundant energy and fine health, mediocrity in intellectual matters and in personal ambitions is the desirable attitude. Aptitude and interest in practical affairs when joined with good health is another possible happiness complex. For the chronically sick, an attitude of resignation is most satisfying. It is possible that the same scale of values may be applied to different types, though they would naturally lead to very different consequences. This evaluative judgment is a special faculty which accompanies all states of consciousness, guiding and comparing these states and thus determining them. In other words, this faculty acts as a standard or measure. We can determine graphically by this standard our pleasures and pains for at least a short period of time and guide our lives accordingly. And it is only by means of this self-limitation, that we can hope for happiness.

An act, in either human or animal conduct, is a purposive act if it involves these three necessary elements: first, a general type of action of which the particular act in question is judged to be a case; secondly, an agent possessed of a stable tendency to perform acts of this type; and, thirdly, a judgment made by the agent that this particular act is a case of the general type. There are several common errors regarding purpose. There is the 'pathetic fallacy' or human weakness which prompts one to extend to all agencies involved in any event that purposive type of determination which really holds only for one's own participation in it. Again, we are often disposed to attribute purpose to any structure that shows systematic unity. This unity may be either existent in an object or objects, as the flavor that pervades any historical period; or it may be ideal, as the universal ellipse which explains any concrete elliptical curve to be an ellipse. However, in neither case is there purpose, for in neither case does the unity determine the existence of the parts. The