Principia Ethica · G. E. Moore
NATURALISTIC ETHICS.
But the second question which we have to ask is: What reasons has Mr Spencer for assigning to pleasure the position which he does assign to it? He tells us, we saw, that the ‘arguments’ both of pessimists and of optimists ‘assume it to be self-evident that life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling’; and he betters this later by telling us that ‘since avowed or implied pessimists, and optimists of one or other shade, taken together constitute all men, it results that this postulate is universally accepted’ (§ 16). That these statements are absolutely false is, of course, quite obvious: but why does Mr Spencer think them true? and, what is more important (a question which Mr Spencer does not distinguish too clearly from the last), why does he think the postulate itself to be true? Mr Spencer himself tells us his ‘proof is’ that ‘reversing the application of the words’ good and bad--applying the word ‘good’ to conduct, the ‘aggregate results’ of which are painful, and the word ‘bad’ to conduct, of which the ‘aggregate results’ are pleasurable--‘creates absurdities’ (§ 16).
He does not say whether this is because it is absurd to think that the quality, which we _mean by the word_ ‘good,’ really applies to what is painful. Even, however, if we assume him to mean this, and if we assume that absurdities are thus created, it is plain he would only prove that what is painful is properly thought to be _so far_ bad, and what is pleasant to be _so far_ good: it would not prove at all that pleasure is ‘_the_ supreme end.’ There is, however, reason to think that part of what Mr Spencer means is the naturalistic fallacy: that he imagines ‘pleasant’ or ‘productive of pleasure’ is the very meaning of the word ‘good,’ and that ‘the absurdity’ is due to this. It is at all events certain that he does not distinguish this possible meaning from that which would admit that ‘good’ denotes an unique indefinable quality. The doctrine of naturalistic Hedonism is, indeed, quite strictly implied in his statement that ‘virtue’ cannot ‘_be defined_ otherwise than in terms of happiness’ (§ 13); and, though, as I remarked above, we cannot insist upon Mr Spencer’s words as a certain clue to any definite meaning, that is only because he generally expresses by them several inconsistent alternatives--the naturalistic fallacy being, in this case, one such alternative. It is certainly impossible to find any further reasons given by Mr Spencer for his conviction that pleasure both is the supreme end, and is universally admitted to be so. He seems to assume throughout that we _must_ mean by good conduct what is productive of pleasure, and by bad what is productive of pain. So far, then, as he is a Hedonist, he would seem to be a naturalistic Hedonist.
So much for Mr Spencer. It is, of course, quite possible that his treatment of Ethics contains many interesting and instructive remarks. It would seem, indeed, that Mr Spencer’s main view, that of which he is most clearly and most often conscious, is that pleasure is the sole good, and that to consider the direction of evolution is by far the best _criterion_ of the way in which we shall get most of it: and this theory, _if_ he could establish that amount of pleasure is always in direct proportion to amount of evolution _and also_ that it was plain what conduct was more evolved, _would_ be a very valuable contribution to the science of Sociology; it would even, if pleasure were the sole good, be a valuable contribution to Ethics. But the above discussion should have made it plain that, if what we want from an ethical philosopher is a scientific and systematic Ethics, not merely an Ethics professedly ‘based on science’; if what we want is a clear discussion of the fundamental principles of Ethics, and a statement of the ultimate reasons why one way of acting should be considered better than another--then Mr Spencer’s ‘Data of Ethics’ is immeasurably far from satisfying these demands.
A simple consideration of the course of evolution will therefore, on this view, by no means suffice to inform us of the course we ought to pursue. We shall have to employ all the resources of a strictly ethical discussion in order to arrive at a correct valuation of the different results of evolution--to distinguish the more valuable from the less valuable, and both from those which are no better than their causes, or perhaps even worse. In fact it is difficult to see how, on this view--if all that be meant is that evolution has _on the whole_ been a progress--the theory of evolution can give any assistance to Ethics at all. The judgment that evolution has been a progress is itself an independent ethical judgment; and even if we take it to be more certain and obvious than any of the detailed judgments upon which it must logically depend for confirmation, we certainly cannot use it as a datum from which to infer details. It is, at all events, certain that, if this had been the _only_ relation held to exist between Evolution and Ethics, no such importance would have been attached to the bearing of Evolution on Ethics as we actually find claimed for it.
(2) The view, which, as I have said, seems to be Mr Spencer’s main view, may also be held without fallacy. It may be held that the more evolved, though not itself the better, is a _criterion_, because a concomitant, of the better. But this view also obviously involves an exhaustive preliminary discussion of the fundamental ethical question what, after all, is better. That Mr Spencer entirely dispenses with such a discussion in support of his contention that pleasure is the sole good, I have pointed out; and that, if we attempt such a discussion, we shall arrive at no such simple result, I shall presently try to shew. If however the good is not simple, it is by no means likely that we shall be able to discover Evolution to be a criterion of it. We shall have to establish a relation between two highly complicated sets of data; and, moreover, if we had once settled what were goods, and what their comparative values, it is extremely unlikely that we should need to call in the aid of Evolution as a criterion of how to get the most.
It is plain, then, again, that if this were the only relation imagined to exist between Evolution and Ethics, it could hardly have been thought to justify the assignment of any importance in Ethics to the theory of Evolution. Finally, (3) it may be held that, though Evolution gives us no help in discovering what results of our efforts will be best, it does give some help in discovering what it is _possible_ to attain and what are the means to its attainment. That the theory really may be of service to Ethics in this way cannot be denied. But it is certainly not common to find this humble, ancillary bearing clearly and exclusively assigned to it. In the mere fact, then, that these non-fallacious views of the relation of Evolution to Ethics would give so very little importance to that relation, we have evidence that what is typical in the coupling of the two names is the fallacious view to which I propose to restrict the name ‘Evolutionistic Ethics.’ This is the view that we ought to move in the direction of evolution simply _because_ it is the direction of evolution. That the forces of Nature are working on that side is taken as a presumption that it is the right side.
That such a view, apart from metaphysical presuppositions, with which I shall presently deal, is simply fallacious, I have tried to shew. It can only rest on a confused belief that somehow the good simply _means_ the side on which Nature is working. And it thus involves another confused belief which is very marked in Mr Spencer’s whole treatment of Evolution. For, after all, is Evolution the side on which Nature is working? In the sense, which Mr Spencer gives to the term, and in any sense in which it can be regarded as a fact that the more evolved is higher, Evolution denotes only a _temporary_ historical process. That things will permanently continue to evolve in the future, or that they have always evolved in the past, we have not the smallest reason to believe. For Evolution does not, in this sense, denote a natural _law_, like the law of gravity. Darwin’s theory of natural selection does indeed state a natural law: it states that, given certain conditions, certain results will always happen. But Evolution, as Mr Spencer understands it and as it is commonly understood, denotes something very different. It denotes only a process which has actually occurred at a given time, because the conditions at the beginning of that time happened to be of a certain nature.
That such conditions will always be given, or have always been given, cannot be assumed; and it is only the process which, according to natural law, must follow from _these_ conditions and no others, that appears to be also on the whole a progress. Precisely the same natural laws--Darwin’s, for instance--would under other conditions render inevitable not Evolution--not a development from lower to higher--but the converse process, which has been called Involution. Yet Mr Spencer constantly speaks of the process which is exemplified in the development of man as if it had all the augustness of a universal Law of Nature: whereas we have no reason to believe it other than a temporary accident, requiring not only certain universal natural laws, but also the existence of a certain state of things at a certain time. The only _laws_ concerned in the matter are certainly such as, under other circumstances, would allow us to infer, not the development, but the extinction of man. And that circumstances will always be favourable to further development, that Nature will always work on the side of Evolution, we have no reason whatever to believe. Thus the idea that Evolution throws important light on Ethics seems to be due to a double confusion.
Our respect for the process is enlisted by the representation of it as the Law of Nature. But, on the other hand, our respect for Laws of Nature would be speedily diminished, did we not imagine that this desirable process was one of them. To suppose that a Law of Nature is _therefore_ respectable, is to commit the naturalistic fallacy; but no one, probably, would be tempted to commit it, unless something which _is_ respectable, were represented as a Law of Nature. If it were clearly recognised that there is no evidence for supposing Nature to be on the side of the Good, there would probably be less tendency to hold the opinion, which on other grounds is demonstrably false, that no such evidence is required. And if both false opinions were clearly seen to be false, it would be plain that Evolution has very little indeed to say to Ethics.
Of naturalistic views, that which regards ‘pleasure’ as the sole good has received far the fullest and most serious treatment and was therefore reserved for Chapter III: all other forms of Naturalism may be first dismissed, by taking typical examples (24-26). (2) As typical of naturalistic views, other than Hedonism, there was first taken the popular commendation of what is ‘natural’: it was pointed out that by ‘natural’ there might here be meant either ‘normal’ or ‘necessary,’ and that neither the ‘normal’ nor the ‘necessary’ could be seriously supposed to be either always good or the only good things (27-28). (3) But a more important type, because one which claims to be capable of system, is to be found in ‘Evolutionistic Ethics.’ The influence of the fallacious opinion that to be ‘better’ _means_ to be ‘more evolved’ was illustrated by an examination of Mr Herbert Spencer’s Ethics; and it was pointed out that, but for the influence of this opinion, Evolution could hardly have been supposed to have any important bearing upon Ethics (29-34).
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.