MORTIMER J. ADLER ON A DIALECTIC OF MORALS

Part 2: Preference and Pleasure- Induction of a Principle

(Numbers in parentheses refer to Notes at the bottom of the page)

LET US BEGIN with an indisputable fact. No one can deny the fact of preference. If there are people who say they have never preferred one thing to another, never done one thing rather than another, we must inquire, then, whether they have ever experienced desire at all, of any sort. And if they admit having had the experience of desire, they can certainly be made to understand the difference between something which would satisfy that desire and something which would not. Hence, they can at least imagine a situation in which, given a certain desire, they would prefer one thing to another. But it is unlikely that we shall be compelled to persuade anyone about the fact of reference -- certainly not about its existence, though, perhaps, about its significance. That, then, can be our starting point (11).

The fact of preference can be set forth in a simple formula which describes every case: X, who is a human being, prefers A to B, and here A and B can either be objects or courses of action. In fact, whatever A and B stand for, whoever prefers A to B is saying that A is better than B. The fact of preference is thus seen to be equivalent to the judgment of better-than.

But a student may object, of course, that he does not know what "better-than" means; he has admitted the fact of preference, but he has not admitted that there is anything really good and bad, or better and worse. If "better-than" means no more than "preferred-by-me," says the student, then the equivalence of the fact of preference with the judgment of better-than can be conceded; but not otherwise.

At this point let us focus the whole issue on the fact of preference. Let us consider two people, X and Y, both of whom, as a matter of fact, prefer A to B. Let X be a moral skeptic, such as the student is, who claims that in expressing this preference he is expressing nothing more than his private opinion; X, furthermore, denies that there are any principles behind this judgment of preference which might lead any other person, in the same situation, to judge in the same way. And, for the sake of contrast, let Y be a moralist who claims that his reasons for preferring A to B include universally valid principles which set up an order of goods, of things as better and worse, for any person at any time and place.

Now it will be observed that the two people, X and Y, agree upon the fact of preference, though they disagree in the explanation they give in answer to the question, Why do you prefer A to B? We have not yet heard the moral skeptic's explanation of his preference, but we know it must be different from the moralist's. It should be noted, moreover, that it makes no difference whether X and Y both prefer A to B, or whether they make opposite choices here, for in either case the fact of preference remains to be explained, and it is the difference in the explanations which matters. Let there be no doubt on this point, for if the explanation given by the moral skeptic is not radically and irreducibly different from the explanation given by the moralist, there is no issue.

We must, therefore, ask the student to explain preference. He may, of course, answer that there is no explanation, that he never has any grounds whatsoever for preferring one thing to another. If he says this, he must be asked why, then, does he prefer one thing to another. Should he reply that, in fact, he does not really prefer one thing to another -- that, when he appears to choose A rather than B, it is only in the way in which one tosses a coin to make a decision, or in the way in which one makes a blindfold choice between the right hand and the left -- it will be necessary to remind him that he is now denying what before he admitted. He was not originally asked to agree that he, in fact, did one thing rather than another, but that he preferred to do this rather than that. In short, he cannot admit the fact of preference and deny that he regards one thing as better than another, even if that means only better-for-him. Hence, he cannot refuse to give us some explanation of his preferences, some account of how or why he regards one thing as somehow better than another.

At this point the student can be helped to a decision by being presented with the following dilemma: either what is preferred is something which any rational being would prefer under those circumstances, something which in the nature of the case is better than the rejected alternative, or the preference expresses nothing more than this individual's feelings at the moment. The student will recognize at once that if he take the first horn of the dilemma, he is conceding the existence of moral knowledge, a rational judgment about what is good and bad, which has truth for any person. Since the existence of moral knowledge is to be proved, the student quite properly takes the other horn of the dilemma.

Let us now make the student's position explicit. He is saying that he prefers A to B, because he likes A. Furthermore, he wishes to be understood as saying that his liking A is entirely a matter of his present state of feelings about A and B; tomorrow he might like B. And he would not be at all surprised to find that other people liked B when he liked A, or conversely; nor would he attempt to argue with them about this difference in their tastes, for about liking and disliking there can be no argument.

We have now discovered an interesting point, which the student should recognize. The moral skeptic, when urged to explain the fact of preference, becomes a hedonist. In order to avoid saying that he prefers A because his reason tells him it is really better, he says that it is entirely a matter of his feelings&endash;feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Nothing new has been introduced into the discussion by the use of the words "pleasure" and "displeasure" for the student will admit that "A pleases me" or "A gives me pleasure" is the verbal equivalent of "I like A." Hence, with the student's consent, we can conclude that a moral skeptic is one who explains preference in terms of feelings of pleasure and displeasure -- feelings which are entirely subjective, operating for this individual and at this moment in this situation.

If, now, we ask the student why he likes A, why it pleases him, he may protest the question. There is no why for liking. The feeling of pleasure is an immediate experience which determines preference, and that is all there is to it. The student may even tell us that we have no right to ask why, for the very question implies that there are reasons; whereas he has already told us there are none unless the feeling of pleasure itself be called a "reason" for preference. If we wish to use the word "reason" that way, then pleasure and displeasure, he reiterates, are the only reasons for preference.

But there is still some room for inquiry about these feelings of pleasure and displeasure. We admit that there is no problem if A pleases and B displeases. In this simple case, the principle of preference is clear: pleasure is preferred to displeasure. And no further explanation need be given of this principle, for we can agree with the student that it is a principle of animal conduct: animals embrace what they like, and avoid what they dislike. That can be taken as a scientific fact. And although with some of the lower animals their likes and dislikes are instinctive (and so common to all members of the species), in the case of humankind, instinct is either weak or non-existent, and human likes and dislikes are matters of individual conditioning. Hence, we cannot as a matter of scientific knowledge declare what all people will like or dislike. Therefore, on moral matters there is only opinion.

All cases are not, however, so simple. We must ask the student to consider a situation in which he has often found himself; he likes both A and B. Whereas in the simple case first given, B was positively displeasing, here B is pleasing. Now what is the principle of preference? The student will answer, as it seems he must, that in this case he prefers A because A is more pleasing -- he likes A more than B.

We have thus arrived at a second principle of preference. The first principle was: A is considered better-than-B-for-me whenever A gives me pleasure and B displeasure. The second principle is: A is considered better-than-B-for-me whenever A gives me more, and B less, pleasure. The question now is whether a genuinely new criterion has been introduced. According to the first principle, pleasure was the only criterion of preference. The second principle appears to add a new criterion: quantity of pleasure. To be sure we understand this new criterion, let us consider another case in which the alternatives are A and C, on the one hand, and B, on the other. Let it be supposed that B is more pleasing than either A or C taken separately, but that together A and C will give more pleasure than B. Applying the standard of quantity, the student tells us that in such a situation he will prefer A and C to B.

Would any other person make the same judgment? we ask. Yes, says the student, faced by a choice between more and less pleasure -- whether the greater quantity be simply the greater intensity of one pleasure over another, or the summation of two pleasures which exceeds a single pleasure -- any person would prefer more or less. Is this, we ask, a matter of human instinct or of human reason? Why is more of what we like better than less? The student replies that he doesn't know whether it is instinct or reason, but that it makes no difference. Animals not only seek pleasure and avoid displeasure, but they also prefer more pleasure to less. This is simply the fact, and it applies to human beings as well as other animals. It is an ultimate fact, about which no further whys can be asked.

But, we persist, the criterion of quantity as a principle of preference raises further questions which must be faced. In the first place, the student must now admit that pleasure is not the only criterion of preference. Quantity is an additional criterion, and a more ultimate criterion, since one pleasure is preferred to another because of quantity, not one quantity to another because of pleasure. The student objects, saying that more pleasure is better simply because it is more pleasure, not because it is more.

To argue this question, let us consider a case. One is faced with a choice between a bag containing three apples and a bag containing two. One likes apples. Both bags are obtainable with equal ease. Let us further suppose that one's appetite for apples is equal to eating three of them in succession. The preference, then, for the bag of three must be based on the difference in quantity, on the fact that more of the same is better than less. Hence whenever there is an alternative between two things which please in the same way, pleasure itself cannot determine preference, but only something which measures the pleasure, namely, quantity. And if quantity measures pleasure, and if it is on such measurement of pleasure that preference is based, then quantity is a more ultimate criterion than pleasure.

But the student counters by asking us to consider an opposite case, in which pleasure appears to measure quantity. In this case, one is faced with a choice between two bags, containing an equal number of objects, let us say, three apples and three bitter pills. Of course there is no problem here, we hasten to admit, because here the choice will be made in terms of pleasure as against displeasure The student then revises the situation, supposing the bags to contain three apples and three bars of chocolate, both of which give pleasure, and let us even add, he says, that the pleasure they give is of the same sort. The student will soon realize that his case has now betrayed him, for if any preference is to be expressed it will have to be in favor of the greater pleasure to be obtained from the unit of apple as against the unit of chocolate, or conversely. Given an equal sum of such units in the two bags, and given the same rate of diminishing increment of pleasure from successive units, he must, according to his own principles, prefer the bag which contains the object, any unit of which gives him greater pleasure.

That pleasure never measures quantity, as quantity measures pleasure, is thus summarily seen in the fact that there is no ground at all for preference between equal quantities of the same pleasure, and in the fact that whenever one quantity is preferred to another it is because the one preferred gives more pleasure, not simply pleasure.

Granted, the student may now be willing to say, but what is the significance of all this? There are two answers: first, that pleasure and displeasure are by themselves, taken without qualification or measurement, insufficient to explain all the facts of preference; second, the criterion of quantity, as irreducible to the criterion of pleasure, and as more ultimate than pleasure because measuring it, may help us to modify the extreme character of the student's moral skepticism. To show him this, we go on to the next point.

If pleasure, as against displeasure, were the only criterion of preference, the student could persist in holding his original position that every moral judgment (every judgment of A-better-than-B-for-me) was entirely individual, made by him at this moment according to the state of his feelings, and hence subjective, hence an opinion that has no relevance to anyone else faced with the same alternatives. But if instead of A representing a source of pleasure and B a source of displeasure, we let A represent a greater, and B a lesser, pleasure, then is the judgment of preference for A over B subjective in the same way? Yes, says the student, because the fact that I find greater pleasure in A at this moment does not mean that anyone else does, or need to, or even that I will tomorrow. This we must grant, but that the principle itself is not subjective is our real contention.

We are not trying to say that two different individuals, or the same individual at different times, will find greater pleasure in A. We are saying, however, that whenever anyone finds greater pleasure in one thing than in another, that is the thing he will prefer. And this principle of preference is absolutely universal. It holds for all people everywhere and at all times. One might formulate this principle as follows: if anything at all is good, a larger amount of good is better than a smaller. Even people who say that the only good is pleasure are nevertheless compelled to agree that they would be fools if, in pursuing such goods, they ever took less pleasure when more was available.

Here, then, is a moral rule binding all people. Let us state it as a moral rule, in the imperative mood: Always choose the greater good. Agreeing for the moment that pleasure is the only good, this command can be stated declaratively: A person should always choose more pleasure in preference to less. And this moral judgment, however stated, and with whatever meaning is assigned to the word "good," appears to be universally true, a matter of knowledge, not opinion. Hence when A stands merely for "more pleasure" and B stands for "less pleasure," the words "for me" can be omitted from the judgment that A is better than B.

Not so fast, says the student. Either you did not need the criterion of quantity to make this point, or I do not understand its significance. You could have made the same point, he goes on to explain, in terms of pleasure and displeasure. For if A stands for "source of pleasure" and B for "source of displeasure," then the words "for me" can also be omitted from the statement that A is better than B.

Here, too, there is a universal moral rule, if you wish to call it such: Always choose pleasure rather than displeasure. And if you want to substitute the words "good" and "evil" as verbal equivalents, you can say: Always choose good rather than evil. But such statements are either tautologies, or they do no more than merely report the facts of animal behavior, namely, that all animals seek pleasure and avoid displeasure, or seek more pleasure rather than less. All that you have done, he tells us, is to disguise a scientific fact by putting it into the linguistic form of a command, or a moral injunction, using the word "should." What is the point of saying that people should do what they cannot fail to do? Is there any meaning to a moral rule which cannot be violated? In fact, have we the right to call anything a moral rule, a rule of conduct, unless it can somehow be violated? For otherwise the moral rule would not be a basis for judging people as good and bad, right and wrong in their actions, according as they conform to or transgress the rule.

The usual conception of the moralist's position certainly involves not only universal rules, but the possibility of making such judgments about people in terms of them. Furthermore, the whole discussion is off the point, because the real judgment of preference is made by me here and now in this situation, and is determined not by such universal principles as "pleasure is always better than displeasure" or "more pleasure is always better than less pleasure," but by my present, thoroughly individual feelings about objects I like and dislike, or like more and less intensely.

By such objections, the student has brought the issue into clearer focus. He has raised two questions, not one, and these must be separated. The first has to do with the point about the violability of moral rules. In a sense he is right that an inviolable moral rule is not a statement of what should be done, but of what in fact is the case about the nature of human conduct. There must be some distinction, he rightly insists, between moral and natural necessity, between a moral statement and one made by the psychologist as a descriptive scientist. The second question concerns the subjectivity of any actual preference; and here again the student is right if the preference is solely determined by how he feels about A and B. Even if the judgment, that people should always prefer a greater good, were truly a moral rule, because violable, it would have no significance practically if, as between A and B, preference were entirely determined by how an individual felt about A and B, which he liked more, for example. Let us consider these two points in order.

The student's objections, it will be remembered, arose from his inability to see why we were so insistent about the criterion of quantity. That can now be explained to him, perhaps, in terms of the fact that it makes it easier to formulate a moral rule which shall be at once both universal and capable of violation. If we had used the criterion of pleasure, as against displeasure, to formulate a rule (e.g., that pleasure should always be preferred), it would have been extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible, to show that this rule was not a statement of observable fact, confirmed by all psychological investigations; for even the pathological cases of masochism are generally understood as people taking pleasure, as opposed to displeasure, in sensations of pain. Let us see, therefore, whether the criterion of quantity helps us.

We must take a more complicated case than any we have so far considered. Let A and C stand for a sum of pleasures greater than the single pleasure B. But let the conditions be such that whereas A and B are pleasures capable of immediate enjoyment, C is a pleasure that cannot be enjoyed until some time in the future, though it can be imagined now. Furthermore, let the future enjoyment of C depend upon the present choice of A rather than B; in fact, let the present enjoyment of B exclude the possibility of a future enjoyment of C. Finally, let us state the facts about quantity: B is a greater pleasure than either A or C taken singly, though the sum of A and C is greater than B. According to quantity as a criterion of preference, the student must admit that the rule of anyone's conduct in this case must be that he should prefer A and C to B. But, as a matter of fact, will everyone behave accordingly?

To obtain the student's answer to this question, we take a concrete case in which the choice is between the pleasure of going to sleep as against the pleasure of further conviviality. Now the latter pleasure may be regarded as greater than the former taken by itself; but the former entails a future pleasure -- the pleasure of feeling rested on the morrow, here set against the displeasure of weariness when there is work to be done. Let it even be supposed that the pleasure of feeling rested on the morrow, as now imagined, is less than the presently enjoyable pleasure of further carousing. It is only when the two pleasures -- of sleep now and feeling rested tomorrow -- are taken together, that they exceed the alternative which is involved.

Will the student deny that a person who made such calculations as these might sometimes violate the universal rule, and choose the lesser pleasure? The student will undoubtedly admit that he has made such a foolish choice himself; he will remember moments of repentance for having made the wrong choice, moments of resolution not to be so foolish again. But wherein lies the folly, unless it is wisdom to follow a true rule of conduct? And how could one ever repent, in cases of this sort, if the rule we have stated is strictly inviolable?

Shall we not, therefore, now ask the student to admit that by his own criterion of preference we have formulated a universally true rule of conduct, true for any person and yet also frequently violated? The student may still demur, saying that at the time of the choice, the lesser pleasure actually seemed the greater; and that repentance, with its recognition of folly, occurred at a later time when a more accurate calculation of the opposed pleasures was made. Thus, he may continue, it remains true as a matter of fact that people always prefer what at the time appears to them to be the greater pleasure, although the apparently greater may not be really so.

Undoubtedly, we must admit, such mistakes in calculation are sometimes made, but that is not always the case. We can regret two sorts of mistakes: on the one hand, mistakes of calculation; on the other, mistakes of acting contrary to our calculations. It does not require much effort of thought to add to the pleasure of going to sleep now the consequent pleasure of feeling refreshed in the morning; but it does require strength of will, as is popularly said, to give sufficient weight to a future pleasure against a present one. That is why many people have violated the sound rule which prescribes the choice of greater pleasure (the sum of A and C, against B). At the moment of the choice, they like B more than A, and even though they fully realize that the alternatives do not consist of A against B, but of A, along with C, against B, they foolishly put the morrow out of mind. They set up as the maxim of their conduct, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." But if that maxim be a moral truth, then the rule about always preferring the greater good must be false -- on the condition, of course, that we do not die on the morrow. Since, as a matter of fact, most of us make choices in the expectation of a normal span of life, the maxim which permits us to take the greater pleasure at the moment is false precisely because it is not the greater pleasure in that larger framework of moments which constitutes a whole life.

We must ask the student at this point whether he is willing to agree that a person, who has both memory of the past and imagination of the future, exercises preferences not only for the present moment, but for the future, and in view of his or her life as a whole. If he says No, we need only remind him that he is neglecting obvious facts with which he is acquainted, for example, the many cases in which he and other people have preferred a momentary displeasure for the sake of a future pleasure. As between going to the dentist now to have a cavity filled, when the tooth is not yet decayed enough to hurt, and waiting for toothache to set in, most of us make the choice of what is at the moment unpleasant for the sake of avoiding a greater unpleasantness later. If, in the light of cases of this sort, the student now admits that the criteria of preference require us to consider future moments as well as present ones, then we can formulate a principle of preference, which subsumes the other two. This rule of conduct is: In any case in which a choice can be made, people should prefer the alternative, which, in the long run or viewing life as a whole, maximizes pleasure and minimizes displeasure.

We must remind the student here that, so far, we have adopted his own criteria of preference -- pleasure against displeasure, or the greater quantity of pleasure -- and that we have succeeded in showing him, in terms of his own criteria, that he himself must acknowledge the truth of a moral rule, which is of universal application; and we have also now shown him that such a rule, especially in its most general formulation, is normative, saying how people should behave, not descriptive, saying how they do, the evidence for this being the obvious violations of the rule, and the experience of repentance for folly in so doing, whether it results from bad thinking or weak willing. In other words, the operations of people in exercising preferences cannot be simply instinctive, even though it be instinctive to humankind's animal nature to seek pleasure and avoid displeasure. We cannot ask why human beings should prefer pleasure to displeasure, for the student is right in replying that there is no reason for this except the fact of instinctive determination itself. But if in a complicated situation, involving sums of pleasure and displeasure, some present and some future, we ask why a human being should prefer one set to another, instinct by itself will not suffice as an answer.

Here it is necessary to say that, in view of humankind's instinctive preference for pleasure over displeasure, and in the light of memory and imagination, human beings have developed a rule of calculation which goes beyond the momentary promptings of instinct. Since this rule is not itself instinctive, it can be misapplied by bad thinking in particular cases, and even when the calculations are well performed, it can be violated by contrary choices. A violable rule of this kind, developed as the result of thinking about the problems of preference, can be called a rule of reason. It satisfies all the requirements of a universally true moral judgment, providing as it does both a prescription for conduct and a standard whereby to judge people's choices as wise or foolish, right or wrong. Hence we can say to the student that, accepting his own explanations of the fact of preference, we have removed one of the unqualified negatives in his moral skepticism, namely, that no universally valid moral judgment, no rule which directs all people everywhere, is possible. The possibility is more than proved by the existence of at least one such rule.

It is now the student's turn to remind us that we have another question to answer before we have really won our point. Granted that there is such a rule, it does not determine actual preferences in particular situations, for they are determined by the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, remembered, imagined, or presently experienced, which vary among individuals according to their temperaments, their biographical conditioning, and their social environment. Hence, the rule that A should be preferred to B whenever A represents a greater pleasure, is an empty formula, which does not oblige two people to agree in their actual judgments. One can say that he likes A better, and the other can say that he likes B better and so, without violating this so-called universal moral rule, the two people can make quite opposite choices in the same situation. Each person's preference expresses his or her own private opinion, and nothing more, for according to the rule itself, he or she has no grounds for saying that the other person has made a wrong choice.

Certainly we must admit, the student tells us, that if moral judgments are worth anything at all, they must be practical: they must decide our conduct. Now the kind of judgments which decide our conduct are the actual judgments we make in particular cases, the judgment that this A is better than this B, here and now, and for me. The universal moral judgment that any A, which is a greater pleasure than any B, should be preferred, decides no one's conduct, for in particular situations, wherein we act, we do not find any A and any B, but this A and this B, and the whole question is whether we like this A better than this B. And although the universal judgment, that the greater pleasure should always be preferred to the less, is true for anyone, the particular judgment that this pleasure is greater than that may be true only for me, and certainly need not be true for everyone. Hence, the particular judgment, which must always carry the qualifying words "for me," is strictly an opinion, guiding only my own conduct, and if true in any sense at all, true only for me in this situation. But such particular judgments are the only ones which operate practically, and so, the student concludes, for all practical purposes moral questions are decided only by opinion. The moral skeptic is right, and the moralist wrong.

Much that the student has said is right, and yet his conclusion is wrong. Let us concede at once that, so far as our discussion has gone, all particular moral judgments, which express an individual's preference for A over B because more pleasing to him or her in the light of all calculable circumstances, are subjective, are opinions true for that individual only at the time they are made. Let us, furthermore, admit that such particular judgments are the most practical in the sense that they directly determine a choice and ensuing conduct. But instead of saying that they are the only really practical judgments, and that universal judgments are not practical at all, let us see if we can show the student that the universal judgments are also practical, though in a sense not so obviously or directly.

Here are two people, facing the same alternatives under the same circumstances. The two people differ as individuals in many ways, and so whereas one likes this A better than this B, the other likes this B better than this A. Now suppose the situation to be complicated by the fact that both A and B involve future as well as present pleasures. What, then, does it mean to say that A is liked better than B, or B better than A? It must mean that each person, according to his or her individual nature, has made a different calculation here of which is the greater-good-for-him-or-her. But, as we have already seen, a person can act contrary to such a calculation, and in so doing violate the universal moral rule that the greater good should be chosen. Hence, there are the following possibilities: (1) if both people violate the universal moral rule, it can be truly said that each should have made the opposite choice; (2) if the first person obeys the universal rule, and the second transgresses it, then it can be said that the second person's judgment is wrong, even though it now will agree with the first person's. The first person's judgment is not right because this A in fact gives a greater pleasure than this B to anyone; on the contrary, this B gives a greater pleasure to the second person; so that if the second person had acted wisely in his or her own behalf he or she should have chosen B rather than A.

What this all comes to can be summarized simply enough by pointing out that the act of preference follows from two judgments, not from one, a universal judgment and a particular judgment. With respect to the universal judgment, a person can be objectively right or wrong; thus, a person who says that a greater pleasure ought not to be preferred -- pleasure and the quantity of pleasure being the only criteria of preference -- speaks as falsely as a person who says two plus two does not equal four. With respect to the particular judgment, a person can only be subjectively right or wrong, according as they correctly or incorrectly calculates what, for them in this situation, is the greater pleasure. Their being right in the particular judgment has no relevance to the choices of other people; whereas their being right in the universal judgment indicates what is right for every other person.

But, the student persists, how does the universal judgment have any practical bearing? The question can be answered in two ways. The first is difficult to imagine, though possible: the case of a person who actually was in error about the universal principle, who somehow thought that the greater pleasure ought not to be preferred. Such a person, however accurately they calculated their present and future pleasures in any particular situation, would, if they put their universal and their particular judgment together into practice, make a choice which could be called wrong -- and objectively so, in the sense that it was not only wrong for them, but wrong for any person, because their error lay in an erroneous general principle.

The second case is one we have already discussed: the case of the person who violates the true universal rule as a result either of wrong calculations in this particular situation, or as a result of not following the calculations according to the prescription of the universal rule. Whichever of these two things they do, their preference can also be objectively criticized. It was wrong not only for them, but for any person in the same situation. These facts indicate conclusively that having the right universal rule and, more than that, applying it accurately to the circumstances, and, even more than that, putting the combination of the universal and the particular judgments into practice, are indispensable conditions of reaching a sound conclusion in the particular case. And any person who fails to satisfy all of these conditions can be criticized objectively, as he or she could not be if the only factors which determined actual preferences were entirely subjective.

If that is so, the student then asks, why did you admit earlier in this discussion that one person can prefer this A to this B, and another prefer this B to this A, and both be quite right? Was not that admission tantamount to conceding the subjectivity of actual preferences? Again, we must repeat that actual preferences, expressed in the particular judgments which immediately precede action, are subjective in the sense indicated, namely, that two people can make opposite judgments in the same situation and still both be right. The only point the student failed to see, when he asked the question, was that these opposite judgments are not entirely subjective, for both can be wrong if both were reached in the wrong way, i.e., in reliance upon a false universal rule, or in violation of a true one, through miscalculation or willful transgression.

We have now arrived at a point favorable for summarizing our discussion so far. Let us submit this summary to the student for his approval before we go on.

There are two extreme errors which are equally wrong. (1) The error of the moral skeptic who says that actual preferences are entirely subjective, that there is absolutely no way of pointing out to a person that he or she is wrong in a particular moral judgment in a manner which would make any other person wrong in the same situation. (2) The error of the moralist who says that actual preferences are entirely objective, that there is absolutely no way in which a person can regard their particular judgments as right for them and for themselves alone, since if they are right at all, they must be right for any other person in the same situation.

The truth, which corrects these errors, can be succinctly summarized in the following propositions: (1) two people can make opposite preferences in the same situation, and both be wrong; (2) two people can make opposite preferences in the same situation, and both be right. And if there is any moralist who makes the error just described, the moral skeptic is thoroughly right in attacking them. It may even be that the student has been led to espouse moral skepticism because of the error he has attributed to the moralist. Once the student is told that this error is no part of the moralist's position, a stumbling block may be removed. So far as we have gone, the moralist's attack upon skepticism can be justified only with respect to the error that is a blemish on the skeptical position, just as much as the opposite extreme error is a blemish on the position of the moralist. With both errors removed, the moralist and the moral skeptic are drawn a little closer.

With both errors removed, what can teacher and student (or moralist and moral skeptic) now positively agree upon? If they will examine together the two truths, stated above as corrections of the two extreme errors, they will find an explanation for these truths.

On the one hand, the reason why two people can make opposite preferences in the same situation, and both be wrong, is that each can violate in his or her own way a rule that is equally obligatory on both. That there can be any universal moral truths at all, such as the rule for always preferring the greater pleasure, arises from the fact that, in so far as they are human, all people are the same, at any time or place.

On the other hand, the reason why two people can make opposite preferences in the same situation, and both be right, is that both are not simply human beings, for each is a uniquely differing individual person, whose individual nature, constituted by the accidents of birth, biography, and environment, belongs to him or her alone. That two people, both adhering to the same universal moral rules and following them equally well, should be able to reach different conclusions arises from the fact that they differ as individuals; and the rightness of their opposite conclusions is a rightness relative to their individual natures.

In short, whatever is universally true or objectively right in the making of a particular moral judgment is something relative to the human nature common to all people; whereas whatever is only individually true or only subjectively right in the making of such a judgment is something relative to the individual nature uniquely possessed by each person.

Now the moralist can claim to have moral knowledge, in the strict sense of objectively true moral principles or rules, only on the level of universal judgments. If he claims more than this, the moral skeptic is right in opposing him. The moral skeptic, on his side, can claim that moral judgments are subjectively true, or mere opinions, only on the level of particular judgments. If he claims more than this, the moralist is right in opposing him. The fact that the particular judgment is the one which is directly proximate to action does not mean that the universal judgment is not practical, for it is indirectly practical in so far as it is operative in the formation of the particular judgment. And although the particular judgment, taken as a whole, is subjective and has the status only of opinion, it contains implicitly the universal judgment which has been operative in its formation. It is necessary, of course, to extricate this universal judgment and to make it explicit, in order to discover a moral principle which has objective truth, obliging all people, and applicable to every situation.

There should be no difficulty about getting the student to approve this summary, for it says no more than what the student himself had admitted in the course of the preceding discussion. Making it, however, enables us to make two further points. The first looks backward. If the student, as a moral skeptic, still holds that although all moral standards are not individual, they are at least all conventional (relative to a social group at a given time and place), we can now begin to suggest to him that just as what is individual in moral judgments, because they are made by individual people, does not exclude the possibility of a universal element, because individual people are also all human beings, so what is conventional in moral judgments, because they are made by human beings living under certain social conditions, does not exclude the possibility of a universal element for the same reason, namely, that despite every difference of social origin, the people of different societies are still all human beings. We can promise the student to return to this point later, and show him, after a larger number of moral truths have been discovered, that these moral truths not only hold for every individual, but for every society as well; and that there is no inconsistency whatsoever between the unity and absoluteness of moral principles, on the one hand, and the plurality and relativity of mores, on the other.

The second point looks forward. It will be made by the student himself, after he has reviewed the ground we have so far covered. We have claimed, he will say, to have established the existence of moral theory, as a body of knowledge rather than a set of opinions, by getting him to admit the truth of one, or at most two, universal judgments, such as "men ought to prefer the greater pleasure." But if that is all that moral theory comes to, morality is not a very impressive body of knowledge. What other moral truths can we show him, and induce him to accept as such? If there are none other than this one, or its like, he does not regret his indifference to the study of moral philosophy, for at best it consists of the most obvious common sense, which all people already possess, and even at that its offering of acceptable truths is hardly elaborate enough to be worth more than a page, or the back of a card.

The challenge is utterly fair. We are now prepared to meet it. But, first, we must remind the student that we did not spend all this time on the principle, that people should prefer the greater pleasure, for its own sake, but rather for the sake of getting him to recognize a universal principle, a true but violable precept. And we had to do that in the student's own terms, by accepting at the outset his own answer to the question, Why is anything preferable to any other? He told us that the only criterion was pleasure as against displeasure; and then added a second criterion, the quantity of pleasure. At the time, we did not question these criteria. But now we can tell him that the paucity and obviousness of the principles we have so far reached are due to the two criteria of preference which he claimed were the only ones.

Now that the first stage of the argument is completed, and he admits the existence of some universal truths, we can go further only if he will permit us to re-examine the original premises of the argument. They were not entirely wrong: pleasure and quantity of pleasure are criteria of preference. But, though not wrong, these criteria are inadequate. There are other and more fundamental criteria which, when seen, will not only bring us to the induction of much more significant moral generalizations, but also will significantly alter our understanding of the two criteria already discussed. In order to correct the error of supposing that the only criteria of preference are pleasure and quantity of pleasure, we must make a fresh start. The best way to do this is to re-examine some of the statements already made about pleasure, for in them much truth is contained that we have not yet seen.

Notes

11. I should like to observe here that the fact of preference plays a role in the dialectic of morals like the role played by the fact of change in the dialectic of substance. If anyone persist in denying the existence of change, it will be impossible, I think, to induce that person to see the necessity for there being a multiplicity of individual substances. So, too, if anyone really persist in denying that people exercise preferences, it will be impossible to carry him or her any distance at all into the field of morals.