MORTIMER J. ADLER ON A DIALECTIC OF MORALS

Part 4: The Order of Goods and Happiness

We must now begin by asking the student whether he is willing to agree that we cannot desire everything as a means. Some things we may desire simply as means, and some as ends which are in turn means to further ends, but must we not desire at least one thing simply as an end, and in no sense as a means?

"I suppose so", the student will probably say, "but I don't see why."

The reason is not hard to find. You admit that whatever is desired as a means is sought for the sake of its end, and unless the end is desired, whatever may be a means to it is not desirable. Now although an end is the last thing we actually achieve in the course of our conduct (for if an end could be achieved before some of its means, those means would be utterly dispensable), the end must be the first thing we actually desire, for unless we desire the end, we have no reason for desiring things which are good only as means to it. Hence if every good which we regard as an end could also be regarded as a means to some further end, and so on indefinitely, there would be no beginning. Just as you cannot begin to walk in a definite direction unless you know where you are going before you start, so you cannot desire anything all as a means unless you desire something simply as an end.

"Granted", says the student, "something must be desired as an end. You seem to be implying that there is only one end for each person, the same for everyone. Why cannot a person have several distinct ends? And why cannot different people have different ends?"

Let us first consider the problem of several distinct ends for a single man. Suppose A and B to represent two objects, each of which is desired for its own sake, simply as an end. Now either the man seeks both ends together, as parts of a whole we shall call X, or he chooses between them. But if he chooses between them, he is exercising preference. And he must exercise this preference before he desires any other goods which are means either to A or to B, for until his end is determined, he cannot select the means. But on what ground shall he choose between A and B as ends? Since neither is a means, he cannot decide between them as he might be able to decide between alternative means to the same end. Therefore, if he prefers one end to another, he must do so because -- because --

"Because he likes it more", the student answers, "and we are right back to where we started. The preference for A over B (now called ends) must be made as I originally said every preference was made -- in terms of a person's likes and dislikes, in terms of the quantity of pleasure to be obtained. Or, if you want me to avoid such words as "pleasure", I'll say that the man will choose the end which satisfies him most."

It only seems as if we have fallen back; on the contrary, we have made a great advance. Let us show this to the student by asking him whether if a person could get some satisfaction out of having A, and some also out of having B, would the person not get more satisfaction out of having X, consisting in the sum of A and B. In which case, if the criterion which determines a "choice of ends" (in our suppositious case) is the amount of satisfaction to be derived from possessing it, then whatever gives the utmost satisfaction should always be chosen. And if, again in our suppositious case, A and B are the only two possibilities as ends, then neither can really be the end, for the end must be X, the whole which includes them as parts. If a person seeks either A or B when he or she can seek X, the person is seeking less satisfaction than he or she can have. And even though A and B are ends, they must also be regarded as means: the parts of a whole are means for getting the whole itself. Therefore, there is only one thing which is the end for any person. It is always the totality of all the goods he or she is capable of possessing, and possessing each derives some satisfaction therefrom. Complete satisfaction occurs only when the totality is somehow possessed. The end, therefore, is always the whole of goods; the parts of this whole are the different kinds of goods, each of which as a part is a constitutive means to the whole -- constitutive in the sense that it is a means whereby the whole can be constituted.

The constitutive means, or we can call them partial goods, may be related to one another as means are to ends, but all of them, in so far as they are parts, are equally constitutive means with respect to the whole. That is why A and B as partial goods may be ends in relation to other partial goods (C and D, let us say) serving them as means. But in so far as they are partial goods, neither A nor B can be the end, and both together, along with C and D, and all other partial goods, must be regarded as constitutive means with respect to X, which now stands for the complete totality of goods or desirables. Hence there is always only one real and ultimate end, never desired as a means, and since there is only one, it can never be the object of choice or preference. It must be desired, because there is no alternative to it.

"You are going too fast for me", the student confesses. "I am particularly bothered by two things. One is that you seem to be assuming that all the partial goods are always compatible with one another, so that it is always possible for a person to have all of them. The other is that you seem to be reverting to an earlier position, or even worse than that, you seem to be saying the opposite of what you said before. You said before that satisfaction cannot be an object of desire, and yet now you seem to be saying that X must be taken as the end, rather than A or B, because it is more satisfying than they are. Furthermore, if the totality of goods is always the end, then it is silly to say that people should seek to achieve this totality, since they cannot seek otherwise. In fact, I don't see that we are saying now any more than we said before when we said that a person should seek to maximize pleasure, or satisfaction -- only it now appears there is no should about it."

Let us meet the student's first point by reminding him how the diversity of partial goods is generated. There are many different kinds of good because human beings have different capacities to be fulfilled. Now, of course, it is possible for human capacities to be so related that any attempt to fulfill one would necessarily interfere with the fulfillment of one or more of the others. But that, as a matter of fact, does not seem to be the case. In the light of the facts about human nature, we can say, then, that so long as the variety of goods corresponds somehow to the diversity in human capacities, this variety will include no incompatible partial goods. Hence, a variety so constituted can always be summated in a totality. If A, B, C, D . . . . N represents an exhaustive enumeration of partial goods, each can be a part of the totality, X, for they can be taken together as means to constitute that whole.

Before we leave this point, we can clarify another related matter. The student will recall that in the concrete cases of preference which we considered earlier, the need for choice arose from the fact that the alternatives were exclusive of one another. That always is the case when we are faced with particular instances of the same sort of good -- this particular way of getting sensual pleasure, for example, as opposed to that. It is precisely in such cases that the criterion of quantity becomes operative -- in fact, is indispensable. As between competing particular goods of essentially the same sort, a person should choose the greater -- assuming, of course, that it is right for him or her, all else being considered, to choose that sort of good at all. But when the choice is between particular goods essentially different in kind, the criterion of quantity no longer operates in the same way.

In the first place, different kinds of good cannot be compared with respect to quantity, for each yields a different kind of satisfaction, in whatever amount that may be. In the second place, different kinds of good are not competing but completing -- if we have been right in saying that each kind in a correctly enumerated variety of goods is as indispensable as every other kind. This does not mean that we are never forced to choose between particular goods of different kinds; it means rather that the criterion of quantity now operates only with respect to the end -- the totality -- and in view of that end, we must make this particular choice here and now in such a way that we can ultimately obtain every kind of good, even though at this moment we do that by giving up one particular good for a particular good of another kind. The totality of goods is achieved not by possessing every particular good, but goods of every kind. We shall return to this point later in discussing the order of goods.

Let us now consider the student's second point. He is right in noticing a reversion to an earlier stage of our discussion, and even in detecting an apparent contradiction of what was said before. We said that the satisfaction derived from possessing a particular desirable object (a particular instance of a kind of good) could not be the object of that desire, for then the satisfaction, not the object itself, would be desirable. Nor can it be said that the object is desirable only for the sake of the satisfaction to be derived, for, in the first place, that generates an infinite regress of objects of desire; and, in the second place, we have seen that a choice between two sorts of objects cannot be explained or justified in this way. It should be noted, therefore, that this earlier point was not relevant to the problem of preference in so far as it involved two kinds of goods as the alternatives. But we have now seen that the amount of satisfaction, without becoming the object of desire, can operate as a criterion (though, perhaps, not the only criterion) in choosing between two particular instances of the same sort of good. And when we come to the question of the ultimate end, at which point there is no problem of preference at all, the "amount" of satisfaction, now understood heterogeneously, rather than homogeneously, as including every kind of satisfaction, properly becomes the only criterion.

Since we have used the word "criterion" to mean that by which we judge in our acts of choice or preference, it might be better to say that the amount of satisfaction is the sign, rather than the criterion, of the ultimate end, which is the totality of goods. The end should be that which leaves nothing to be desired. The end, in a sense, puts an end to desire by the completeness of the satisfaction which results from possessing, not every particular good, which is impossible, but every kind of good, which is quite possible.

It may be worthwhile to try to say this in another way. The end can be described by the words "all good things," which must be understood to mean a totality of kinds of goods, not all the particular goods in each kind. The end, as a totality of goods, cannot itself be regarded as a good, for then the whole would belong to itself as a part. If we refer to the end, thus conceived, as an object of desire -- and it can be an object of desire, though not of choice or preference -- we must refer to it as the good. And for every person there can be only one object of desire which is the good, though there are many objects of desire, subject to choice or preference, which are particular instances of goods, either of the same kind or of different kinds.

So far we have spoken of goods objectively -- as objects of desire. Now we can say the same thing subjectively, in terms of the satisfaction of desire. Satisfaction results from the possession of any object of desire, but the peculiar subjective sign of the object which is the good is that satisfaction is complete when it is possessed. Because of the peculiar relation between the end objectively conceived as a heterogeneous totality of kinds of good, and the end subjectively realized as a heterogeneous sum of satisfactions, we can always speak of the end subjectively as well as objectively. We cannot do this in the case of any partial good, for unless we name the kind of object desired, we cannot know the kind of satisfaction derived. But if one were to say that the end of all desire is "complete satisfaction," one would know this to be the subjective counterpart of that unique object of desire which consists in "all good things."

The student was wrong in thinking that we had become involved in a contradiction, but he was right in noticing that our present discussion of the end gives new significance to our earlier discussion of pleasure. When we are concerned with objects of desire -- alternatives for preference -- pleasure is not the only good; nor is it ever the sufficient criterion for determining a choice between particular objects. But when the maxim concerning the desirability of the greatest quantity of pleasure is properly understood in terms of the sum of satisfactions, that maxim directs us to the end of all our desires -- a totality of diverse goods. To say that every human being wants as much pleasure as possible is to say that every human being wants a good life -- a life enriched by every sort of good. In short, the end must be so conceived that if it could be obtained by one decision, no-one could resist making this decision, no-one could choose or prefer anything else because, by the very nature of the case, everything else must be less good. And the end we have now envisaged meets that test, whether we think of it as a totality of diverse goods or as the utmost in pleasure, the complete satisfaction of desire.

"I am still not sure I understand what you are driving at", says the student. "For one thing, what makes you think it is possible for a person to get all good things? Everyone may want as much pleasure as possible, but unless as much as possible can really be obtained, I don't see that the end you have envisaged is any better than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You'll have to show the man from Missouri how he can get all good things. And, in the second place, the rule which directs a person to seek the end, as you have defined it, no longer seems to be a moral rule by your own criterion, for it is obviously inviolable. A person could not seek anything else. You have really admitted what I have always suspected -- that it is a natural law, not a moral law, of human nature, for people to try to get as much as they can. You have simply described human behavior, and so far as I can see it is no different from animal behavior."

Let us begin with the student's second point. But before we do that, there is one other point to be made. The student previously asked us to show that the end is the same for all human beings. We have so far only succeeded in showing that for a given person there is just one end, because the end is never a good, but always the good. But when the good is conceived as a totality of diverse goods, including every sort of desirable object, is it not clear at once that the good must be the same for everyone? The reasoning here is simple: all people have the same human nature; hence they have the same set of capacities to be fulfilled, however much they may differ individually in the degree to which they possess this or that capacity; hence for every human being the variety of objects which can fulfill these capacities and satisfy the plurality of human desires will include the same diversity of kinds of good; therefore, the end, conceived as all good things (and understood as an heterogeneous totality of goods or satisfactions, not of course, as an undifferentiated maximum quantity) must be the same for all people.

"The reasoning is all right", says the student. "It should have been obvious to me, I suppose, that if you could prove there is only one end for each person, you could also show that the end is the same for every person, for in both cases the reasoning depends on human nature. But the joke is on you, because you have now strengthened my point that the end as you have defined it simply describes what in fact everyone seeks. If there is any truth in what you have been saying, it is a psychological truth, not a moral truth. Remember that you yourself told me that a moral rule had to be violable. Well, if you were to phrase a rule about the end -- such as, Seek all good things -- it couldn't be violated."

It may be appropriate at this juncture to tell the student that, in the tradition of moral science, the rule about the end is regarded as the first principle of morality. Whether it be expressed by such words as "Seek all good things" or even more simply by "Seek the good," this rule is said to be the first precept of the natural moral law. The student should now be able to see why the first principle of moral knowledge must be a rule about the end, since he has come to realize that every object which is not the good, but only a good, is good only as a means, and hence good in terms of the end. He has realized, though perhaps vaguely, that only by reference to the end can a choice between means be determined. That is why the end is the first principle, without which the problem of preference cannot be solved. How that problem is solved remains to be seen, but first we must meet the student's objection to the rule about the end&endash;not as a natural law, but as a moral principle.

Some time back the student admitted that all people desire to live. (Those who do not have no moral problems!) He was even willing to say that all people desire to live well, though he added the qualification that what one person meant by "living well" might differ considerably from what another meant. He should now be prepared, however, to relax that qualification somewhat; for if the words "living well" name the end which all people seek, and be understood as equivalent to "a life enriched by the possession of all good things," then it would appear that, in one sense at least, all people must agree about what they mean by "living well." Let us call the sense in which all people agree about the end a formal conception of it. All people subscribe to the same formula: a totality of diverse goods, a maximum of diverse satisfactions. But the student would be quite right in insisting that, though people may not differ about this formula, they appear to differ considerably about how they interpret it. Far from disputing with the student on this point, we, too, insist upon it, because herein lies the clue to the violable, hence moral, character of the first principle -- the rule about the end.

To carry the analysis further, it might prove useful here to introduce a new term -- happiness. The way in which people ordinarily use the word "happiness" justifies us in identifying happiness with the end. They regard happiness as something desirable entirely for its own sake. No one would ever speak of wanting happiness for the sake of obtaining some further or other good. The happy person is one who wants for nothing more. Hence it is clear that happiness is not a good; it is not even accurate to speak of it as "the highest good" if such words signify that happiness is one good among others, albeit the greatest. Happiness is the same as what we have called the good, the supreme good; but it is summum bonum only in the sense of being the totality or sum of every kind of good (totum bonum). Furthermore, we can identify happiness with living well, or with a good human life, since the formula is the same in both cases. The relation between happiness and pleasure is also clear: surely happiness is not the same as sensual pleasure, which is merely one kind of good; nor is happiness, considered objectively, the same as pleasure in the sense of satisfaction; but when we consider happiness, or the end, subjectively, it can be understood in terms of pleasure, for in possessing all good things the happy person enjoys every sort of satisfaction and in this sense has maximized pleasure.

That all human beings desire happiness seems to be the law of their nature. Though this be true, we also know as a matter of fact that people lead different sorts of lives. If we examine the matter closely, we find that there are great differences in the accounts they give of happiness -- of what they are seeking, of what they are trying to get out of life. What is the source of these differences? Since the formula of happiness is the same for all -- a whole of diverse goods, a sum of diverse satisfactions -- there are only two ways in which people can differ in putting matter into the formula, i.e., in passing from a formal to a material conception of their end, or happiness. (1) They can differ in their enumeration of the kinds of goods. (2) They can differ in the way they order whatever goods they have enumerated; by "order" here is meant an estimation of the relative worth of the various sorts of goods -- some of which should be preferred to others, some of which, within the plurality of goods itself, are related to others as means are to ends. Now according as people differ in either of these ways, or both together, the happiness they seek will be differently constituted, for happiness as a totality of goods is a whole constituted by the variety and order of its parts. Will the student now agree that we have described the facts which he had in mind when he said that though all people may seek the same end (to live well, happiness), they do not seek the same thing? Will he permit us to express this truth more precisely -- and less paradoxically -- by saying that the end all people seek is the same formally, but different materially?

"Yes", says the student, "your language says what I mean. But I don't see how this is going to show the natural law of human behavior to be a moral rule -- a rule (about the end) which is violable."

We are now prepared to show the student that. Only one new point needs to be added.

Considered materially, there are many different conceptions of happiness. The differences are, for the most part, with respect to the order of goods -- one person emphasizing wealth, let us say, another friendship, another knowledge, and so forth. There may be differences in the listing of the goods; though this is less frequently the case, some people have omitted sensual pleasure as a good, others have omitted the social goods, and some have even omitted knowledge and what has been called "moral virtue." Now the new point we must add (and prove) is simply this: that among all the different conceptions of happiness which people have recorded, there is only one right conception, in material detail, of the variety and order of goods. If a person seeks anything other than happiness as rightly constituted, the person is not really seeking happiness at all, but a false or illusory version of it, even though the wrong thing is sought as the person's ultimate end because the person conceives it under the same formula.

Let us call the end as rightly conceived the real good; let us call the end as wrongly conceived the apparent good. Using words this way, we can see that if the rule about the end is expressed by "Seek the good, real or apparent," then it cannot be violated, for it is simply a natural law, a description of how human beings must in fact behave -- and being a description it is incorrectly expressed as a prescription, in the imperative mood rather than the declarative. But if the rule is expressed by "Seek the real good," then it is violated by every human being who wrongly conceives his or her end, and we have a moral law, truly prescriptive, saying what human beings should seek. The same thing can be said in terms of happiness: "Seek happiness properly constituted by a correct enumeration and a right ordering of goods" can be violated in many ways; but "Seek happiness as any collection of goods in any order" cannot be violated at all. In short, if materially there is one right, and many wrong, conceptions of happiness, the fact that all people seek the same end formally does not mean there is no violable rule about the end. On the contrary, there is a rule the violation of which leads away from rather than toward real happiness.

"IF," says the student, " -- if. Everything seems to depend now upon your hypothesis that people can be mistaken about how their happiness is constituted. The hypothesis being granted, I can see that much will follow. Those who have mistaken notions about what their happiness really consists in will probably not do what they should do in order to live well or become happy. But why should I grant your hypothesis?"

The student is right to raise this question. Once he affirms the hypothesis, he ceases to be a skeptic or a relativist about morals, for every other moral truth can, in a way, be drawn from a true conception of the end. The student's question has, however, already been answered. Though perhaps he did not realize it at the time, he affirmed the hypothesis when he agreed to the reasoning by which we proved, in terms of every human being's having the same capacities, rooted in the same human nature, that "the variety of objects which can fulfill these capacities and satisfy the plurality of human desires will include the same diversity of kinds of good" for every human being. The truth about happiness is thus seen to follow from the truth about human nature, and that is why the first principle of conduct (the rule about the end) is not only moral, because violable, but also natural. It is not only natural for human beings everywhere and at all times to seek all good things, but it is also in terms of their nature that the variety and order of goods constituting this whole should be the same for all. Human beings cannot act contrary to their nature by wanting to be dissatisfied, or, if you will, by wanting less than complete satisfaction. But they can make mistakes in understanding their nature, and as a result of such mistakes set up a wrong conception of happiness which, if followed, must ultimately lead them to frustration -- the achievement of less than is possible to their nature.

Thus, for example, if a person should make the error of supposing no essential difference to exist between human nature and that of brute animals, and if, accordingly, the person should conceive himself or herself as having no capacities beyond those possessed by brutes, he or she will misconceive human happiness by omitting from its constitution those distinctively human goods which fulfill capacities which humankind alone has. Such an error here may not be one of simple omission; it may take the form of misunderstanding the distinctive character of the specifically human goods. However the error is made, the result will be the same. A human being cannot become happy by trying to live a good animal life. A human being must try to live a good human life.

In a manner of speaking, one can say that animals seek "happiness" in so far as they, too, live according to natural law. According to the law of their nature, there is a sum of goods which can fulfill their capacities, a totality which they are driven instinctively to seek. But there are two profoundly significant differences between the natural law which governs animal and that which governs human conduct. One we have already seen -- the difference in what is the sum of goods for each according to its nature. The other is that, in detail as well as generally, animal seeking is instinctively determined, and hence there can be no discrepancy between what animals do seek and what they should seek; whereas human seeking is "instinctively" determined only with respect to the end as formally conceived; hence human beings may in fact not seek what they should. This is just another way of saying that human beings, unlike brute animals, are able to think about their end, and since wherever thinking occurs, error may happen, human beings can misconceive their happiness. Unable to think abstractly, animals cannot conceive, and hence cannot misconceive, their end. Therefore, there is only a natural law, but no moral law, of animal behavior, whereas human conduct is susceptible of direction by a natural moral law.

"I have gradually come to realize", the student confesses, "how important a role the conception of human nature plays in the discovery of universal moral principles. But it never occurred to me before that I had to swallow all this stuff about the essential difference between humans and animals. All the psychology I have studied -- experimental psychology, animal psychology -- as well as all the biology, and especially the business about evolution, is against such a notion. If this new point is indispensable to the argument, you've got a lot more proving to do. For the moment I don't see that it is indispensable, and so I'll waive the point in order to ask another question.

"I'll grant that all human beings have the same human nature whether or not that is essentially different from the nature of animals. I can see how, in terms of that common nature, happiness must be really the same for all people, in the sense of including the same variety of goods; and I can also see that, if people misconceive their nature, they will probably misconceive what is really good for them. But you pointed out before that people misconceive happiness in two ways -- both with respect to the variety of parts which constitute the whole of goods, and also with respect to the ordering of these parts. Moreover, you said that the most frequent errors occur with respect to the ordering of the partial goods, rather than in their enumeration. This requires some explanation. I don't see why there need be any ordering of goods. If a person should rightly enumerate the parts of happiness, why should not he or she get the whole by going after the parts in any order?"

To answer this very difficult question, let us begin by reminding the student that, at an earlier point, he wondered whether it is possible for a person to get all good things. He compared the end, thus envisaged, to the rainbow's end. He wanted to be shown just how a person can get all good things.

Now, in the first place, let us remember that all good things does not mean every particular good, but only some of every kind of good. If this were not so, it would take an infinitely long life to get all good things, and, furthermore, the pursuit of happiness would be competitive -- as is the attempt to corner the market and possess every piece of a certain commodity. But this is not the case; however much in fact they do, people need not interfere with one another in the pursuit of happiness.

In the second place, let us remember that all good things is a possible whole because the various kinds of good which are its parts do not exclude one another. They are all compossible with one another; if they were not, the whole we have supposed to be constituted by them would be self-contradictory and impossible.

In the third place, there is a new consideration: the point about order. Either the order in which we go after the various partial goods makes no difference, or it does. Suppose it makes no difference. Then happiness would be easily achieved by everyone who made a right enumeration of the partial goods. Regardless of whether such people subordinated wealth to knowledge, or knowledge to wealth, regardless of whether they spent a great deal of their time and effort in search of sensual pleasures or postponed taking care of their health until after they had achieved public honor, they would not be prevented from becoming happy so long as they included every sort of good among the objects of their pursuit. But this appears to be contrary to the facts of life as we know them. The familiar saying that "there can be too much of a good thing" applies to some of the partial goods which enter into the constitution of happiness: too much of some of them can disbar us entirely from others.

Not only must the degree to which we seek certain types of good be proportioned to their worth as parts of the whole, in order to prevent them from interfering with our possession of other types, but each kind of good must be seen in its functional relation to every other kind, according to the functional interdependence of the capacities of human nature, which these different kinds of objects are able to fulfill. We must conclude, therefore, that a person cannot become happy unless, in seeking all good things, he or she does so in the right order and with due proportion. That is why happiness is difficult to achieve, even for a person who has correctly enumerated the various partial goods.

It is necessary to tell the student that we have not fully answered his question. To do that would require a lengthy and elaborate analysis whereby we might be able to show him all the reasons for one precise ordering of goods as the only correct disposition of the parts of happiness. We shall have to be content with making two points about the order and proportion of partial goods.

First, the order of these goods, like the enumeration of their variety, depends upon our understanding of the various capacities of human nature in their relation to one another.

Second, it depends upon our recognition of what is distinctively human, in contrast to that part of his nature which humankind shares with brute animals. In the order of partial goods, those are higher which fulfill humankind's rational capacities; the lower goods are objects commonly pursued by humans and animals. The lower serve the higher as means serve ends; in order to live well, we must first live. We struggle to subsist, not merely to be alive, but to live as humanly as possible, and this means subordinating and proportioning the goods which fulfill our animal capacities so that we shall be able to enjoy a fuller life than animals can lead -- enriched by goods that fulfill capacities which only we, as human beings, possess. Just as a true conception of human nature is indispensable to a true conception of happiness, with respect to the variety of goods, so is it also with respect to their order. And the student is wrong in supposing that the point about the essential difference between human beings and brutes is dispensable. It is indispensable to a true conception of human happiness, and equally with respect to both aspects of its constitution -- both the variety and the order of its parts.

"I am sorry that you insist upon this last point", the student says, "because it is a stumbling block in the way of my agreement with you. You simply haven't proved the point in any way, and, without obstinacy, I must stand on what I know -- which is contrary to what you say is the case. I can see, however, that, assuming what you say to be true, the rest follows. And even though you have not given me the analysis which shows the precise order of the partial goods, I can surmise how that might be done. But I am still worried about the possibility of happiness, as you have defined it. I still don't see how it is possible for a person to be happy if he or she has to possess every sort of good thing altogether and at once."

The very language the student has used in raising this question is crucial to the answer. Strictly speaking, a person cannot ever be happy. He or she can only become happy. A human life is something in the process of becoming. It is a temporal whole, the parts of which cannot coexist. A life is a whole only in the way in which a day or a game is a whole -- as an orderly succession of moments. The becoming of the whole is not completed until the process is actually finished. That is why Solon, a wise man of ancient Greece, made what at first seems to be a paradoxical point, namely, that you cannot tell whether a person is happy until the person is dead. Stated less paradoxically, the point is that happiness is the quality of a whole life, not of its parts. Another ancient, the Roman Boethius, defined happiness as the state of those made perfect by the possession in aggregate of all good things. The student may think that this is the definition of happiness we have been employing. His attention must be called, therefore, to two important differences.

First, happiness may be the state of immortal souls in eternity -- and that is probably what Boethius had in mind -- but in this life, which is from beginning to end a process, a becoming, happiness is never realized statically. In the realm of time and change, it must exist dynamically -- coming to be just as the life which it pervades becomes complete in time. Second, in so far as the happiness we have defined is a quality of this temporal life, the possession of all good things must be successive; it cannot be a simultaneous aggregate. Modifying the words of Boethius, we can define temporal happiness as a whole life made perfect by the successive enjoyment of all good things. Thus understood, there is nothing impossible about becoming happy, any more than it is impossible to complete a whole life by living from day to day.

It may be useful here to remind the student that a person cannot become happy by making one decision. A person becomes happy only through making many decisions, choosing many times between one particular good and another, exercising countless preferences. If a single decision could do it, the person who made it correctly could be happy as a result. But even a person who has correctly conceived happiness may fail to become happy unless the many choices he or she has to make from day to day conform to the pattern of life he or she has conceived -- a whole rounded out by every sort of good. Acts of choice or preference are always with respect to means, to partial goods. Throughout life we are forever at work putting the parts together to form the whole. The student should now be able to see how the problem of preference is solved in general, if not in detail. Faced with a choice between objects which are particular instances of partial goods, we should choose in such a way that we make progress toward the possession -- in our life as a whole -- of all good things. The end we have in view determines our choice of the means; our conception of the whole determines our manipulation of the parts.

It has been said that the means are the end in the process of becoming. This is the sum of moral knowledge. In the building of a life, as in the building of a house, it is true that as the parts are properly chosen and properly put together, the perfection of the whole gradually becomes. In every particular case, the ultimate criterion of choice is the end: the choice is right or wrong according as the realization of the end is furthered or hindered. At the beginning of life all good things is a possibility; when life is over, the possibility either has been realized or not, and that will depend upon the choices which have been made.

The universal principles of moral knowledge consist of rules about the end to be sought and about the means to be chosen. If the end is properly conceived, the rules about the means will be properly formulated, since the conception of the end, when fully developed, consists of an ordering and proportioning of the means. If people know what they should seek, they will know how they should seek it. Based upon human nature, the rules of morality, directing us toward our end and prescribing our choice of means, have universality in the sense that they are the same for every person, but this does not mean that any person can avoid the task of applying these generalities according to the peculiar conditions of his or her individual life, and the particular circumstances of each case in which a choice must be made. And since these rules are the work of reason, not the gift of instinct, the moral judgments of human beings, about end or means, are susceptible to error.

"I think I see", the student says, "how what you have called a true conception of the end of life is a first principle from which all the rest can be derived. I know I don't see the detailed steps here, but that would be too much to expect. I do understand how, in a general way, the problem of preference is solved -- at least in so far as the value to be placed on different things in relation to one another follows from what you have called the order and proportion of goods, which in turn follows from the way in which we conceive happiness to be constituted as a whole of parts. I am sure I don't understand any of this well enough to know how to think correctly in a particular case, facing particular alternatives -- assuming, of course, that I had previously thought correctly about the end, and through it about the means in general. But what bothers me most of all is still the point about the violability of moral rules. Am I right in supposing, from what you have said, that people fail to do what they should do simply because of bad thinking -- wrongly conceiving happiness, which means making errors about the order or variety of goods, and consequently misjudging the relative worth of objects in particular cases of preference?"

No, the student must be told at once, to suppose that all misconduct -- bad choices leading to bad acts -- follows from bad thinking is itself a great error in thinking; as a matter of fact, a famous one in the history of moral theory. The quickest way to show the student that bad thinking is only one of the sources of misconduct is to remind him of something we saw toward the close of the first part of our discussion -- when we still supposed pleasure to be the only criterion of preference. Remember the rule of conduct we had then formulated: "In any case in which a choice can be made, a person should prefer the alternative which, in the long run or viewing life as a whole, maximizes pleasure and minimizes displeasure." The student should now be able to see how that rule contains in germ almost all the truth we have subsequently discovered, for the maxim could be thus rephrased: in any case in which a choice can be made, a person should prefer the alternative which, considering the possibility of living a whole life well, tends to realize the possibility of happiness. Now we saw, in our earlier discussion, that the rule is violable in two ways. We distinguished between two sorts of mistakes we can make -- mistakes of calculation and mistakes of acting contrary to our calculations. Even though a person has thought correctly about the end and the means in general, and in this sense knows what is really good for him or her, the person may in a particular case be seduced by what is apparently better at that time, even though it is really worse in the long run.

Human beings are not simply rational beings. They are rational animals. They are creatures of passion, of animal appetites, but they are also capable of abstract thought, by which they can form a conception of happiness and of the goods in general which constitute it. All the goods we have been talking about -- happiness itself, or the various kinds of partial goods -- are rational or intelligible objects. They certainly cannot be perceived by the senses, although particular instances of the partial goods may somehow present themselves in that way. But precisely because human beings are creatures of sense as well as of reason, and because their desires can be determined by what they sense as well as by their abstract thinking, the alternatives which they face in particular cases of preference are, as objects, both sensible and intelligible, and make their appeal both to their animal appetites and to their wills -- the latter being the desire for objects rationally judged to be good, the former being the desire for what is sensed as good.

We cannot here fully explain all the psychological points that are involved. For our present purposes, suffice it to say that, in the conflict between sensible and intelligible goods, the former may win out because they are apparently better at the time, though not really better in terms of the conception of life as a whole. Whenever they do win out, you have a case in which misconduct is due to weakness of will, rather than error in thought. Instead of following the dictates of reason, a person may choose according to the promptings of his or her passions. Thus we see that the violation of moral truth has two sources: one, bad thinking -- misconception of the end, and of the means in general; the other, weak willing -- preference for the apparent good, under the influence of the passions, rather than for the real good which reason has determined. And we also see how the very nature of human morality (revealed to us by the sources of misconduct) depends on the nature of humankind -- their essential distinction from brute animals. For, lacking reason, animals know and desire only through sense and instinct; lacking reason, they are not able to conceive their end, and hence cannot misconceive it; lacking reason, their desires are all instinctively determined and subject to whatever objects dominate the sensible present, whereas human beings have free will to choose between sensible and intelligible goods. In short, unlike animals, humans can be moral or immoral according as they think well or poorly, and according as, in the exercise of their free will, they act according to what right reason prescribes, or contrary to it.

"There is no point in going any further", the student finally says. "I told you before that I wasn't prepared to accept your assumption about an essential difference between humans and animals. I am even more opposed to it now that I see it includes the notion of free will. You were quite fair to admit that you had not, and probably could not here, explain all the psychological points that are involved; but until you do explain them, until you do prove that human thinking is different from animal intelligence, and above all until you can show what you mean by free will and that there is such a thing, it would be unprofitable to carry our discussion any further. I am willing to agree that your conclusions have cogency for anyone who grants your hypotheses. If humankind is peculiarly rational, if humankind has this mysterious free will, then you are right about morality, and its principles, and the way they can be violated. Until I agree to these ifs, my position is exactly what it was when we started -- though perhaps, I should admit that I now understand better the theory which I, as a moral skeptic, have been rejecting. In fact, I can now give you more clearly the basic reason for my moral skepticism. It is simply that human beings do not have free will. If I had not let you somehow obfuscate this point at the beginning, our discussion would have stopped almost as soon as it started. I tried to tell you at the very start that I didn't think there was any problem of preference; I tried to say there was no why for any choice, no why in the sense of a reason which justified it, but only a cause.

"Every choice a human being appears to make is just like any choice an animal makes. It is no choice at all, but a pre-determined event -- arising from instinctive determinations, and all the accidental conditionings which have occurred in the course of life up to that point. If there is no problem of preference, because there is no free will, then all the rest of our discussion was totally beside the point. Or, to put it another way, there is a problem of preference, but only for the psychologist who tries to find the causes of behavior and to describe what humans and animals in fact do; but there is no problem for the moralist who tries to find the reasons for human conduct and to prescribe what people should do. If I am right about the facts, then you must admit that the moral skeptic is justified in thinking that all the different moral systems which people have invented -- yours among them -- are nothing but intricate and elaborate rationalizations, fostered by the delusion that human beings are free."

The student is right that there is no point in going further without first satisfying him on the major psychological questions which underlie all moral discourse. It would not be sufficient here to remind him that he did admit certain facts, such as that people do appear to act contrary to their best lights and seem to suffer repentance for their folly -- facts which suggest human freedom. He rightly asks for proof, and the task of proof in this case is long and arduous, as it is also on the other point about humankind's rationality as their essential distinction from brutes. All of this requires another and separate discussion, one in which we would probably find the student a skeptic about the truths of philosophical psychology. We might then discover that his moral skepticism was rooted in a deeper doubt -- the doubt about the validity of any philosophical knowledge.

By way of concluding this discussion, it might, however, be worth while to remind him of one thing. He has learned one truth which he may not have known before. All through the discussion he has admitted seeing the connection between human nature and the principles of human morality. Now if our hypotheses concerning human nature and human freedom can be affirmed, then he must admit the consequences (and he has indicated his willingness to do so) -- namely, the conception of happiness, the order and variety of goods, and the principles by which the moral problem of preference can be solved. Furthermore, since whatever human nature is it is the same for people at all times and everywhere, the student must also agree that there cannot be a number of different "moral systems" each equally acceptable. He must agree that there is only one true doctrine, only one which accords with the truth about human nature, just as he agreed that in the light of human nature there is only one right interpretation of the natural moral law to seek the good, only one right conception of happiness and of the means thereto.

If the student wonders where this discussion would turn next -- were it continued after the psychological questions had been satisfactorily answered -- we should, in parting, tell him that what remains to be considered is the very heart of moral knowledge, namely, good habits (which the ancients denominated "virtues"), and especially the habits of right desire and right action which are called the moral virtues. All the principles we have so far discussed become operative only through virtue. The virtues must be possessed, not only as among the goods which are constitutive means of happiness, but also as a special sort of means -- generative of happiness. And this is especially true of the moral virtues, which are habits of right choice in particular cases, habits which have been formed in the light of a proper ordering of goods and which enable us to act according to reason, to prefer the real to the apparent good. The major part of moral theory, therefore, is concerned with the definition of these virtues, and with the rules for acquiring them.

We have previously said that the means are the end in the process of becoming. The end is rightly understood only so far as we rightly apprehend the means which constitute it. It is also true that the end is possessed at any moment only to the extent that we possess the means which generate it -- the habits from which our conduct flows. At any given moment in his life a person is more or less on the way to becoming happy according to the state of his or her habits, especially the moral habits -- the virtues or vices -- which make his or her character what it is. Aristotle thus summarized the whole of his Ethics when he said. "According as a man's character is, so does the end appear to him." Until a life is over, you cannot judge whether it is a happy one; but so far as you can see into a person's character, you can tell, even while life is going on, whether a person is becoming happy.