GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

NATURE OF THE MORAL FACULTY 3!!
is being entertained, they do not give information about
the nature of those things external to themselves which
they purport to report. In other words, feelings
are not
objective in their reference. On a previous page 1 1 elaborated
in some detail the distinction between subjective
and objective judgments, and pointed out that many
judgments, particularly judgments of taste and feeling,
which are objective in appearance, are, nevertheless,
subjective in fact, since they only succeed in giving
information about events occurring in the mind of the
subject judging. But while feeling judgments are by their
very nature subjective in the sense defined, the judgments
of reason can always claim to be objective, even when
they are wrong. Feeling judgments, in other words, only
report the feelings of the judger and convey no information
about anything external to the judger; judgments of
reason do convey such information, or, at least, they may
do so. Thus, if I say that 3 plus a equals 5, I am making
a statement whose truth is apprehended by reason, and,
provided that you are a normal human. being possessed
of a reason, I can not only convey to you the truth expressed
by my judgment, but I can cause you to see that
it is true. When you see that it is true, you will have the
same experience as I am having when I see it If, however,
when suffering from toothache I announce that my pain
has a peculiar and distinctive quality, then all that I
am conveying is that 1 am experiencing painful sensations
which are unique but indescribable, and my statement
will evoke no analogous experience in you. Indeed, unless
you, too, have at sometime had toothache, the information
conveyed by my statement* will have, for you, a purely
formal meaning. You will understand what I say to the
extent of knowing that I have suffered or am suffering,
but you will not understand what it is that I have suffered
or am suffering.
In this sense, feeling judgments are private, and
report something which has happened or is happening in
1 See Chapter V, pp. 159-163.