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

340
ETHICS
there is a general coincidence between those actions which
selfishness and those which
proceed from an enlightened
are motivated by benevolence. But to conclude, as Bcntham,
for example, does, that there is a necessary identity between
actions which promote the greatest pleasure of the self and
those which promote the greatest happiness of the greatest
number of other people is, I think, clearly unjustifiable.
To revert to a hypothetical illustration given on a
previous page, if I am marooned with companions on a
desert island and know where there is a store of food I
shall, assuming that I am completely callous and unfeeling,
promote my own greatest pleasure by consuming it privily,
while I shall promote the greatest happiness of the greatest
number of people by disclosing its whereabouts and
distributing it equally among my companions. The
conscienceless issuer of worthless shares, who gets away
with the money before his fraud is exposed and lives
happily throughout the rest of a long life during which
he exhibits all the domestic virtues, can scarcely be said
to promote the happiness of the greatest number; yet it
is difficult to be sure that he does not enjoy himself.
A further point to be noted in connection with "the
greatest happiness of the greatest number" formula has
a certain political significance.
That the Greatest Happiness
of the Greatest Number is
not Identical with the Greatest Happiness on the Whole.
Mill, as we have seen, held that a right action is the one
which has better consequences in the way of happiness
than any other which it is open to the agent to perform.
He believed, that is to say, that it was a man's duty to
maximize happiness on the whole. Now both he and the
other utilitarians seem to have taken it for granted that
the greatest amount of happiness on the whole was identical
with the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
For example, Sidgwick'j Principle ofRational Benevolence,
which I have already quoted 1 , lays it down that everybody
1 See p. 393 above.