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

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* ETHICS
and J. S. Mill were. later to put forward; this factor also
enables him to claim, for his theory of ethics a certain
degree of objectivism. The novelty consists in Hume's
identification of good not with that which is approved of
by me, but with that which is approved of by all or most
men.
His theory briefly is as follows. There is, first, a definition
of good; to say that X is good means, in Hume's view,
that X is such that the contemplation of it calls forth
an emotion of approval in all or most men; not, be it noted,
in the agent or in the person judging, or even in the
members of a particular society, but in all or most of the
men who are now alive, or who have ever been alive*
Secondly, there is an affirmation in regard to what things
are good, that is to say, in regard to those things which
call forth an emotion of approval in all or in most men.
The affirmation is hedonistic. There are, Hume thinks,
two classes of actions, of the qualities of things and of the
characters of human beings, which are good in the sense
defined, namely, those actions which are pleasant to the
agent, those qualities of things which are pleasant to their
possessor, and those characters of individuals which give
pleasure to others, and also those actions, qualities, and
characters which are useful. Hume proceeds to define
useful as meaning, indirectly conducive to pleasure in
the agent, in the possessor, or in other men. He holds
also that the converse of these assertions is true, namely,
that only those actions, qualities and characters which
are directly pleasant or indirectly conducive to pleasure,
evoke the emotion of approval in all or most men, and
so are called good.
Hume's Form of Hedonism. Hume, then, is a hedonist,
but a hedonist of a rather peculiar kind. He does not
assert that we are so constituted that we can only
desire pleasure, nor does he say that pleasure is good or
is the only good, nor that pleasure and good mean the
same thing. He would agree that the words pleasure and