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

SUBJBCTIVIST THEORY OP ETHICS 365
Hume's- Refutation of Egoism* Finally, Hume insists,
we can all desire things other than our own happiness;
we can all, that is to say act from motives other than that
of self-love; if we did not, we should not be able to gratify
self-love. Hie point is one which has already been made in
another connection in criticism of J. S. Mill's Hedonism. 1
Revenge, for example, is sometimes necessary for the
gratification of self-love; but revenge presupposes that we
desire another person's misery. If, however, we can desire
another person's misery, we can desire something other
than our own happiness, and we can and do do this,
even if the invariable effect of the gratification of the
desire, is to promote our own happiness. Hume's refutation
of Egoism does not involve any departure from his position
that nothing has ethical value apart from human consciousness,
and that happiness alone has ethical value. Hume,
admittedly, sometimes writes as if we approved of certain
actions and characters in themselves, but he speedily
corrects himself and makes it clear that all he means is
that we have a general approval of happiness combined
with the belief that actions or characters of the type in
question tend to promote it.
Hume's Account of Justice. Hume's grounds for
insisting that it is only happiness, or actions or characters
conducive to happiness, that are valuable are not in
essence different from those which have been urged by
other hedonistic writers. Hume has, however, an interesting
hedonistic argument in relation to justice which deserves
separate mention. In common with others who maintain
that pleasure is the only good, he has to meet the
difficulty that in the course of obeying rules, meting out
justice, and administering laws, we sometimes do what
may be unpleasant for ourselves, what is certainly
unpleasant to other people, namely, our victims, and
what seems, therefore, to be detrimental to the general
happiness. Hume agrees that this is indeed so, but it is so,
1 See Chapiter IX, p. 336.