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

400
ETHICS
martyr can be interpreted consistently with hedonist
premises. A similar analysis may be applied to any other*
case of apparently self-denying or self-sacrificing conduct.
B. Criticism of Psychological Hedonism
THAT WE MUST ALL HAVE STARVED IN INFANCY.
The most summary objection to the view that we are so
constituted that we can acknowledge no motive to action
except that of increasing our own pleasure, has been
advanced by Canon Rashdall. If Psychological Hedonism
is true, then, he points out, we must all have starved in
infancy. For babies maintain life by taking milk at the
breast. Now on the first occasion on which a baby sucks
the breast his action cannot have been motivated by the
desire to obtain pleasure, since, if it really was the first
occasion, he would have no reason to suppose that pleasure
would result from his action. Hence, if Psychological
Hedonism were correct in asserting that the only possible
motive of human action is to obtain pleasure, there would
be no psychological hedonists to make the assertion, since
none of us would have survived starvation in infancy.
THAT WE OFTEN ACT UPON IMPULSE. Rashdall's
example is a particular illustration of a difficulty whose
application is general. Psychological Hedonism postulates
a much greater degree of rationality in human beings
than their conduct in fact exhibits, for, in postulating
that the sole motive for our actions is the motive of increas-
that we do in fact
ing our own pleasure, it postulates
always have a motive for what we do. But we frequently
act on impulse. That our bodily reflex actions, the swallow-
ing of food, the shrinking from a blow, the closing of the
eyelid at the impact of a fly, are not calculated but involuntary,
will be generally agreed. But they are no more
calculated, no less involuntary, than many, of the actions
which a psychologist would ascribe to the promptings of
instinct or impulse. Men sing in their baths and enjoy it;