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

A THEORY OF OOOD OR VALUE 459
Spinoza, "unmingled with any sadness". They are also
the pleasures which Plato described 1
as
pun;.
We can, then, give a further meaning to the statement,
happiness is the by-product of an appropriate activity of
consciousness, and add that happiness is something which
graces and completes activities of consciousness, which are
engaged in the pursuit or realization of some one of the
other three values. Thus the enjoyment of the value which
is happiness is a sign of the presence, or perhaps I should
say, of the quest of one of the other three values. This
conclusion may be put formally by stating that happiness
should be regarded not as A substantive, but as an adjec-
tive. For happiness, as I tried to show in the last chapter 8 is
not, strictly speaking, a state of consciousness at all. It
is an adjective of quality of states of consciousness as tone
is a quality of a sound, or colour of an object. Some states
of consciousness possess a pleasant hedonic tone; others an
unpleasant one. The quality of the hedonic tone of a state
of consciousness will be largely determined by the nature
of the object upon which it is directed. States of consciousness
which are directed upon truth or beauty, or which
achieve moral virtue, will have a pleasant hedonic tone;
so, also, will those that result from the satisfaction of
our impulses. The paradox of happiness is thus a double
one; first, though it is itself a value, it eludes direct
pursuit and occurs as a by-product of states of consciousness
which are directed upon objects other than happiness.
Secondly, no state of consciousness which does not contain
some happiness, or which is not, as I should prefer to put
it, pleasurably hedonically toned, can have value.
Twofold Relation Between Moral Virtue and Right
Actions. The value, moral virtue gives rise to certain
complications. The first introduces a question at which we
have already glanced, the relation between moral virtue
and right action. Some writers on ethics have denied that
there is any such relation. For example, in his book, Th*
1 See Chapter XI, pp. 407-409.
* See Chapter XI, pp. 410-419.