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

THE ETHICS OF SOCRATES AND PLATO 47
All or any of these moral and spiritual pleasures, healthy
or perverted, outweigh for them the straightforward
pleasures of comfort, appetite or self-indulgence.
Why does a martyr go to the stake for his convictions?
Because, being by definition an obstinate, self-willed sort
of person, he insists upon enjoying the pleasure of having
his own way, the pleasure of defying his enemies, the
pleasure of occupying the centre of the stage, even when
he has to pay for them by the pain of the fire. When, in
due course, he feels the latter, it is too late to reverse his
choice. Or again, if we prefer a less cynical interpretation,
we may say that the martyr, being a man of high principles
and strong conviction, finds it more painful to betray his
faith than to face the fire. For it is in this guise that the
two alternatives present themselves to him. In a word, if
people did not really prefer the course they adopt, they
would not adopt it. If they did not really think that they
would like best to do what they in fact do, they would
not do it. This is true both of the altruist and of the martyr.
Now it is important to realize that the circumstance that
a man may not obtain pleasure, when he expects to do so,
is no disproof of the view just outlined. It is enough that
he should think that he will obtain.it* In point of fact,
men frequently make mistakes of judgment as a result of
which they expect that courses of action will bring them
pleasure which do in fact bring them pain; and not only
pain, but more pain than other courses, which it was open
to them to follow. But when they embarked upon the courses
of action in question, it was not because they were not
aiming at 'pleasure, but because they had made a false
estimate of the consequences of what they were proposing
to do. Thus to perform an action which brings the agent
more pain or less pleasure than another action which he
might have performed is a sort of foolishness; it is the
result of bad judgment, the agent, if the hedonist is right,
having made a miscalculation. It follows that to suffer
pain when dne might have enjoyed pleasure is to be guilty
of an intellectual error.