one does in fact understand the question ‘Is this good?’ When he thinks of it, his state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked ‘Is this pleasant, or desired, or approved?’ It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he may not recognise in what respect it is distinct. Whenever he thinks of ‘intrinsic value,’ or ‘intrinsic worth,’ or says that a thing ‘ought to exist,’ he has before his mind the unique object—the unique property of things—which I mean by ‘good.’ Everybody is constantly aware of this notion, although he may never become aware at all that it is different from other notions of which he is also aware. But, for correct ethical reasoning, it is extremely important that he should become aware of this fact; and as soon as the nature of the problem is closely understood, there should be little difficulty in advancing so far in analysis.
14. ‘Good,’ then, is indefinable; and yet, so far as I know, there is only one ethical writer, Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact. We shall see, indeed, how far many of the most reputed ethical systems fall short of drawing the conclusions which follow from such a recognition. At present I will only quote one instance, which will serve to illustrate the meaning and importance of this principle that ‘good’ is indefinable, or, as Prof. Sidgwick says, an ‘unanalysable notion.’ It is an instance to which Prof. Sidgwick himself refers in a note on the passage, in which he argues that ‘ought’ is unanalysable[1].
‘Bentham,’ says Sidgwick, ‘explains that his fundamental principle “states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question as being the right and proper end of human action”’; and yet ‘his language in other passages of the same chapter would seem to imply’ that he means by the word “right” “conducive to the general happiness.” Prof. Sidgwick sees that, if you take these two statements together, you get the absurd result that ‘greatest happiness is the end of human action, which is conducive to the general happiness⟨’⟩; and so absurd does it seem to him to call this result, as Bentham calls it, ‘the fundamental principle of a moral system,’ that he suggests that Bentham cannot have meant it. Yet Prof. Sidgwick
- ↑ Methods of Ethics, Bk. i, Chap. iii, § 1 (6th edition).
