"Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about 'liberty'; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'progress'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'education'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good."
--G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

Investigate 911

Good:
To pursue pleasure and avoid pain.

Is there any question that we should all be concerned about the possibility of Hillary Clinton becoming the Chief Executive of the United States?

She's not only a leftist bordering on communist, she's a radical leftist and a wholly owned subsidiary of the MoveOn.org crowd. She's had a hand in constructing way left watchdog sites like Media Matters; She’s for building bigger and more intrusive government starting with a huge federally run health care program; she wants to give mothers with new babies (@ 4-5 million a year) $5000 each of our money just for dropping one; she’s a huge open border/amnesty advocate with all of the government provided bells and whistles that go along with it; she despises the military; literally cuts her enemies down with a relentless vengeance and is all around an evil duplicitous person.

And to make matters worse, for a person who’s touted as being so smart, she was fooled by Bush into supporting the war, fooled by her husband about bimbos, fooled again by him in going along with his policies like cow towing to regimes like North Korea.

We should be very afraid of what could happen to this country if this succubus gets elected.

"Good:
To pursue pleasure and avoid pain." - Guido

Uh, no. That would be the good for animals, who are perceptory creatures. They survive wholly by their ability to perceive pleasure and pain.

Humans however, are conceptive creatures. They also have the ability to have values and need to pursue their values in order to achieve the good life. In order to live as a human qua human, you must pursue something more than pleasure over pain, or else you are really not a man at all, but a human animal.

"When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification."

--Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter 2

Greed -- for lack of a better word (such as acquisitiveness, avarice, avidity, covetousness, craving, cupidity, eagerness, edacity, esurience, excess, gluttony, gormandizing, grabby, graspingness, hunger, indulgence, insatiableness, intemperance, longing, materialism, possessiveness, rapacity, ravenousness, selfishness, or voracity) -- is good.

Thanks, Ralph. Certainly "pleasure" for humans deserves not be construed as the same things that animals find pleasurable. I hope the virtuous man finds his virtue rewarding, and indeed pleasurable.

I like the quotation, especially for its calling out "liberty," which seems so often to be idolized and elevated as an absolute good, when in fact it is but an "instrumental" or "intermediate" good--in Augustinian terms, "that without which one cannot do good." NOT: that through which or by which one does good.

Humans need VIRTUE on top of liberty.

I.e.: Of course my liberty is "good"; but is it GOOD when I employ it for my BAD ends?

Liberty is the highest *political* good. To say it is the highest good would certainly be misguided.

If men seek to live together in a society, then they must agree to respect the rights of their fellow men in the society. Namely, not to employ violence or coercion against them without just cause. Since human beings own themselves it is an unjust use of violent coercion to make illegal those crimes which do not entail the perpetrator having infringed upon the rights of somebody else.

The proper means for teaching virtue in the society are the church and the family, both of which would return to this role if the current vast welfare state were rolled back, and people once again had to actually rely on their friends and neighbors to get by.

History has included attempts to both supplant the family with the state, with welfare programs, and to supplant the church with the state, with laws & programs intended to enforce virtue, such as the war on drugs. Both have led to bad ends.

"Thanks, Ralph. Certainly "pleasure" for humans deserves not be construed as the same things that animals find pleasurable. I hope the virtuous man finds his virtue rewarding, and indeed pleasurable." - Buzz

Sorry, intended to address this as well.

"Pleasure" is a physical sensation that your nerve endings create.

"Happiness" comes from the fulfillment of your values.

To say that the good of man is simply the achievement of pleasure is to suggest that man has or needs no values; that he, like an animal, can get by purely on the power of his physical sensations. As I mentioned earlier, and as Ralph showed with that quote from Mill, this is not the case.

Ben-T,

I think you've missed the point of Mill's statement. You should give chapter two of Utilitarianism a read (it's online and it's not that long).

"The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification." - Mill

It is followed by this:

"But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation." - Mill

And later this:

"Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasure; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs."

What could this possibly mean if it is not a rejection of the notion that man needs more than mere pleasure to live well?

Ben-T,

Mill argues that the exercise of the higher faculties is good because it is pleasurable. He merely distinguishes between different kinds of pleasures, e.g., the pleasure of eating and the pleasure of thinking.

So, for example, he says at the beginnning of chapter two, "Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain." And just after that, he offers the following explanation of utilitarianism (the position he is advocating), "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure."

In short, (according to Mill, and I would agree) your conception of "pleasure" is too narrow.

"Mill argues that the exercise of the higher faculties is good because it is pleasurable. He merely distinguishes between different kinds of pleasures, e.g., the pleasure of eating and the pleasure of thinking." - Ralph

Yes, but obviously I think he is just confusing pleasure and happiness. In essence, he is defending what I would call happiness. If you wanted to argue that my definition of pleasure was overly narrow, you should have just said it, instead of posting a roundabout quote and confusing way. So then, if you agree with him that happiness is what prevents pain and causes pleasure, are you arguing that the greatest pleasure and the greatest happiness are synonymous? Certainly this would be a radical shift from your views up until now.

I think Mill is wrong about happiness (but why I think that would require a long explanation). He is right, however, in recognizing different kinds of pleasure.

I didn't want to argue that your conception of pleasure was too narrow, but to show you that the question is more complex than you supposed.

I don't think it is. If you achieve happiness from mental exercise it is because you are experiencing the fulfillment of your values. An ignoramus does not experience any pleasure from mental pursuit or exercise.

That is to say, a willing ignoramus, who does not value the pursuits of the mind. Not someone who desires to learn, but simply has not acquired much knowledge yet.

You've never felt pleasure from an intellectual achievment?

So then, you intend for this to descend into a flamebaiting contest?

Unsurprising behavior from you, I suppose.

Ben-T,

Liberty as the highest political good. I don't think I can accept that claim but am uncertain. I don't know that it is metaphysically correct to separate "political" man from man simply as you seem to do. Or at least there is a tension there that needs to be reflected on.

Buzz, I agree w/ your enjoyment of his calling out liberty but like w/ Ben I am slightly confused by your use of it. When you write that it is mistakenly idolized as an absoluet good, I think you mean by it political liberty like how Ben uses it (that is characterizing the relationship of the individual to the state). But by referencing Augustine you seem to be using it as synonymous w/ "freedom/free-will." Is the problem that our civilization no longer has agreed upon and set meanings for the terms "freedom" and "liberty"?

Maybe I am just reading both of you wrong.

Bruce Wayne: I agree that problems stem from ambiguities in the terms. My view is that political liberty is a proper corollary of personal freedom. (This may/not? jibe with Ben's language of self-ownership, etc.) But neither of them--neither political liberty nor personal freedom/free will/free choice--should be taken as an absolute good. Both are necessary conditions for the achievement of greater things, but neither is sufficient--i.e., both can also be used for bad purposes, so both are false idols.

Ben-T: I think it's clear that the pleasure/happiness debate has devolved largely to semantics. But just to be a stickler: look at the second quotation from Mill that you post. In it, he refers to "pleasures of the intellect...," which he says have "much higher value as pleasures" than the bodily ones. He does not hesitate to refer to these things as PLEASURES, and so the following question/implication of yours is not justified:

"What could this possibly mean if it is not a rejection of the notion that man needs more than mere pleasure to live well?"

I understand that you want to read him as actually in line with your view, i.e., as identifying the higher fulfillments of intellect and morality with what you call "happiness." But the fact remains: he uses the word "pleasure." My interpretative inclinations are always to defer and assume that those thinkers whose works survive have chosen their words deliberately. Also, in the West (at least) there is a long tradition of attaching something called "pleasure" to what you refer to as "happiness" (Aristotle is a noteworthy source), and so the division that you seem to be insisting on just doesn't seem right to some people, myself included.