This is a time-honored criticism of hedonism. My present concern with
it is purely logical. It shows that the attempt to bring over from
past objects the elements of a standard for valuing future
consequences is a hopeless one. The express object of a
valuation-judgment is to release factors which being new, cannot be
measured on the basis of the past alone. This discussion of the
analytic logic as applied in morals would, however, probably not be
worth while did it not serve to throw into relief the significance of
any appeal to fulfilment of a system or organization as _the_ moral
good--the standard. Such an appeal, if it is wary, is an appeal to the
present situation as _undergoing that reorganization that will confer
upon it the unification which it lacks_; to organization as something
to be brought about, to be made. And it is clear that this appeal
meets all the specifications of judgments of practice as they have
been described. The organization which is to be fulfilled through
action is an organization which, at the time of judging, is present in
conception, in idea--in, that is, reflective inquiry as a phase of
reorganizing activity. And since its presence in conception is both a
condition of the organization aimed at _and_ a function of the
adequacy of the reflective inquiry, it is evident that there is here a
confirmation of our statement that the practical judgment is a
judgment of what and how to judge as an integral part of the
completion of an incomplete temporal situation. More specifically, it
also appears that the standard is a rule for conducting inquiry to its
completion: it is a counsel to make examination of the operative
factors complete, a warning against suppressing recognition of any of
them. However a man may impose upon himself or upon others, a man's
real measure of value is exhibited in what he _does_, not in what he
consciously thinks or says. For the doing is the _actual_ choice. It
is the completed reflection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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