of a more beautiful thing is better in itself than that of one more
ugly, quite apart from its effects on any human feeling, then Prof.
Sidgwick’s principle has broken down. Then we shall have to include
in our ultimate end something beyond the limits of human existence. I
admit, of course, that our beautiful world would be better still, if
there were human beings in it to contemplate and enjoy its beauty. But
that admission makes nothing against my point. If it be once admitted
that the beautiful world _in itself_ is better than the ugly, then it
follows, that however many beings may enjoy it, and however much better
their enjoyment may be than it is itself, yet its mere existence adds
_something_ to the goodness of the whole: it is not only a means to our
end, but also itself a part thereof.
=51.= In the second passage to which I referred above, Prof. Sidgwick
returns from the discussion of Virtue and Pleasure, with which he has
meanwhile been engaged, to consider what among the parts of Human
Existence to which, as we saw, he has limited the ultimate end, can
really be considered as such end. What I have just said, of course,
appears to me to destroy the force of this part of his argument too.
If, as I think, other things than any part of Human Existence can be
ends-in-themselves, then Prof. Sidgwick cannot claim to have discovered
the Summum Bonum, when he has merely determined what parts of Human
Existence are in themselves desirable. But this error may be admitted
to be utterly insignificant in comparison with that which we are now
about to discuss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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