Hedonism. Now I am not prepared to deny that there is some universal relation between pleasure and desire; but I hope to shew, that, if there is, it is of such sort as will rather make against than for Hedonism. It is urged that pleasure is always the object of desire, and I am ready to admit that pleasure is always, in part at least, the cause of desire. But this distinction is very important. Both views might be expressed in the same language; both might be said to hold that whenever we desire, we always desire because of some pleasure: if I asked my supposed Hedonist, ‘Why do you desire that?’ he might answer, quite consistently with his contention, ‘Because there is pleasure there,’ and if he asked me the same question, I might answer, equally consistently with my contention, ‘Because there is pleasure here.’ Only our two answers would not mean the same thing. It is this use of the same language to denote quite different facts, which I believe to be the chief cause why Psychological Hedonism is so often held, just as it was also the cause of Mill’s naturalistic fallacy.
Let us try to analyse the psychological state which is called ‘desire.’ That name is usually confined to a state of mind in which the idea of some object or event, not yet existing, is present to us. Suppose, for instance, I am desiring a glass of port wine. I have the idea of drinking such a glass before my mind, although I am not yet drinking it. Well, how does pleasure enter in to this relation? My theory is that it enters in, in this way. The idea of the drinking causes a feeling of pleasure in my mind, which helps to produce that state of incipient activity, which is called ‘desire.’ It is, therefore, because of a pleasure, which I already have—the pleasure excited by a mere idea—that I desire the wine, which I have not. And I am ready to admit that a pleasure of this kind, an actual pleasure, is always among the causes of every desire, and not only of every desire, but of every mental activity, whether conscious or sub-conscious. I am ready to admit this, I say: I cannot vouch that it is the true psychological doctrine; but, at all events, it is not primâ facie quite absurd. And now, what is the other doctrine, the doctrine which I am supposing held, and which is at all events essential to Mill’s argument?
