greatest amount of Universal Good which can be realised at all, in which case we have Egoism proper, and the flagrant contradiction that every person’s happiness is singly the greatest amount of Universal Good which can be realised at all.
61. It should be observed that, since this is so, ‘the relation of Rational Egoism to Rational Benevolence,’ which Prof. Sidgwick regards ‘as the profoundest problem of Ethics’ (III. xiii. § 5, n. 1), appears in quite a different light to that in which he presents it. ‘Even if a man,’ he says, ‘admits the self-evidence of the principle of Rational Benevolence, he may still hold that his own happiness is an end which it is irrational for him to sacrifice to any other; and that therefore a harmony between the maxim of Prudence and the maxim of Rational Benevolence must be somehow demonstrated, if morality is to be made completely rational. This latter view is that which I myself hold’ (last Chap. § 1). Prof. Sidgwick then goes on to shew ‘that the inseparable connection between Utilitarian Duty and the greatest happiness of the individual who conforms to it cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated on empirical grounds’ (Ib. § 4). And the final paragraph of his book tells us that, since ‘the reconciliation of duty and self-interest is to be regarded as a hypothesis logically necessary to avoid a fundamental contradiction in one chief department of our thought, it remains to ask how far this necessity constitutes a sufficient reason for accepting this hypothesis[1]’ (Ib. § 5). To ‘assume the existence of such a Being, as God, by the consensus of theologians, is conceived to be’ would, he has already argued, ensure the required reconciliation; since the Divine Sanctions of such a God ‘would, of course, suffice to make it always every one’s interest to promote the universal happiness to the best of his knowledge’ (Ib. § 5).
Now what is this ‘reconciliation of duty and self-interest,’ which Divine Sanctions could ensure? It would consist in the mere fact that the same conduct which produced the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number would always also produce the greatest possible happiness of the agent. If this were the case (and our empirical knowledge shews that it is not
- ↑ The italics are mine.
