A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

Elements of Pure Economics,
trans. William Jaffé (Homewood,
Ill., Richard D. Irwin, 1954), p. 256. See also P. A. Samuelson, 
Foundations of Economic Analysis
(Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1947), the remarks pp. 90–92, 97f; and R. D. Luce and
Howard Raiffa, 
Games and Decisions
(New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1957), pp. 16, 21–24, 38.
28. See 
The Philosophical Investigations
(Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1953). The argument against
postulating special experiences is made throughout for many different cases. For the application to
pleasure, see the remarks of G. E. M. Anscombe, 
Intention
(Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1957). An-
489
84. Hedonism as a Method of Choice

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Now philosophers have supposed that characteristic experiences exist
and guide our mental life for many different reasons. So while it seems a
simple matter to show that hedonism gets us nowhere, the important thing
is to see why one might be driven to resort to such a desperate expedient.
I have already noted one possible reason: the desire to narrow down the
scope of purely preferential choice in determining our good. In a tele-
ological theory any vagueness or ambiguity in the conception of the good
is transferred to that of the right. Hence if the good of individuals is
something that, so to speak, is just up to them to decide as individuals, so
likewise within certain limits is that which is right. But it is natural to
think that what is right is not a matter of mere preference, and therefore
one tries to find a definite conception of the good.
There is, however, another reason: a teleological theory needs a way to
compare the diverse goods of different individuals so that the total good
can be maximized. How can these assessments be made? Even if certain
ends serve to organize the plans of individuals taken singly, they do not
suffice to define a conception of right. It would appear, then, that the turn
inwards to the standard of agreeable feeling is an attempt to find a com-
mon denominator among the plurality of persons, an interpersonal cur-
rency as it were, by means of which the social ordering can be specified.
And this suggestion is all the more compelling if it is already maintained
that this standard is the aim of each person to the extent that he is rational.
By way of conclusion, I should not say that a teleological doctrine is
necessarily driven to some form of hedonism in order to define a coherent
theory. Yet it does seem that the tendency in this direction has a certain
naturalness. Hedonism is, one might say, the symptomatic drift of tele-
ological theories insofar as they try to formulate a clear and applicable
method of moral reasoning. The weakness of hedonism reflects the im-
possibility of defining an appropriate definite end to be maximized. And
this suggests that the structure of teleological doctrines is radically mis-
conceived: from the start they relate the right and the good in the wrong
scombe says: “We might adapt a remark of Wittgenstein’s about meaning and say ‘Pleasure cannot be
an impression; for no impression could have the consequences of pleasure.’ They [the British Empiri-
cists] were saying that something which they thought of as like a particular tickle or itch was quite
obviously the point of doing anything whatsoever” (p. 77). See also Gilbert Ryle, “Pleasure,” 
Pro-
ceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
supp. vol. 28 (1954), and 
Dilemmas
(Cambridge, The University
Press, 1954), ch. IV; Anthony Kenny, 
Action, Emotion and Will
(London, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1963), ch. VI; and C. C. W. Taylor, “Pleasure,”