At this point it may be well briefly to notice Professor Sidgwick's criticism of the doctrine that character is an end-in-itself. In reference to this view Professor Sidgwick remarks:--(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 1)

Professor Sidgwick here admits the possibility that the acts in which character or disposition takes effect might conceivably have value. He has got nothing to say against such a supposition except that it does not appear to have any to him. but surely, when it is held that character has value, such acts are included in the idea. And yet the value of the acts cannot be estimated in entire isolation or abstraction from the man's whole inner life. Character does not consist either of mere isolated acts--still less of mere abstract tendencies or dispositions. Not only are the actual volitions involved in the performance of particular good acts parts of consciousness, and not mere possibilities of consequences in the external world, but there is a volitional element running through our consciousness at other times than the particular moment at which we are definitely resisting temptation or making definite acts of moral choice. Attention is an act of the will; even desire involves conation. Emotion, again, is at once a source of action, an accompaniment of moral action, and a consequence and index of the habitual direction of the will. And all these--desire, attention, emotion--are actual elements of consciousness, not mere potentialities which may manifest themselves in future conscious acts. All these are included in what we mean by character. Sometimes no dbout we should further include in the ideal character the intellectual side of the moral life--the ideal that a man sets before himself, the judgements of value which he pronounces, his intellectual interest in the moral life. Professor Sidgwick would hardly have contended that the content of the good man's consciousness does not differ from that of the bad man except at the particular moments in which the former is engaged in performing good actions and the latter bad ones. Character includes, as I have suggested, not merely the actual state of the will, but other elements of cosciousness connected therewith. And even if we limit the idea of character to actual volition, volition is an element in the continuous stream of consciousness at all times. Sidgwick himself has told us for instance that the adoption of an end as paramount is to be classed among volitions. A volitional element forms an element of consciousness during the whole--or, to avoid cavil, let me say--nearly the whole of his waking life. And it is upon the nature of this volitional element, upon the nature of the objects to which it is directed, upon the habitual direction of his will, that character primarily depends. It is this that is pronounced to have value when we say that Virtue is a good or end in itself. No doubt we cannot form any conception of character without thinking also of the intellectual and emotional accompaniments of the volition; and it makes little difference whether we do or do not think of these accompaniments as included in the conception of character. For these too have a value which is not to be measured by the amount or intensity of the pleasure which undoubtedly forms an element in them. The important point to insist on is that, when we pronounce character to have value, we are just as emphatically as the Hedonist pronouncing that it is in actual consciousness that value resides, and in nothing else^[56]. It is the actual consciousness of a man who loves and wills the truly or essentially good and not mere capacities or potentialities of pleasure-production such as might be supposed to reside in a bottle of old port, which consitutes the goodness or virtue which is regarded as a good or end in itself by the school which Professor Sidgwick is criticizing. A virtue or faculty is, of course (as Professor Sidgwick urges), a mere abstraction, but only in the sense in which pleasure is an abstraction also. A man's consciousness cannot at any one moment be full of nothing but Virtue any more than it can be full of nothing but pleasure. The will must will something if it is to be pronounced virtuous, just as there must be feelings, thoughts, and volitions in a man's consciousness before he can be pleased with them. But for the difficulty which Sidgwick seems to make of the matter, it would have seemed unnecessary to point out that those who make virtue an end mean by virtue virtuous consciousness, just as those who make pleasure an end mean thereby pleasant consciousness. And the virtuous consciousness means a consciousness whose volitions and whose desires are controlled by a rational ideal of life together with the feelings and emotions inseparably accompanying such volitions and desires^[57].(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 3)

It may perhaps be suggested that, when a good state of will is pronounced desirable, or more desirable than a pleasant state of consciousness, the real object of preference is a specific pleasure invariably accompanying volition of a virtuous kind. It is difficult to see what is gained by such a mode of statement for any one who has once parted company with the hedonistic Psychology: but, since some pleasure must undoubtedly accompany consciousness to which the person himself attaches value, no great harm will be done either to ethical theory or to practical Morality by such a way of putting the matter so long as it is clearly understood (1) that the desirability of this specific pleasure does not depend upon any variable susceptibility to it on the part of those for whom it is judged desirable; (2) that the pleasure is not necessarily to those who actually desire it greater in amount or intensity than other pleasures which they forego for the sake of obtaining it. Yet when these admissions are made, it is clear that we no longer really prefer the virtuous direction of the will simply as a source of pleasure. From the point of view of pleasure there seems no reason why this single kind of pleasure should be given so extraordinary a preference. It is one which does not seem to be warranted either by its duration or its intensity. As a matter of experience it is found that the pleasures of a good Conscience are not always highly exhilarating: while the pains of a bad one, regarded merely as pains, would in many cases be found tolerable enough. The pain of a small wrong-doing is probably to most men less exquisite than the pain of having made a fool of oneself or committed a gross social blunder. If we regarded the pains of a bad Conscience as merely on a level with the pains of a gaucherie, we should try to live down the former as we do the latter. The importance that we attribute to a good Conscience (quite apart from its social effects) cannot possibly be explained on merely hedonistic grounds; the value we attribute to it is not merely the value which it possesses as a source of pleasure, and the pleasures of Conscience themselves spring from and presuppose the consciousness of a value in conscientious conduct which is not measured by its pleasantness.(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 4)

Sidgwick's arguments against the possibility of regarding truth, beauty, and the like as ends-in-themselves may, as it seems to me, be met in much the same way. He always seems to assume that to assign value to such ends irrespective of their pleasantness^[58] is to assign value to them as things existing outside consciousness altogether. It does not seem to make much practical difference whether we say that there are elements in consciousness higher than pleasure, or whether we say that some pleasures are higher than others, so long as no attempt is made to smuggle back the hedonistic Psychology under cover of the latter form of expression. And yet it ought distinctly to be recognized that such preference of higher pleasures as higher is really only a popular way of saying that the true ethical end contains elements other than pleasure. All that is gained by the former way of putting the matter is that it suggests that pleasure is an element of any state of mind which can be regarded as possessing any ultimate value. And this need not be denied, so long as it is recognized that its value is not due solely to the amount or intensity of the pleasure, and that, though such a state may contain some pleasure, it may contain a great deal more pain and so be on the whole painful rather than pleasurable.(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 5)

One more difficulty of Professor Sidgwick may be briefly considered. To the contention that we sometimes prefer what are commonly called higher pleasures to lower ones without necessarily thinking the former more intense than the latter, Sidgwick replies that what in such cases we really prefer is not the present consciousness itself, but either effects on future consciousness more or less distinctly foreseen, or else something in the objective relations of the conscious being, not strictly included in his present consciousness^[59]. No doubt the pleasure is preferred on account of the person's objective relations: the pleasure abstracted from all knowledge of such objective relations would be pleasure abstracted from most of those characteristics which could make it higher pleasure, from most of the features which could commend it to the Practical Reason as more worthy of a rational being's enjoyment than the lower pleasure. It is just because some knowledge of the objective relations of his pleasures and of himself as enjoying them always does enter into the consciousness of a rational being enjoying pleasure, that it is impossible for him, desiring as he does other things besides pleasure and recognizing it as right or reasonable for him to desire such other objects, to leave them out of account in considering the intrinsic desirability of different kinds of consciousness for himself and other rational beings. For such a being the pleasure itself becomes different in consequence of this knowledge of his objective relations--different in value even when it is not altered in quantity. The pleasure which a man might take in a cruel entertainment might be harmless enough, if abstracted from his knowledge that the pleasure was won by the sufferings of a fellow creature. The pleasures of sense could not be condemned or disparaged in comparison with more social or more intellectual pleasures, but for the knowledge that the person enjoying them is a member of a society and capable of intellectual activities. The value which a man attaches to his love for wife and children or to the resulting pleasures could not be explained apart from knowledge of the objective relations implied in marriage or paternity. To ask what is the ultimate good of man apart from his knowledge of the objective relations in which he stands to the world and to his fellow men is really to ask what would be the good for man if he were a mere animal.(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 6)

Sidgwick's unwillingness to recognize Virtue as an end in itself, in spite of his admission that it is reasonable to prefer it to private pleasure, appears to arise largely from an unavowed assumption that there are no other elements in consciousness besides feeling, or at least that no such elements can possibly possess ultimate value. It is impossible to prove that this last is not the case; we can only ask, Is this really what the analysis of the moral consciousness reveals to us; or, if we are disposed to say that it is always the feeling that is ultimately valuable, are not the feelings to which we ascribe such value feelings of a kind which are inseparable from certain volitions and certain thoughts? And so we not assign a higher value to a rightly directed will, or to the emotions accompanying such a will, than to mere pleasant feeling considered merely as so much pleasant feeling?(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 7)

When all has been done that can be done in the way of developing the difficulties of a Utilitarianism which is at once rationalistic and hedonistic, it must be admitted that it is impossible to convict such a position of formal inconsistency, when once it is modified by the admission that Egoism is unreasonable, though there is nothing (on hedonistic grounds) to be said against a man who likes to be unreasonable. It is not the theory that is inconsistent; it is the procedure of Reason which according to the theory is essentially arbitrary and unintelligible. The attitude of Sidgwick's good man, at least when enlightened by Philosophy, may be said to be just this: I see that it is reasonable for me to prefer my neighbour's good, but this preference has in it nothing intrinsically desirable or beautiful or noble or worth having for its own sake. Duty is duty, but it is not good. Duty is reasonable, but pleasure is better; what the irrational man secures to himself by selfishness is intrinsically better than what the good man gets by obeying the voice of Reason within him. And the position of the Sidgwickian Reason does not become more intelligible when we attempt to bridge over the collision between duty and interest by theological assumptions. If Reason, expressing itself in the constitution of the Universe, really does say to the bad man, I am sorry that I cannot reward this consistent selfishness of yours as I should like to do; but I am compelled to think of other people besides you, and in their interests I am compelled to punish a course of life and a direction of will which in a better constituted world it would give me the greatest satisfaction to reward, there is no more to be said. But does a Universe constructed on such a principle really strike us as a particularly reasonable one?(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 8)

In the last resort the only way of showing that pleasure is not the true end of life is by an appeal to one's own moral consciousness and that of others so far as it is revealed by word and deed. Professor Sidgwick, after admitting that a consistent system might be worked out upon the basis of a composite end, i. e. on including both Virtue and happiness, adds: I can give a decisive reason for not accepting it myself: viz., that when Virtue and Happiness are hypothetically presented as alternatives, from a universal point of view, I have no doubt that I morally prefer the latter; I should not think it right to aim at making my fellow-creatures more moral, if I distinctly foresaw that as a consequence of this they would become less happy. I should even make a similar choice as regards my own future virtue, supposing it presented an alternative to results more conducive to the General Happiness^[60]. All that the critic of such a statement can do is to invite the reader to say whether he can accept it as a correct representation of his own moral consciousness--or of Henry Sidgwick's.(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 9)

With the question whether the Virtue either of individuals or of society can ever be antagonistic to the general happiness we are not yet concerned. My contention so far has been merely this--that as a matter of fact the judgement It is right for me to make others happy is practically inseparable from the judgment It is better for me to do that than to be happy myself at their expense. Admitting the bare logical possibility of accepting the former judgement while denying the latter, I believe that such a bare speculative admission of the reasonableness of Altruism would have little or no practical effect upon the majority of minds but for that recognition of its intrinsic goodness by which it is practically accompanied. Reason is reluctant to admit that rationality can ever be a bad thing or even a matter of indifference. No consideration of posthumous compensation will ever reconcile Reason to a constitution of things in which it is compelled to pronounce bad, on account of their effects, kinds of conduct which in themselves it cannot but find very good. The emotions with which we actually contemplate good or bad conduct would droop and wither were we ever once fully persuaded that there is no difference between a good and a bad man except what is constituted by some accidental want of adjustment between the interests of an individual and that of his fellows. Once persuade men that Thrasymachus was right in making Virtue essentially and fundamentally only another man's good, and you will have persuaded them also that it exists by convention and not by nature (νόμῳ, οὐ φύσει)--that it is in short a delusion, not a reality; and with that belief in the intrinsic value of goodness will go the theological beliefs that were based upon it.(Bk. 1 Ch. 3 § 3 ¶ 10)