History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [349]
'Things are good or evil only in relation to pleasure or pain. That we call "good" which is apt to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain, in us.'
'What is it moves desire? I answer, happiness, and that alone.'
'Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.'
'The necessity of pursuing true happiness [is] the foundation of all liberty.'
'The preference of vice to virtue [is] a manifest wrong judgment.'
'The government of our passions [is] the right improvement of liberty.'3
The last of these statements depends, it would seem, upon the doctrine of rewards and punishments in the next world. God has laid down certain moral rules; those who follow them go to heaven, and those who break them risk going to hell. The prudent pleasure-seeker will therefore be virtuous. With the decay of the belief that sin leads to hell, it has become more difficult to make a purely self-regarding argument in favour of a virtuous life. Bentham, who was a free-thinker, substituted the human lawgiver in place of God: it was the business of laws and social institutions to make a harmony between public and private interests, so that each man, in pursuing his own happiness, should be compelled to minister to the general happiness. But this is less satisfactory than the reconciliation of public and private interests effected by means of heaven and hell, both because lawgivers are not always wise or virtuous, and because human governments are not omniscient.
Locke has to admit, what is obvious, that men do not always act in the way which, on a rational calculation, is likely to secure them a maximum of pleasure. We value present pleasure more than future pleasure, and pleasure in the near future more than pleasure in the distant future. It may be said—this is not said by Locke—that the rate of interest is a quantitative measure of the general discounting of future pleasures. If the prospect of spending £1,000 a year hence were as delightful as the thought of spending it to-day, I should not need to be paid for postponing my pleasure. Locke admits that devout believers often commit sins which, by their own creed, put them in danger of hell. We all know people who put off going to the dentist longer than they would if they were engaged in the rational pursuit of pleasure. Thus, even if pleasure or the avoidance of pain be our motive, it must be added that pleasures lose their attractiveness and pains their terrors in proportion to their distance in the future.
Since it is only in the long run that, according to Locke, self-interest and the general interest coincide, it becomes important that men should be guided, as far as possible, by their long-run interests. That is to say, men should be prudent. Prudence is the one virtue which remains to be preached, for every lapse from virtue is a failure of prudence. Emphasis on prudence is characteristic of liberalism. It is connected with the rise of capitalism, for the prudent became rich while the imprudent became or remained poor. It is connected also with certain forms of Protestant piety: virtue with a view to heaven is psychologically very analogous to saving with a view to investment.
Belief in the harmony between private and public interests is characteristic of liberalism, and long survived the theological foundation that it had in Locke.
Locke states that liberty depends upon the necessity of pursuing true happiness and upon the government of our passions. This opinion he derives from his doctrine that private and public interests are identical in the long run, though not necessarily over short periods. It follows from this doctrine that,