 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
We are in the habit of thinking some pleasures good and some bad; we think the pleasure derived from an act of benevolence is good, while that derived from cruelty is bad. But in so judging we are confusing ends and means. The pleasure of cruelty is bad as a means, because it involves pain for the victim, but if it could exist without this correlation perhaps it would not be evil. We condemn the pleasure of the drunkard because of his wife and family and the headache next morning, but given an intoxicant which was cheap and caused no hangover, the pleasure would be all to the good. Morality is so much concerned with means that it seems almost immoral to consider anything solely in relation to its intrinsic worth. But obviously nothing has any value as a means unless that to which it is a means has value on its own account. It follows that intrinsic value is logically prior to value as means.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Human Society in Ethics and Politics, (1954), chapter 3
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