 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
A possible ethical intuition of the sort appropriate to our present theory would be: “Pleasure has intrinsic value, and pain has intrinsic disvalue”. We shall now define "ought” in terms of intrinsic value: an act “ought” to be performed if, of those that are possible, it is the one having the most intrinsic value. To this definition we must add the principle: "The act having most intrinsic value is the one likely to produce the greatest balance of intrinsic value over intrinsic disvalue, or the smallest balance of intrinsic disvalue over intrinsic value”. An intrinsic value and an intrinsic disvalue are defined as equal when the two together have zero intrinsic value.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Bertrand Russell: Human Society in Ethics and Politics, (1954), chapter98：Is there ethical knowledge ?
More info.:https://russell-j.com/cool/47T-0904.htm
* a brief comment
Some may wonder why we have to think in such a roundabout way. Also, the meaning of "disvalue" is "worthless", and some may find the translation "anti-value" odd.
However, "valueless" and "disvalue" mean "zero value", so intrinsic value minus intrinsic valuelessness or intrinsic disvalue is the same as intrinsic value. This differs from Russell's argument and makes it impossible to understand his purpose.
With a narrow view, it is impossible to understand how much an action has intrinsic value and how much it has intrinsic 'anti-' value. This theoretical consideration of Russell's is necessary if the greatest happiness of the greatest number is to be the goal for the moment.
For example, Japanese people can think about Japanese history when Japan was not negotiating with foreign countries, but in the present day, that would give Japanese people a wrong historical understanding. First of all, there is the common world history of mankind, and within that, there are more and more issues to consider about Japanese history.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)