ABSTRACT
The question with which we shall be concerned in this chapter is the following: What motives exist, or could be made to exist, to promote “right” conduct according to the ethic developed in previous chapters? I will repeat once more that I mean by “right” conduct, that conduct which will probably produce the greatest balance of satisfaction over dissatisfaction, or the smallest balance of dissatisfaction over satisfaction, and that, in making this estimate, the question as to who enjoys the satisfaction, or suffers the dissatisfaction, is to be considered irrelevant. A few words of explanation are called for. I say “satisfaction” rather than “pleasure” or “interest”. The term “interest” as commonly employed has too narrow a connotation. We should not say that a man is acting from self-interest if, from an impulse of benevolence, he gives his money to charity, but he may still, if he has a generous disposition, derive more satisfaction from this act than from a miserly clinging to his possessions. The term “satisfaction” is wide enough to embrace everything that comes to a man through the realization of his
desires, and these desires do not necessarily have any connection with self, except that oneself feels them. One may, for instance, desire-I do myself-that a proof should be discovered for Fermat’s last theorem, and one may be glad if a brilliant young mathematician is given a sufficient grant to enable him to seek a proof. The gratification that one would feel in this case comes under the head of satisfaction, but hardly of self-interest as commonly understood.
