ABSTRACT
Why must, then, the summum bonum be an inner state of being as opposed to an outer act? The answer, to me, appears to be that it is what is inside of us that ultimately impels us and drives us as the reason why we engage in certain actions. We are just, for example, because it feels right. There is something within us (Mill called it "a sense of dignity,” others call it conscience) which leads us to perform certain actions, even if we do not believe that we will personally gain (in an external sense) from them, and even if we will physicaly suffer from them. This entity, moreover, is surely an inner thing; it certainly is not something which exists in the outer world. (Nature, for example, is neither virtuous nor unvirtuous.)
Happiness, I believe, is the state in which our inner entity is in harmony with the external world. Why should we consider this to be happiness? The reason, I believe, is that when we are in harmony with our inner selves we are happy. Individuals cannot, or, at least, I so believe, be happy when they are acting contrarily to what they really think. This holds, moreover, whatever our circumstances are. If an individual was in a Nazi death camp, for example, and he was the type of person who could not be happy not doing all that he could to help others, then he could not be happy unless he was doing all that he could to help others in his existing circumstances, whatever the outcomes of his actions would personally be for himself. Should such a person in such a situation be called happy? It would be cruel to reply, "yes." Such an individual would undoubtedly be exceptionally miserable, because he could especially well see the pain which others were experiencing, and because he
could, more than the others, imagine what a better life for all would be like. However, we would still answer the question affirmatively, cruel though it may be, because one is always happier for his goodness.
