Sidgwick and self-interest

Sidgwick and Self-interest*ROGER CRISP

University College, Oxford

The notion of self-interest has not received from philosophers of thiscentury the attention it deserves.1 In this paper, I shall first elucidatethe views on self-interest of a philosopher who flourished in the lastcentury. It could be argued that Henry Sidgwick's views on this topicare the most considered in the history of philosophy. I shall then pointto a number of misconceptions in his position, and suggest a moresatisfactory account. I shall attempt also to solve a problem for thisnew account with the aid of a Sidgwickian distinction.

I

Derek Parfit describes three theories of self-interest.2 According to aHedonistic Theory, the best life for a person is the happiest life. On aDesire-fulfilment Theory, the best life is the life with the greatestfulfilment of desire. An Objective List Theory states that the best life isthe life which contains things which are good for us, whether or not wewant them.

In the chapter of his The Methods of Ethics on 'Ultimate Good',Sidgwick claims that the best life is the life containing the most'Desirable Consciousness'.3 He appears, then, to be offering a compro-mise between the first two of the views set out by Parfit: the Hedonisticand Desire-fulfilment Theories.4 Self-interest consists in certain men-tal states, which we either do desire or would desire under certainconditions.

Parfit has argued, however, that Sidgwick believed that one shouldtake account of facts about values, and that what he says maytherefore be consonant with an Objective List Theory.5 He bases this

* I am indebted to Robin Attfield, Neil Cooper, David Edmonds, James Griffin, BradHooker, Michael Lockwood, Derek Parfit, Wayne Sumner and Sir Geoffrey Warrnock forcomments on earlier drafts of this paper.

1 See T. Hurka, 'Critical notice of Weil-Being, by James Griffin', Mind, xcvii (1988),464. The notion of self-interest is roughly equivalent to 'Ultimate Good for theindividual', 'what it is prudentially or practically rational to do', 'what makes lifevaluable', and indeed 'utility', in its now usual sense, as opposed to the sense in which athing has utility in so far as it produces what is of intrinsic value.

2 D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, Oxford, 1984, Appendix I, p. 493.3 H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn., London, 1907, Book III, ch. xiv, p. 398.4 See J. Griffin, Well-Being, Oxford, 1986, p. 9.5 Parfit, p. 500.

© Oxford University Press 1990 Utilitas Vol. 2, No. 2 November 1990

268 Roger Crisp

claim on what Sidgwick says in an earlier, oft-revised chapter, that on'Good'.6

Sidgwick first rejects as a definition of my good on the whole:

[Definition (1)] [W]hat I should actually desire and seek if all the consequencesof seeking it could be foreknown and adequately realized by me in imaginationat the time of making my choice.7

Such a definition does not suffice, in that the fact that a person does notafterwards regret his actions does not prove that he has acted in hisown best interests. Imagine that you are fully aware now of what life asa contented pig would be like. Because you will be contented, you willnot regret becoming such. But, though you may know beforehand thatyou will be contented, this does not mean that that is what will makeyour life go best. For other, more valuable, options may have been opento you.

To avoid this problem, Sidgwick suggests as a definition of a man'sfuture good on the whole:

[Definition (2)] [W]hat he would desire and seek on the whole if all theconsequences of all the different lines of conduct open to him were accuratelyforeseen and adequately realised in imagination at the present point of time.8

Sidgwick says of this conception of 'Good' that, though it has an idealelement, in that we do not actually desire it, this element is evaluat-ively neutral and relies only on descriptive facts about the world.

According to Parfit, Sidgwick goes on to reject this account as well.But that Sidgwick does this is implausible. For he also says:

I cannot deny that this hypothetical object of a resultant desire supplies anintelligible and admissible interpretation of the terms 'good' and 'desirable'.9

6 Sidgwick (1907), Book I, ch. ix, pp. 111-12.7 Ibid., p. 111. It might be thought that this definition is obviously lacking, since

Sidgwick does not distinguish between desires a person has in relation to his own life andthose he has in relation to other things. Presumably self-interest is concerned only withthe former. In fact, however, Sidgwick does restrict his discussion to 'what a man desires. . . for himself on p. 109.

8 Ibid., pp. 111-12. There is something of a puzzle in the transition from Definition (1) toDefinition (2). Why should the fact that satisfying a given desire will cause one to becomea 'contented pig' not lead to an informed desire for some other outcome, given that thisfact will be 'foreknown and adequately realized'? Why, in other words, is the possibilitySidgwick contemplates an objection to Definition (1)? I think that the puzzle is resolved ifone takes account of the last three words of Definition (2*) below: 'if actually exper-ienced'. If Sidgwick were supposing that the only way desires can be formed by aconsideration of consequences was by being formed in response to the (imagined)experience, then if becoming a 'contented pig' would lead to no desire to escape thiscondition, so likewise would an adequate imagining of this condition lead to no desire toavoid this condition. Sidgwick was almost certainly relying on this Hedonistic assump-tion when he rejected Definition (1).

9 Ibid., p. 112.

Sidgwick and Self-interest 269

Further, in an earlier edition, Sidgwick couched Definition (2) in thefollowing terms:

[Definition (2*)] [W]hat he would desire on the whole if all the consequences ofall the different lines of conduct open to him were actually exercising on himan impulsive force proportioned to the desires or aversions which they wouldexcite if actually experienced.10

And of this he went on:

So far as I can conceive this hypothetical object of desire, I am not prepared todeny that it would be 'desirable' in the sense which I give to the term.

Parfit believes that Sidgwick is forced to reject Definition (2) becauseit also runs into a 'Contented Pig' problem. I think that Sidgwickwould deny this. The person in the hypothetical situation of choicemust be aware of all the consequences of all the different lines ofconduct open to him at that time. He will be aware not only of theconsequences of living the life of a contented pig, but also of theconsequences of living lives in which his higher faculties are exercised.He will therefore recognize the greater desirability of such lives. If theperson still chooses the life of the contented pig, it is open to Sidgwickto suggest that he is not accurately foreseeing and adequately realizingin his imagination the consequences of the various courses of actionopen to him.

It is true that Sidgwick does go on to give us a third definition ofultimate good on the whole for me:

[Definition (3)] [Wjhat I should practically desire if my desires were in harmonywith reason, assuming my own existence alone to be considered.11

But his reason for setting down Definition (3) is not, as Parfit suggests,to exclude irrational desires allowed through by Definition (2). Rather,it is Sidgwick's belief that

the calm desire for my 'good on the whole' is authoritative] and thereforecarries with it implicitly a rational dictate to aim at this end, if in any case aconflicting desire urges the will in an opposite direction.12

Sidgwick is thinking of weakness of the will here, and producesDefinition (3) in response.13 For my desire to be in harmony with reasonrequires only that I accurately foresee and adequately realize in

10 Sidgwick, 3rd edn., London, 1884, p. 108. I am assuming here a Principle of Charity,viz. that we are not, without good reason, to interpret an author as changing his mind onan issue. Here there seems no reason to do so.

11 Sidgwick (1907), p. 112.12 Ibid.13 The 'however' of the opening line of the second paragraph on p. 112 (that containing

Definition (3)) is best read as opposing the last six words of the previous paragraph, notDefinition (2) itself.

270 Roger Crisp

imagination all the consequences of all the different lines of conductopen to me. Sidgwick does not see definitions (2) and (3) as separatealternatives, but rather as collateral. Definition (2) spells out what it isthat makes someone's life go best, while Definition (3) implies thatseeking this is what one has most reason to do.

This interpretation is again strengthened by examination of thesame earlier edition. After offering Definition (2*), Sidgwick sets out ina new paragraph his objection to writers who speak of the desire thatprevails in an action as the 'apparent good' of the agent. It is that theyignore weakness of will. The paragraph is self-contained, and isdropped from this discussion in the fifth and later editions. Thefollowing paragraph begins:

I cannot, then, define the ultimately good or desirable otherwise than by sayingthat it is [Definition (3*)] that of which we should desire the existence if ourdesires were in harmony with reason, or (to put it otherwise) with an idealstandard from which our actual desires are found more or less to diverge.14

The use of the conjunction 'then' makes sense only on the assumptionthat Sidgwick saw (3*) as being on all fours with (2*), and hence (3)with (2).

J. B. Schneewind is therefore incorrect in his view that Sidgwicksees Definition (3) as an advance on (2) in that it does not give a specialstatus to present desires. Schneewind claims:

The final account of 'own good' [Definition (3)] thus eliminates the possibilitythat a particular decision about what is good might be influenced by the desiresone merely happened to have at the present moment in a way which would notbe reasonable if one took into account all one's future desires.15

Definition (2), however, is also temporally neutral in Schneewind'ssense. For future desires too must be fully represented in imaginationat the present moment. It would be uncharitable to criticize Sidgwickfor not making the requirement of temporal neutrality clear at thispoint, as not only does he argue for it elsewhere,16 but he would surelyhave been justified in thinking that it is an obvious element in accurateforesight and adequate realization in imagination.

Definition (2), then, is Sidgwick's view of self-interest. Now it will berecalled that I described Sidgwick's account as a compromise between

14 Sidgwick, 3rd edn. (1884), p. 108.15 J. B. Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy, Oxford, 1977,

p. 225. Schneewind's interpretation differs from Parfit's in that he stresses Sidgwick'sinsistence that the notion of good includes that of a dictate of reason, arguing that this iswhy he abandons Definition (2). One way of bringing out the difference would be to notethat Schneewind's reading of Sidgwick is consistent with rejecting an Objective ListTheory. It could be that good is the object of rational desire, and that the criterion ofrational desire is neither simply informed desire, nor desire which responds to anindependently grounded good.

16 Sidgwick (1907), p. 381.

Sidgwick and Self-interest 271

Hedonistic and Desire-fulfilment Theories, on the basis of his defini-tion of Ultimate Good as 'Desirable Consciousness'. Definition (2),however, seems to suggest a straightforward Desire-fulfilment ac-count.

This is a place where Sidgwick's later revisions led to unclaritieswhich were not present in the original editions. In Definition (2*), whatis important in the consequences of the different lines of conduct arethe experiences to which they would give rise. Sidgwick was quiteaware that people often desire things other than mental states, such asposthumous fame. But he also believed that such desires were, at base,irrational.17 This belief comes out in Definition (2*), and the fact that itfails to do so in Definition (2) is evidence of an oversight on Sidgwick'spart, rather than a change of heart.

To conclude: Sidgwick believed that self-interest is constituted by-awareness of the fulfilment of certain desires one would have if specialknowledge were available to one. In contemporary terms, this accountcomprises an Informed-desire Theory, constrained by an ExperienceRequirement.

II

Sidgwick's view is a compromise between Hedonistic and Desire-fulfilment Theories of self-interest. But, like many of those whocompromise, Sidgwick ends up with the worst of both worlds.

First, it is doubtful whether Sidgwick should have stuck so uncom-promisingly to the Experience Requirement. The arguments he offersfor it have been described as 'uncharacteristically thin'.18 They occurin the chapter on 'Ultimate Good'.19 Sidgwick accepts that commonsense suggests that certain states of consciousness, such as Cognitionof Truth, are sometimes judged to be preferable on grounds other thanthat they contain pleasure. But he explains this by saying that what wereally prefer is not this mental state itself, but

either effects on future consciousness more or less distinctly foreseen, or elsesomething in the objective relations of the conscious being, not strictlyincluded in his present consciousness.20

17 Ibid., pp. 113-14; pp. 12S-9; pp. 398-402. It is interesting that there is no hint in theearlier ch. iv on 'Pleasure and Desire' that desires not directed at one's own pleasure areirrational, despite the fact that Sidgwick discusses at length and rejects PsychologicalHedonism in that chapter. Again, in that chapter (pp. 44-5), Sidgwick follows Butler inarguing that there are occasions where a pleasure arises when one does not previouslydesire it but something else. His example is hunger. But this is all consistent with theExperience Requirement on what conduces to self-interest.

18 Griffin, note 7, p. 313.19 Sidgwick (1907), Book III, ch. xiv, pp. 39&-402.20 Ibid., p. 399.

272 Roger Crisp

If it is the former, the value of the Cognition is merely instrumental.And sometimes, indeed, it does look as if the Cognition of Truth is onlyinstrumentally valuable. For example, if I read in the newspaper that aconsignment of passion fruit has arrived at my local grocery store, andthis turns out to be true, my knowledge might well be of value only if Ilike passion fruit and purchase some on the basis of reading the ad inthe paper.

What, however, if I prefer something in my 'objective relations'?Sidgwick himself gives us some excellent examples, including the nowstandard one of the person who prefers painful truth to sweet delusion.Sidgwick then deploys the method of isolation, in an attempt to showthat such objective relations, when considered separately from mentalstates accompanying or consequent on them, are really of no morevalue 'than material or other objects are, when considered apart fromany relation to conscious existence'.21

Here my intuitions part company with Sidgwick's.22 It seems to methat the life of a person who is aware that he has genuine friends isbetter for that person than a life in which, though he has the experienceof friendship, it turns out that people are deceiving him as part of adiverting social experiment they have contrived for their own amuse-ment. I agree with Sidgwick, however, that objects considered apartfrom any relation to conscious existence are valueless.23 What seem tomatter are certain objective relations to me, as a conscious being,rather than merely my consciousness itself.24 (It is this combination ofviews which gives rise to the problem discussed at the end of thispaper.)

Sidgwick would perhaps reply that my request that one compare the

21 Ibid., p. 401; see p. 113.22 As do those of, for example, H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, Oxford, 1907,

vol. I, p. 68; T. Nagel, 'Death', in Mortal Questions, Cambridge, 1979, p. 5; S. Darwall,'Pleasure as ultimate good in Sidgwick's ethics', The Monist, lviii (1974), 478; J. Feinberg,'Harm and self-interest', in P. Hacker and J. Raz eds., Law, Morality, and Society, Oxford,1977, p. 303; A. Gombay, 'What you don't know doesn't hurt you', Proceedings of theAristotelian Society, lxxix (1978-9), 245; A. Sen, 'Plural utility', Proceedings of theAristotelian Society, lxxxi (1980-81), 203; B. Levenbook, 'Harming someone after hisdeath', Ethics, xciv (1984), 407; Griffin, pp. 9-10.

23 One philosopher who disagrees with Sidgwick and me here is G. E. Moore. See G.Moore, Principia Ethica, Cambridge, 1903, §50, pp. 83-5. It is important, however, to notethe difference between the following claims: (a) the existence of a plant has value,whether or not it is ever perceived or desired; and (b) the existence of a plant is valuablefor that plant, whether or not it is ever perceived or desired. Moore makes claim (a). But,as I* argue below in the text, the notion of good for may be parasitic on that of goodsimpliciter.

24 A contemporary of Sidgwick's says: 'It does not follow that, because nothing is good. . . out of relation to consciousness . . . therefore its goodness . . . lies in the mere state ofconsciousness'. A. Seth, 'Is pleasure the summum bonum?', International Journal ofEthics, vi (1986), 422. Quoted in Darwall, p. 483.

Sidgwick and Self-interest 273

two lives—those of genuine and counterfeit friendship—is unfair. For,unlike the person being deceived, we know the unplesant truth, andthis cannot help but pollute any attempt at an impartial comparison.

If this reply is a demand that we purge ourselves of the knowledge inquestion before entering upon the comparison, it is of course impos-sible to fulfil. It would be like trying to defy Berkeley and to imagine anunperceived object. But, in fact, there is no reason why we shouldaccept such a demand. For the onus of proof, here, is upon Sidgwick.Why is it that we prefer certain objective relations?

Sidgwick might run the line that cases like that mentioned fall intothe first class of preferences—those concerning effects on futureconsciousness. We prefer not to be deceived because we know thatfinding out that we have been deceived can hurt. Again, however,common sense (on which Sidgwick himself relies) suggests that it isbeing deceived itself which is bad. If I find out that my supposed friendshave been deceiving me, I am upset, and upset at the fact that I havebeen deceived. The badness of finding out is to be explained by thebadness of what I am finding out, and it is a badness additional to thebadness of what is found out.25 The onus of proof is again on Sidgwick.For if it is not bad unwittingly to be deceived, then he must explainwhat is bad about becoming aware that one has been unwittinglydeceived. Sidgwick might say, for example, that one bad thing aboutdiscovering that I have been harmlessly deceived is that I thus makethe very worrying discovery of my vulnerability to harmful deception.But any such reply as this will not take Sidgwick far enough. For itdoes not account fully for the phenomenology of the discovery ofallegedly harmless deception. Even if our experience has not beenaltered greatly by being deceived, we feel greatly concerned at thesheer fact of deception itself. Worries about vulnerability to futuredeception are something over and above this concern.

Sidgwick does not anyway attempt such a reply. But he does adducetwo further considerations in favour of his view. First, he claims thatcommon sense approves ideal goods roughly in proportion to theamount of pleasure they produce.26

I do not need to object to the methodology of appealing to commonsense in this way. For, in the case I have adduced, the view of commonsense is that true friendship benefits a person to an extent quite out ofproportion to the amount of Desirable Consciousness to which it givesrise. For being deceived is much worse, even if one never finds out.Sidgwick may, of course, reintroduce the possibility of finding out inthe latter case as determining the differing evaluations of commonsense of the two cases. But this is to take a dim view of the perspicacityof common sense. For if it is unable to distinguish cases where a person

25 See Nagel, p. 5. 26 Sidgwick (1907), p. 401.

274 Roger Crisp

does find out from those in which he does not, one wonders whetherSidgwick should be putting any weight on its deliverances. And he isstill left with the problem of explaining why finding out is so bad.

Sidgwick's final consideration is that nothing but a Hedonisticaccount of Ultimate Good will allow one to rank the various goodsavailable in the way necessary for rational action.27

As an objection to an account of what self-interest is, this misses itstarget.28 For it may be that there just is more than one kind of good. Thequestion of whether an account of how to compare types of goods isavailable is not relevant to whether the initial claim about the natureof self-interest is true.

And, anyway, that such an account may not be impossible can beseen from the fact that we can and do attempt to compare ideal andhedonistic goods. For example, I may consider the question of myfriendships. I certainly gain something from the experiences to whichthey give rise. But how much more valuable would those friendships beif they were genuine as opposed to counterfeit? The assumption onwhich Sidgwick's argument rests is that to compare two goods theremust be something common underlying both. But since I can comparean ideal with an experiential good in the way I have suggested, thisassumption seems false.29 A non-hedonistic version of practical reason-ing will be complex, but not inconceivable.

I l l

There is a second problem in Sidgwick's account. His adherence to theExperience Requirement leads him to adopt a viewpoint on self-interest that is too narrow. The sympathy with the Desire-fulfilmentTheory he shows in Definition (2) has a similar result.

Just as Hedonistic Theories put the constraint on self-interest thatonly mental states can count towards it (the Experience Requirement),so underlying Desire-fulfilment Theories is an analogous constraint—that only the fulfilment of desires can enhance self-interest. I shall callthis the 'Fulfilment Requirement'. And just as the Experience Require-ment is shown to be too strict by a case in which something other thanexperience, such as a certain objective relation, matters to how well orhow badly a person's life goes, so the Fulfilment Requirement will beseen to be excessively restricted if we can find a case where self-interest is affected by something which does not fulfil a desire. I believethat the following is such a case.30

27 Ibid., pp. 406-7.28 Griffin makes a similar objection to Sen's notion of 'plural utility'. This objection

fails for the same reason as Sidgwick's. See Griffin, note 27, pp. 316-17.29 See Griffin, p. 31; p. 103.30 On the value of accomplishment, see Griffin, p. 19; passim.

Sidgwick and Self-interest 275

The Two Artists. Aretha and Betty are artists. Neither of them particularlyenjoys painting.31 They practice their art merely to make a living, and bothsucceed in this to the same degree. Aretha's works are inspired and profound,while Betty's are fashionable kitsch.

It is important to remember that it is not relevant to the purpose ofthis example whether other people see the paintings or not. Take firstthe case where no one appreciates the paintings either during or afterAretha's life. It is still the case that she has increased the value of herown life through the sheer creation of these works. It is a cheapening ofthe value of artistic creation to cash it out entirely in terms of theeffect that it has on others. If Shakespeare's works had fallen intoobscurity, as human beings became more and more philistine, weshould not want to say that his accomplishment would have had novalue for him. And if it would have had value, it is not at all clear thatone could account fully for that value in terms of the fulfilment ofShakespeare's desire to write great works.

The case where other people do gain from the appreciation ofAretha's pictures is more favourable to my claim. For it now seemshard to deny that Aretha has accomplished something great in herlife—she was a painter known to be of the first rate, who gave muchpleasure to others. Not only, however, could she not have cared lessabout the quality of her work, but she lacked vanity to the extent offeeling the same way about the opinions of others, as well as beingselfish enough to be neutral as to whether her work gave pleasure toothers or not.

It might be objected that the situation I envisage in the example isjust not possible. Profound works of art require care in their produc-tion, and it does not seem that Aretha cares greatly about the quality ofher work. In reply, I should stress the fact that Aretha is painting inorder to make a living. She does take great care to produce what thepublic believes (rightly) to be profound work. But she is unconcernedabout whether it is profound or not. She wants merely to make money.32

If this is the case, however, it begins to look as if it is pure luck thatAretha paints as she does. For if the public could not appreciateprofound work, but wanted only kitsch, then that is what Aretha wouldpaint. Consider another example.33

31 I include this sentence in the example merely to insure it against the claim by theHedonist that, by allowing in different qualities of pleasure, the difference in value of thetwo lives can be accounted for.

32 Michael Lockwood mentioned to me in this connection the case of Arthur ConanDoyle. Conan Doyle wanted to write historical novels. He did so, and they weremediocre. To finance the writing of these novels, he wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories.He did not want to write the latter for their own sake, and thought that they were of nomerit. But I would argue that writing these stories constitutes a great accomplishment.

33 I owe this example to Brad Hooker. Likewise that of The Lottery below.

276 Roger Crisp

The Hurried Creation. God is finding a week rather a short time in which tocreate the world. In a rush, he hurls down mountains onto the Earth. In certainplaces, these mountains are staggeringly beautiful.

I believe that God has accomplished something great by creating thesescenes of beauty. Luck can play a part in accomplishment (think also ofthe discovery of penicillin). Nor is intention vital. Imagine that Iintend to write a pot-boiler of a novel, but end up writing somethingworthy of Tolstoy. My novel is a great accomplishment. Nor doesaccomplishment require great effort. One of the greatest Americanshort stories—Shirley Jackson's The Lottery—was written in twohours.

To return to The Two Artists, if I were asked whether I would prefera life like Aretha's, or a life like Betty's, similar in all respects exceptthat her paintings are at best mediocre, I should not be neutral betweenthe two lives. I believe that Aretha has a better life, and I have thesecond order belief that this belief about Aretha is not caused by myown desire for accomplishment's contaminating the impartial view-point from which such questions are to be answered.

When faced with a case like this, one may be tempted to make adistinction between what is good for a person and what is goodsimpliciter. One might then go on to say that the lives of Aretha andBetty are equally valuable for them, but that Aretha's life is bettersimpliciter.

I should argue, however, that the notion of good for (unlike that ofgood to, which is concerned with the apparent good) depends upon thatof good simpliciter.34 What is good for any individual is what is bothgood simpliciter and instantiated in that individual's life.

It seems plausible, then, to suggest that Aretha's life goes better, inself-interested terms, than Betty's. Here we have a case in which oneperson's life contains a high level of accomplishment, and the other alow level. It makes more sense not only of the view that many peoplehave that Aretha's life goes better, but of why we tend to desireaccomplishment, to say that it is of value to a person not merelybecause it fulfils a desire that he has (or, for that matter, brings apleasurable sense of accomplishment).

Again, if I consider the paintings merely as material objects with norelation to any conscious existence (in another non-sentient universe,for example), they are indeed valueless. But the production of them bya conscious being, when considered in isolation from both any mentalstates accompanying or following upon their creation and any fulfil-ment of desire for accomplishment, does benefit that being.

34 See Moore, pp. 98-9.

Sidgwick and Self-interest 277

IV

There is yet another problem. The Experience and Fulfilment Require-ments result in Sidgwick's being unable to accept certain things asvaluable for a person which it seems he should accept. But there isanother flaw in Definition (2), which is indicative of an excessivebreadth in his viewpoint on self-interest.

Let me restate Sidgwick's view of what constitutes a person's self-interest:

[Definition (2)] [WJhat he would now desire and seek on the whole if all theconsequences of all the different lines of conduct open to him were accuratelyforeseen and adequately realized in imagination at the present point of time.35

The problem I want now to bring up is similar to that which causedSidgwick to reject Definition (1): the Contented Pig problem. It is alsolike that which Parfit believes made Sidgwick reject Definition (2) infavour of Definition (3). As I have shown, Sidgwick presented Defini-tions (2) and (3) as collateral. His view of practical rationality was non-evaluative, and spelled out in the terms of Definition (2).

Sidgwick assumed that if a person could accurately represent tohimself at one time all the possible ways in which his life mightdevelop, he would necessarily identify the best. If asked to justify this,Sidgwick might argue that what the person chooses in such a situationis by definition the best. But this begs the question.

One can in fact imagine cases where his assumption appears mis-taken. One sort of bizarre case is mentioned by Parfit. Consider theRawlsian mathematician whose informed desire is to spend his lifecounting blades of grass.36 The difficulty with employing such examplesagainst theorists like Sidgwick, however, is that they look so implaus-ible. And if we accept that a person might make such a choice underconditions of full information, we would surely be inclined to say thathe or she was in some way neurotic. But if we choose more plausibleexamples—a person, say, who elects to spend his life collecting stampsinstead of becoming a successful politician—then the case against theInformed-desire Theory looks weaker. For Sidgwick can now claimthat the life of stamp-collecting is the best life for this person, and thatit is merely our prejudices which cause us to think otherwise.

But why should we accept desire, even of the informed variety, as thefinal arbiter of a person's self-interest? For, surely, people do makemistakes. Further, even when fully informed, desires can put self-interest at risk. For example, in certain cases of weakness of will, aphenomenon which we have seen that Sidgwick himself acknow-

35 Sidgwick (1907), pp. 111-12.36 Parfit, Appendix I, pp. 499-500; J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Oxford, 1972, p. 432.

278 Roger Crisp

ledges,37 a person will say: 1 know that option a is more in my interestthan bj but it is b that I desire more.' Desires do not answer to the factsin a manner reliable enough to qualify them as final arbiters of self-interest. We see this often enough in our own lives. I have a strongdesire for the cream cake on the table in front of me. But then I reflectupon the situation. I have high blood-pressure, and my doctor has toldme to avoid foods with a high fat content. Has my desire diminished inthe light of my reflection? Not—in this case, at least—in the slightest.Irrationality, in the sense of a lack of responsiveness to beliefs, seemsbuilt into the conative side of human nature.

Sidgwick might argue—perhaps on the basis of Definition (3)—that,in cases like this, the desire on which decisions are based is unin-formed. There is a question here about the nature of the informationrequired for rational assessment of self-interest. Sidgwick can beconfronted with a dilemma.

If we take his claims at face value, and interpret him as stipulatingthat the information be non-evaluative, he will be impaled on the firsthorn. For, even if the blade-counter case is of doubtful import, it is hardto deny that people do make mistakes, and that desire does not respondfully to the facts.

If Sidgwick were to specify, however, that the information can bepartly evaluative in nature, such as that x is better than y, he would beimpaled on the second horn. And at two points.

First, although he could now deal with cases of mistaken judgement(the stamp-collector does not know that the political life is in his bestinterests), a solution to the problem raised by the type of weakness ofwill I have outlined will elude him still. For such weak-willed peopleknow which is the better course of action. And yet their desire is for theless valuable alternative.

Second, and more seriously, this account is a Desire-fulfilmentTheory in name only. For if the desires of the blade-counter, the stamp-collector, and the cake-lover are described as uninformed, it seems tomake the criterion for a desire's being informed something like itsbeing a desire shaped by a recognition of what is quite independent ofdesire. Such a theory is too objective to be described as a Desire-fulfilment Theory. It is a form of Objective List Theory.

It appears, then, that Parfit and Schneewind's interpretation ofSidgwick is more charitable than that for which I have argued.Sidgwick ought to have realized that desires may be irrational even inthe conditions of full information he envisaged.

Sidgwick (1907), pp. 41-2; p. 51; pp. 58-9; p. 110.

Sidgwick and Self-interest 279

V

I have noted three flaws in Sidgwick's account of self-interest, two ofexcessive narrowness, and one of excessive breadth.

A Revised Account of self-interest would be an Objective ListTheory, according to which some things are good for people and otherthings bad for them, whether or not they give rise to pleasurablemental states in the minds of these people or fulfil desires which theyhave. Such a theory could avoid the implicit authoritarianism of manyObjective List Theories by including the claim that desires still haveweight. For example, if artistic creation is on the List, then it will be ofgreater value to a person if desired.38 And, of course, mental states neednot be ignored. For they can feature as items on the List. Such aRevised Account has more in common with the kind of utilitarianismespoused by G. E. Moore and Hastings Rashdall than with that ofSidgwick.39

A problem for the Revised Account arises in the very objectivityincorporated to avoid the difficulties of Sidgwick's view, if one wishesboth to hold to the Revised Account and to deny the view that objectsconsidered apart from any relation to conscious existence may stillhave value.40

The problem might be put as follows. If you are willing to talk aboutthings being good or bad for people which do not affect their consciousexperience or fulfil desires that they have, then it is unclear why youshould not talk about things being good or bad for beings which areentirely non-conscious, such as plants. By denying both the Ex-perience and Fulfilment Requirements, you are on a slippery slopetowards a more objective theory than you wish. Not only is there atension in holding the Revised Account in tandem with a denial of theview that the notion of self-interest has no application to the lives ofnon-conscious beings, but, if it is an implication of the RevisedAccount that the lives of plants can go well or badly for those plants,this reduces that account to absurdity.

38 This stipulation might seem ad hoc. For sheer desire fulfilment does not seem ofgreat value. If you were to place my life in danger constantly, always rescuing me at thelast minute, you would indeed fulfil many strong desires of mine. But you would not makeme better off. (The example is from Rosalind Godlovitch. See Griffin, p. 15.) There is atleast one good reason for the stipulation, however. It rests on the distinction between'desired' and 'desirable' mentioned in the final section of the paper. Goods are desirable.They ought to be desired. And finding goods desirable, desiring them, is itself a furthergood. For if I desire what is in fact good, I am in touch with the world as it is. I haveunderstanding, and it is likely that this will feature as a separate substantive value on aplausible Objective List.

39 See Moore; Rashdall; also Sen; and the Organic Whole conception tentativelysuggested in Parfit, p. 500.

40 This problem was suggested to me by L. W. Sumner. See also Sumner's suggestion inGriffin, note 5, p. 318.

280 Roger Crisp

The beginning of a solution to this problem may be found byreflecting upon Sidgwick's emphasis on desire in his definitions of self-interest, and especially his distinction between 'desired' and 'desir-able':

It would seem then, that if we interpret the notion 'good' in relation to 'desire',we must identify it not with the actually desired, but rather with the desir-able:—meaning by 'desirable' not necessarily 'what ought to be desired' butwhat would be desired, with the strength proportioned to the degree ofdesirability, if it were judged attainable by voluntary action, supposing thedesirer to possess a perfect forecast, emotional as well as intellectual, of thestate of attainment or fruition.41

The weakness of Sidgwick's Informed-desire-based version of prac-tical rationality requires that we adopt his first suggestion, andinterpret the desirable as 'what ought to be desired'. But Sidgwick wasnot wrong in thinking that desire has a central role to play in thecorrect analysis of self-interest. For it is desire which supplies the linkbetween a conscious being and what goes on beyond consciousness. Wedesire, for instance, true friends, or posthumous good reputation. Andeven if we drop both the Experience and Fulfilment Requirements, wecan—through judicious application of the 'Ought implies can' Prin-ciple—still distinguish supra-experiential goods for human beings(such as having true friends) from what might appear to be goods forplants (such as adequate light). Goods are desirable, and ought to bedesired even if in fact they are not.42 It is only a being that can desire—a conscious being—for which it makes sense to say that something isgood, in that it is in that being's self-interest.

41 Sidgwick (1907), pp. 110-11.42 Robin Attfield has suggested that the 'goods' of plants may be desirable in the sense

that we, or some other conative beings, may desire those goods. But I cannot see why weshould find the 'goods' of plants desirable other than instrumentally with regard to ourown interests.