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Show Chapter III. The Utility-Maximizing Model of Rationality: Informal Interpretations 120 rational agent performs actions that multiply and intensify these states as fully as possible. Thus particular final as well as instrumental ends are understood as instrumental to the further, ultimate end of maximizing utility. The stipulation of happiness or desire-satisfaction as the ultimate end does not in all cases imply that all of an agent's particular ends must be instrumental to it. Instead, some might be constitutive of it, and so could be 27 identifiable final ends in their own right. But in utility theory, there is an implicit distinction between structure and intention that requires this inference. Let a, b, c, ... be structurally constitutive of X if a, b, c, ... are in fact always found together, and together constitute X. Let a, b, or c, ... be structurally instrumental to X if X is a causally or conceptually distinct consequence of a, b, or c; and not vice versa. Let a, b, and c be intentionally constitutive of X if to intend, desire, or believe a, b, c, ... is to intend, desire or believe X. And finally, let a, b, or c be intentionally instrumental to X if one intends, desires or believes a, b, or c only if one believes that a, b, or c results in X. Now it may be that the achievement of certain ends is inextricably linked with a state of happiness or desire-satisfaction, in that their achievement is always in fact accompanied by it. Experiencing deep and satisfying friendships, or fulfilling work, or a work of art, may have this character, whereas driving a hard bargain, having a well-paying job, or listening to an edifying lecture may not. Ends that are inextricably linked with the experience of happiness or desire-satisfaction are, to be sure, structurally constitutive of 28 those mental states. Nevertheless if their only intentional function is to engender these states; if one consciously works to achieve these ends only if and because they result in these states, and not for any other reasons (such as that they are intrinsically valuable), then they are intentionally instrumental to them. And this is the role that classical utility theory assigns to all such ends. They are all instrumental to the maximization of utility, understood as happiness, pleasure, or desire-satisfaction. Hence classical utility theory 27 See W. F. R. Hardie's distinction between inclusive and dominant ends in "The Final Good in Aristotle's Ethics," Philosophy XL (l965), 277-295. 28 I take Sidgwick to be denying this point when he says that "if I in thought distinguish any feeling from all its conditions and concomitants - and also from all its effects on the subsequent feelings of the same individual or of others - and contemplate it merely as the transient feeling of a single subject; it seems to me impossible to find in it any other preferable quality than that which we call its pleasantness, the degree of which is only cognizable directly by the sentient individual." (The Methods of Ethics, op. cit. Note 24, Book II, Chapter II, Section 2, p. 128). © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
