Society And its Purpose
Book 2 - The End of Society
CHAPTER 3
Continuation — Human good is not isolated pleasure but contentment
190. What has been said requires us to distinguish between the pleasures we enjoy and contentment of spirit. This distinction is very important for eudaimonological science. All our faculties have their own particular pleasures, just as they all have their development and perfection; contentment, however, pertains only to our whole human nature. We can have many pleasures but only be simply content. We are either content or not with our state; there is no middle term.
Objects which directly or indirectly cause pleasure are called goods. Thus possessions are called good because they are things used by us either to give us pleasure, or to obtain what can give us pleasure — in `pleasure’ I include the satisfaction of any need whatsoever and the cessation of pain.
191. In human happiness, therefore, to which every human association tends and must tend, three things have to be carefully distinguished: pleasures, contentment and goods. It would be a great mistake to take one for the other; true human good is not found in pleasures nor in goods but in contentment [App., no. 4].
192. We must note here that the error which human beings make in seeking happiness does not lie in choosing something different from contentment as the aim of their activity. We all seek contentment and cannot do otherwise; our nature itself directs us to do so. People desire to possess a great number of goods and are always seeking new pleasures precisely because they hope to find contentment in the good things they accumulate and in the pleasures they enjoy. If they do not find it, their error does not consist in not wanting it or not looking for it, but in looking for it where it is not, in choosing the wrong means for obtaining it, and finally in their ignorance of the nature and real conditions of the very contentment they seek.
This confirms what we have said: true human good, which lies in the contentment of human nature, is the essential de jure and de facto end of society. Society is always the action of individual, associated human beings who, in their actions, can only look ultimately for the contentment of their nature. If they seem to be looking for something other than this, they do so because they think it a means of contentment. Thus, the intention ultimately of all who associate (an intention determined by nature) can only terminate by means of their association in the procurement of what placates and contents them, or at least contributes to their appeasement and contentment.
193. From these simple but very solid truths we draw the following conclusions:
1.All societies which, instead of drawing people to true contentment, distance them from it, contradict the will of all their members, even when they erroneously form and promote the societies.
2.When the members’ will, even though apparently unanimous, is directed to something clearly contrary to human contentment, due to error or the heat of passion, it is not truly social and cannot constitute any law.
194. This last consequence is of the greatest importance. It means that even in democratic States governed by the principle that the people is sovereign and their will constitutes the law, the wisest politicians do not consider themselves obliged to obey, but to resist the unpredictable caprices of the masses. They accept as true law of their legislator-people only the constant, natural will tending to true social good, because no people truly and continually desires evil for itself.(59)
195. All that we have said can be illustrated by the undeniable authority of Alexander Hamilton, one of the most influential contributors to the Constitution of the United States of America. The opinions of this famous man relative to our discussion can be read in The Federalist, the newspaper published in America by three great men(60) when the project for the federal Constitution of the United States was still before the people. I think it valuable to quote a rather long passage from this newspaper(61) which will greatly help to clarify the matter:
I know there are those who think that the executive power could not be commended more than when it bends slavishly to the desires of the people and the legislature. It seems to me however that they have crude ideas about the object of all government and the means for obtaining public prosperity. When public opinion has been formed by reason and has matured (we should carefully note this condition laid down by Hamilton for the authority of the people’s will), it guides the conduct of those to whom the public entrust their affairs. The result is the establishment of a republican constitution. But republican principles do not require us to be moved by every little wind of popular passion, nor eagerly obey every passing impulse given to the masses by clever men who praise the prejudices of the masses in order to betray the interests of the masses. Generally speaking, it is true that the people desire only the public good. However they are often mistaken in their search for it. If someone told them that they were always a sound judge of the means for national prosperity, their good sense would cause them to despise such adulation. They know only too well by experience that they are sometimes mistaken. In fact they marvel that they are not mistaken more often, because they are relentlessly subjected to the subtleties of parasites and sycophants; they are ensnared continuously by ambitious people whose only support is their ambition; they are daily deceived by the clever manoeuvres of people who undeservingly have their confidence, or by those who seek their trust rather than make themselves worthy of it. When the people’s real interests are in opposition to their desires, those responsible for these interests have the duty to combat the error of which the people are the victim, and give them time to consider and rethink the matter in cold blood. A nation saved in this way from the fatal consequences of its own errors has on more than one occasion been happy to erect monuments to those who in serving the nation have exposed themselves, with generosity and courage, to its displeasure. |
196. This very true teaching depends entirely on the principle I have established, namely, that the will of a society or of its members is only apparent, not real, every time it fails to tend to social good, that is, more generally speaking, to true human good and contentment.
Notes
(59) Careful reflection on this kind of conduct of eminently virtuous and wise people in democratic States clearly indicates how completely contrary to nature it is to consider human beings as politically equal. It must always remain true that in every form of government without exception there are individuals who de jure and de facto modify the desires of the popular majority.
(60) John Jay, Hamilton and Madison.
(61) No. 71.