Bentham's Concept of Pleasure: Its Relation to Fictitious Terms

Abstract

Although much of Bentham's Utilitarianism has been dissected and explained, little or nothing has been recorded concerning the semantic status of Bentham's concept of pleasure, or of the relationship, for Bentham, between this concept and the concept of good. To my knowledge, only two books, John Wisdom's Interpretation and Analysis in Relation to Bentham's Theory of Definition, and C. K. Ogden's Bentham's Theory of Fictions, have dealt extensively with Bentham's theory of language. However, neither of these has included a study of the concept of pleasure. Contrariwise, those who have made some effort to interpret Bentham's concept of pleasure have failed either to notice or to discuss important implications to be drawn from his theory of language as it applies to the concept of pleasure.' Most observations in the philosophical literature about Bentham's view of pleasure and good give no indication whether or not Bentham believed that the concept of pleasure and the concept of good are identical. G. E. Moore, who, in his Principia Ethica, criticizes Benthanm for having committed the naturalistic fallacy, does not specifically claim that Bentham identified good with pleasure. Yet, I am inclined to believe that, since Moore, and perhaps because of Moore, philosophers have thought that Bentham did make this identification. One instance of this is to be found in the writings of Sidney Zink, who, in discussing Moore, observes: Moore's contention is that . . . 'good' cannot be just another symbol for 'pleasure' or for 'what we desire to desire', otherwise the statement 'Good is pleasure' would be equivalent to 'Pleasure is pleasure', and the question 'Is good pleasure?' would be equivalent to 'Is pleasure pleasure?' Now one might in reply claim, as Bentham surely would have claimed, that the statement