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1819 Oct. 19
Not Paul
Consult
Ch. Paul’s Doctrine
Doctrine Asceticism
§. Utility, dictates as to Pleasure
1. Insert before the improper mention of the proper sense of purity.
2. Add that the use of the word impurity in the sense in which moral is inferred
from physical is an act of tyranny.
3. [...?] hypocrites. Hypocrites 1. Religious. 2. Philosophical or moral.
2. As to quality, considered apart from quantity, it is in the eye of reason a
matter of perfect /the most entire/ indifference. For the sake of having it or not
having it of such or such a quality, for what reasons should any the least particle
/portion/ of the attainable quantity be given up.
To the head /consideration/ of quality belongs that of the
source from which it is derived—the instrument or instruments, interior or exterior
to the bodily or mental frame of the individual in question by which (to change the
metaphor) it is reaped.
By the ascetic principle—and this is one of the delusions by which it operates—
pleasure being [taken for] the subject the words pure and impure and pure are in use
to be employed for the designation of two opposite attributes of which it is regarded
as susceptible. In this case the groundwork of the idea is impurity alias turpitude
in the physical sense: and from the circumstance of the physical disgust which in
this case will in the instance of a number of persons more or less considerable have
place, impurity or /and/ turpitude in /on the part of/ the act by which the physical
impurity or turpitude is produced is inferred. and again from this imaginary moral
turpitude, the existence of a sort of demand for punishment to be employed either for
the torment of the offender or for the prevention of the offence, or both.
[Now /In this case/ then in plain language what is the logic that is at the bottom
of this rhetoric. It is this.]
In the shape of disgust or some other shape I for my part should feel pain were I to
perform this act; therefore if you to whom it would not be productive not of pain but
of pleasure, were to perform it you ought to be made to suffer pain under the name of
punishment.
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Title: [31 Aug 1811 1 Sept Jug. Util.]Description: 31 Aug 1811 1 Sept Jug. Util. 7 B.II. Ch.3 7 The idea that a man is not to chose his own pleasures but that others are to chose them for him is the height of tyranny. Given this he is not to do any thing for himself. Bounaparte is a less pernicious tyrant. For this folly and this presumption, and this mischievousness a sort of mask is made /by/ out of the ambiguous import of such words as pure and impure purity and impurity, clean and unclean, cleanness and uncleanness: and on no better or other ground than the identity of denomination, and the weak and distant analogy by /in/ which that identity /took its use/ was produced, a /psychological/ moral quality is inferred from the physical. Such or such an act /a mark/ where it is not accompanied with pleasure is disgusting to sense, and on this account may then may with propriety be /made/ termed unclean and impure. Be it so: for those /in that case/ being by the supposition not accompanied with preponderant pleasure, it has for its accompaniment pain—for this is the genus[?] under which the slightest imaginable as well as the most afflictive possible sensation of the disagreeable kind may be ranked—/in the way of sensation/ it has for its accompaniment pain and nothing else. But in the other case /case in question/. It is then from its being impure and unclean in the physical sense that its being impure and unclean in the psychological, the moral sense is inferred? Oh no: be it ever so impure and unclean in the physical sense no such attribute /quality/ as uncleanness or impurity will be attributed /ascribed/ to it in the moral, in the religious, sense, unless it be considered as accompanied with pleasure. In the pleasure consists the impurity and thence with it the blame the ground for censure /cause the supposed/. 9. Mask made for this folly and tyranny out of the ambiguity of pure, impure, clean,uncleanness, unclean on no better ground than identity of denomination, with the distant analogy by which it has been produced, a psychologico-moral quality in inferred from the physical. 10 When not accompanied with preponderant pleasure, such or such an act is accompanied with disgust, i.e. with pain. Is it in that case that by the ascetic it is termed impure unclear? No: add the pleasure then only is it impure unclean. Of the pleasure alone is formed the ground for censure.
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Title: [1817 Nov r 19. Not Paul II]Description: 1817 Nov r 19. Not Paul II. Doctrine Ch. Asceticism §.3. promoted by misappellation §.3. — how promoted by inapposite nomenclature—by the word impurity improperly applied Applied to pleasure and pain, the attributes pure and purity, with their opposites impure and impurity have in one sense a meaning which is at once determinate and rational. This sense is that in which a pleasure is considered as pure in so far as it is unattended with a feeling or feelings of the opposite description viz. pain or pains /nature: viz. that of pain/: and in which in like manner a pain is considered as pure in so far as it is unattended by a feeling or feelings of the opposite description /nature/ viz. a pleasure or pleasures /that of pleasure/. In this sense and in this alone are they employed by Bentham, in all his several works. See Introd. to the principles of Morals and Legislation: Traités de Legislation penale et civile par Dumont: Springs of Action Table, &c. Applied to pleasure of pain in any other sense they have not either of them any determinate meaning: the use of them has it source /root/ in illusion, and illusion in proportion to the influence exercised by the propositions /discourses/ in which they are employed is the result. In this indeterminate sense [though with equal propriety they might be either] scarcely are they to be seen applied to pain: scarcely applied otherwise than to pleasure. Applied /On the occasion of the application made of them/ to pleasure, from a sort /the idea/ of physical impurity, real or imaginary, a moral species of moral impurity is imagined and ascribed to it: and from the moral impurity thus groundlessly ascribed to it a pretence is made for endeavouring to subject to odium and even if possible to punishment every person who shall have been or have sought to be a partaker of it: and
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Title: [1817 Nov r 1817 Not Paul II]Description: 1817 Nov r 1817 Not Paul II. Doctrine Ch. Asceticism §.3. promoted by misappellation and thus out of an illusion of the imagination produced by two mutually incongruous imports associated together by unity of denomination has been produced an illusory and pernicious system of morals /Ethics/ or to use Bentham’s more determinate appellative of deontology. If in the course of the operation by which the pleasure is obtained any thing of physical impurity is produced, it may or may not have for its effect a diminution in the value of such pleasure: the pleasure may thereby in a greater or less degree have been rendered by it impure, i.e. attended with that sort of present uneasiness which is apt to be the result of physical impurity, or with disease at some future period when it has place in a certain degree of excess. But so long as after allowance made for any such uneasiness or any such disease there remains any the least balance on the side of pleasure, from no such physical impurity can any sufficient reason for foregoing it be derived. In how high a degree so ever the quality of physical impurity may happen to belong to the pleasure in question, to regard moral impurity in any degree as attaching /belonging/ to it upon that account is a mere abuse of terms /words/—is an abuse of words an abuse, and in /in the/ proportion of /to/ the value of the mass of pleasure by which mankind in general have by these means been deprived or made to deprive themselves, a mischievous one.
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