John Laird

Other People's Pleasures and One's Own: an Ethical Discussion

The opinion that I want to discuss in this essay is fairly commonly although not universally held among moralists. It is the opinion that there is never a moral duty to try to promote ones own pleasure for the sake of that pleasure although, contrariwise, there is often a moral duty to try to promote the pleasure of others for the sake of that pleasure. I cannot myself assent to the view, and I want to explain why I cannot; but I allow that the opposition I have to face is formidable. Indeed there are authors like Meinong who would make degree of self-sacrifice the standard of morality.

Contemporary British Realism

Anyone who thinks, for example, of “realism,” “sur-realism,” and the like in matters of art, or of the vulgar and journalistic vagueness in the use of the adjective “realistic,” may be prepared for the discovery that in philosophy also the term “realist” is either uncomfortably fluid or else acquires technical senses that are rather easily blurred. Our lexicographers tell us that, in its most general sense, “realism” indicates fidelity to what is real, particularly in the representation of (usually sordid) matters of fact, and that in philosophy it is an antithetic term, asserting the contrary either of