themselves
and as means to something else; and we speak of a thing as absolutely
final, if it is always desired in itself and never as a means to something
else.

It seems that happiness preeminently answers to this description,
as we always desire happiness for its own sake, and never as a means
to something else, whereas we desire honour, pleasure, intellect, and
every virtue, partly for their own sakes,... but partly also as being
means to happiness, because we suppose they will prove the instruments
of happiness. Happiness, on the other hand, nobody desires
for the sake of these things, nor indeed as a means to anything else
at all.[1]

[Footnote 1: Aristotle: _loc. cit._, pp. 13-14.]

Happiness may, as Aristotle observes, be differently conceived
by different people. To some it may mean a life of
sensual enjoyment; to some men a life of money-making.
But it is the attainment of _complete_ satisfaction and
self-realization by the individual that ethical theories should
promote; for such self-realization constitutes happiness. It is
sufficient here to point out that all so-called "teleological"
or "relativistic" moralities, insist that the morality of an
action is not determinable _a priori_, or absolutely. They are
_relativistic_ in the sense that they insist on taking into account
the specific circumstances of action in the determination of its
moral value. They are _teleological_ in that they insist on measuring
the moral value of an action in terms of its consequences
in human well-being or happiness, however those be conceived.
To revert to the illustration used in connection with the discussion
of Absolutism, to lie in order to save a life would, on
this basis, be construed as good rather than evil.

UTILITARIANISM. One of the classic statements of relativistic
and teleological morality is Utilitarianism. According to the
Utilitarians the criterion of the worth of a deed was to be
found in an estimation of the relative pleasures and pains produced
by it. The view is thus stated by John Stuart Mill:

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or
the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,
and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of
pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the
theory,