the national
_summum bonum_, deem the most solemn treaties that might impede it to be
obstacles which it is obligatory on a patriot to set aside? Will not the
effects of any given cause vary with the changes in the circumstances in
which the cause acts? May it not easily happen that the direct effect of
some private crime shall be to augment, instead of to diminish the total
happiness of all the persons affected by it? And is it not, then,
conceivable that a public crime, provided it be of sufficient magnitude,
may more than counterpoise, by the good it is calculated to do, all the
harm that all crimes of the same description either have done or are
likely to do hereafter? It is idle to reply that such a comparison
between public good and evil must needs be mistaken: that the harm, for
instance, which violation of treaties does to mankind by sapping the
foundations of international confidence, rendering impossible
international co-operation, and bringing the very name of international
morality into contempt, is infinitely beyond any good it can do in the
shape of national aggrandisement. Whether this be so or not is matter of
opinion, on which every one may fairly insist on forming his own, and if
that opinion be in the negative, a utilitarian agent, in Prince
Bismarck's circumstances, would be bound in duty to imitate Prince
Bismarck's high-handed policy. In all circumstances of international
import, in all cases bearing upon the general interests of society, a
Utilitarian, after deciding according to his lights which of the various
courses open to him would best promote the general welfare, either
immediately by its direct effects, or subsequently and indirectly by the
example it would set, would be bound in duty to adopt that course. That
course, however wrong it might have appeared in all previous cases,
would now become right, as being apparently the one most conducive to
the future welfare of mankind. Utilitarianism's standard of morality
thus turns out to be, not any fixed and definite notion of expediency,
but one liable to change with every change in individual judgment. Its
boasted criterion of the right or wrong of an action is the best
conjecture which the agent, with or without extrinsic advice, is able to
form of the future consequences of the action. Utilitarian law, in
short, resolves itself into this--that every man shall be a law unto
himself. Of course no Utilitarians will acknowledge this to be their