n ethical view of preference parallel with the economic logic above
contested. "The act which is right in that it promotes one interest, is,
by the same principle," writes R. B. Perry, "wrong in that it injures
another interest. There is no contradiction in this fact ... simply
because it is possible for the same thing to possess several relations,
the question of their compatibility or incompatibility being in each
case a question of empirical fact. Now ... an act ... may be doubly
right in that it conduces to the fulfillment of two interests. Hence
arises the conception of comparative goodness. If the fulfillment of one
interest is good, the fulfillment of two is better; and the fulfillment
of all interests is best.... Morality, then, is _such performance as
under the circumstances, and in view of all the interests affected,
conduces to most goodness_. In other words, that act is morally right
which is most right." (_Present Philosophical Tendencies_, p. 334. Cf.
also _The Moral Economy_). It is evident that constructive change in the
underlying system (or aggregate?) of the agent's interests gets no
recognition here as a matter of moral concern or as a fact of the
agent's moral experience. Thus Perry understands the meaning of freedom
to lie in the fact that "_interests operate_," i.e., that interests
exist as a certain class of operative factors in the universe along with
factors of _other_ sorts. "I can and do, within limits, _act as I will_.
Action, in other words, is governed by desires and intentions." (pp. 342
ff.). The cosmical heroics of Bertrand Russell are thus not quite the
last word in Ethics (p. 346). Nevertheless, the "free man," in Perry's
view, apparently must get on with the interests that once for all
initially defined him as a "moral constant" (p. 343).

[54] In a recent interesting discussion of "Self-interest" (T. N.
Carver, _Essays in Social Justice_, 1915, Chap. III) occurs the
following: "We may conclude ... that even after we eliminate from our
consideration all other beings than self, there is yet a possible
distinction between one's present and one's future self. It is always,
of course, the present self which esteems or appreciates all interests
whether they be present or future. And the present self estimates or
appreciates present interests somewhat more highly than it does future
interests. In this respect the present self appreciates the interests of
the future self according to a law q