(A studio with three chairs. A faint ticking can be heard, though there is no clock. Bentham sits upright in the left chair, his hands resting lightly on his knees. Pareto occupies the right chair, leaning slightly back, one leg crossed, fingers loosely interlaced. The third chair remains empty. Below it lies Schopenhauer's poodle. The ticking continues.)
I have always preferred clarity at the outset. If we are to converse, it would seem prudent to determine what the object of our inquiry shall be. Happiness might serve as an economical candidate.
Economical perhaps in ambition. Less so in measurement.
Measurement is precisely what rescues happiness from vagueness. The pleasures and pains of individuals — intensity, duration, certainty — these may be considered, added, compared. Without comparison, we drift.
Comparison within a person, yes. Between persons, I am less sanguine. You assume a commensurability that I do not see.
(lifting his head slightly, as if noticing a change in atmospheric pressure)
He used to speak of storms that were not in the sky.
If a policy increases the sum total of pleasure, it ought, in principle, to be preferred. The matter appears almost self-evident.
It appears self-evident only if one presumes that pleasures may be summed across individuals. I find that presumption metaphysical.
When he spoke of summing, he meant something different. Not adding. Dissolving.
And who, if I may inquire, is he?
My master. He had a way of looking at the world as if it were a single nerve, trembling in various disguises.
That is a thought a certain student of mine would have liked.
(quietly)
His buddy's German Shepherd once dreamt about me, they say.
I confess you are confusing me.
Am I? Or the dog?
You both do.
Perhaps there is some portion of history to which you do not have access.
History does not, in my experience, alter arithmetic.
I am afraid to say, the arithmetic in that case was rather terrible.
More pain than pleasure?
On a scale you would not recognize.
Ah. You are now involving scales.
(suddenly alert)
He does, doesn't he?
In my work I have shown that it is unnecessary to invoke cardinal scales for the construction of the contract curve.
The contract curve?
A concept developed by one of your successors, Sir Jeremy. A curve on which no one may gain without another losing.
He always said that, deep down, there is no other.
If there is no other, the calculus becomes very simple.
I agree with that. But it is a fiction.
(The poodle gives a low growl.)
But perhaps one worth entertaining.
He thought we were all one. I thought we were two.
Did he ever put you on a leash?
I do not remember.
I presume he did. He was your master, after all.
(The poodle pretends not to have heard.)
He appears to have fallen asleep now.
Almost cute.
So tell me now — who chooses the point on your contract curve? A master?
Markets do.
I think you are evading the core of the question. I can imagine how markets that were not impeded might generate a kind of equilibrium that selects a point on what you call the contract curve. But again, we are speaking of a fiction, I think.
If not markets, then elites.
To me this sounds dark.
(opening one eye)
To me as well.
You appear to have formed a coalition.
A coalition for taking sums of the good and the bad.
(The poodle lifts his head.)
Ah, your calculus again which requires cardinality and comparison. And which I tried to abolish.
A cardinal truth, my friend, is that if a choice must be made, it ought to be made well.
It is not so easy as you think, even if we were able to take your sums. For, imagine a man who derives such pleasure from possession — so much more pleasure from the last crumb than anyone else would gain from it — that your arithmetic favours giving him everything.
Human nature does not in fact operate in this fashion. Pleasures saturate. The hungry man values bread more than the full one.
You are describing the usual case.
It is the only case that bears on policy.
You are legislating for the world as you wish it to be.
The general case is sufficient for general principles.
And yet there are men who defy the ordinary. Men for whom the appetite does not saturate. For whom each additional possession yields more pleasure than the last. Their utility curve does not bend. It climbs.
(getting on his feet)
My master taught renunciation.
(Both men look baffled at the poodle.)
(turning to Pareto)
The men you entertain would be veritable monsters. So, pray, tell me, was your student of that kind?
Some have said so. His appetites were considerable. Not for food — his stomach was never reliable — but elsewhere his pleasures were without bounds.
And your student’s chum — was he like that as well?
(The poodle barks.)
Not quite. He was much more terrible. I fear he was inspired by my student though.
And it was you who taught your student. I remain in something of a fog about what transpired later, but whatever did happen, it sounds to me as though it might have been your responsibility.
Ideas are not leashes.
(The poodle barks again.)
I liked strolling freely next to him.
(The ticking stops.)