Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
III: General Remarks on Morality§291 How false is the supposition that an action must depend upon what has preceded it in consciousness! And morality has been measured in the light of this supposition, as also criminality —
The value of an action must be judged by its consequences, say the utilitarians: to measure it according to its origin involves the impossibility of knowing that origin.
But do we know its consequences? Five steps ahead, perhaps. Who can tell what an action provokes and sets in motion? As a stimulus? As the spark which causes an explosion? Utilitarians are naive –. Also, we would first of all have to know what is useful; here also they can only see five steps ahead -—. They have no notion of the great economy which cannot do without evil.
We do not know the origin or the consequences: has an action, then, any value?
We have yet the action itself to consider: the states of consciousness that accompany it, the yea or nay which follows upon its performance: does the value of an action lie in the subjective states which accompany it? (In that case, the value of music would be measured according to the pleasure or displeasure which it occasions in us — which it gives to the composer –). Obviously feelings of value must accompany it, a sensation of power, restraint, or impotence for instance, freedom or ease. Or, putting the question differently: could the value of an action be reduced to physiological terms? Could it be the expression of completely free or constrained life? Maybe its biological value is expressed in this way -—.
If therefore an action can be judged neither in the light of its origin, nor its consequences, nor its epiphenomena, then its value must be “x”, unknown -—