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Full Idea
The acquisition of pleasure for oneself rarely, if ever, presents itself as a duty, while the attainment of moral goodness habitually presents itself as a duty; this surely points to an infinity superiority of virtue over pleasure.
Gist of Idea
Virtue is superior to pleasure, as pleasure is never a duty, but goodness is
Source
W. David Ross (The Right and the Good [1930], §VI)
Book Ref
Ross,W.David: 'The Right and the Good' [OUP 1930], p.151
A Reaction
You have to be a fully paid-up intuitionist (like Ross) before you can assert such gloriously confident judgements about duty. Personal pleasure could become a duty if you had mistakenly denied it to yourself for a long time.
| 177 | If a person is good they will automatically become happy [Plato] |
| 5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| 2903 | A good human will be virtuous because they are happy [Nietzsche] |
| 5938 | Virtue is superior to pleasure, as pleasure is never a duty, but goodness is [Ross] |
| 5121 | Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman] |
| 4358 | Virtue may be neither sufficient nor necessary for eudaimonia [Hursthouse] |