[p. 254]
|254| There can therefore be a quite raw, coarse eudaemonism, but just as well a better one; for good actions as well as evil ones can be grounded on this principle.
§ 37
This correspondence, as pleasure, is a subjective feeling and something contingent, which can attach itself to this or that drive and its object and in which I am purpose for myself only as a natural being and only as an individual.
Explanation. Pleasure is something subjective and relates merely to me as a particular. It is not the objective, the universal, the element of understanding in it. It is therefore no measure or rule by which a matter is judged or adjudicated. When I say that it pleases me just so, or appeal to my pleasure, I merely express that the matter holds good for me in this way, and have thereby sublated the relation of understanding with others. It is contingent according to its content, because it can attach itself to this or that object, and because the content is not what matters, it is something formal. According to its external existence, too, pleasure is contingent, [because it is contingent] to find the circumstances present. The means which I need for it are something external and do not depend on me. Secondly, the existence which I have brought about through the means must, inasmuch as it is to give me pleasure, become for me, come to me. But this is what is contingent. The consequences of what I do do not, for that reason, return to me. I do not necessarily have the enjoyment of them. – Pleasure thus springs from two kinds of circumstances: first, from an existence which one must find present, which depends wholly on fortune; and second, from one which I myself produce. This existence, as the effect of my deed, does indeed depend on my will, but only the action as such belongs to me; the success, on the other hand, need not necessarily return to me, consequently
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