A Pirot's Life

Not A Happy One?
We don't think so!

by J. L. Speranza
for the Grice Club, etc.

Grice considers we should have or keep our 'pirots' happy. He proposes seven requirements ("Call them _commands_. I dislike the word, but when it comes to happiness, I don't").

A pirot is happy iff his life so far bears the following seven desiderata. His life displays a fairly undimissable degree of


1. FEASIBILITY.

The system of ends adopted by any given pirot at any given time should be workable (by the pirot, that is)

2. AUTOMONY.

The less reliant the pirot's system of ends is on ends the ability of which is not within the pirot's control the more securely stable it will in general be.

3. HARMONY or COMPATIBILITY OF COMPONENT ENDS.

With respect to competing ends, the pirot finds an acceptable balance in the degrees of realisation to be expected for each end.

4. COMPREHENSIVENESS.

The set of the pirot's goals has a capacity to yield answers to those practical questions which should be decided in the light of the pirot's more general principles, if he has any.

5. SUPPORTIVENESS OF COMPONENT ENDS:

The stability of the pirot's system will be increased if the pursuit of some ends enhances the pursuit of others.

6. SIMPLICITY.

The system's dependence is, for the pirot, on how easy it it to determine
its deliverances on particular questions.

7. More importantly, AGREEABLENESS:

A system the operation of which is specially agreeable _for the pirot_ would be stable vis a vis rival systems.

-- Grice concludes, "In the light of the afore-indicated reflections, perhaps it would not be too bold to assume that after all, _pigs_ (or pirots qua pigs) are perhaps the happiest of the lot."

Etc.