In the Introduction it was claimed that this Master Syllogism unifies James's promethean pragmatism.

1. We are always morally obligated to act so as to maximize desire–satisfaction over desire–dissatisfaction.

2. Belief is an action.

3. Therefore, we are always morally obligated to believe in a manner that maximizes desire–satisfaction over desire–dissatisfaction.

Given the quest of James's promethean pragmatism to have it all, or at least as much of it as we mortals can realistically hope to have, it is understandable that he would be committed to premise 1, because having it all requires that all of our many selves have as many of their desires satisfied as is possible. It is the purpose of this chapter to locate this premise in James's text and explore some of the problems that it occasions.

James's only published effort to develop an ethical theory is in his 1891 essay on “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” which was reprinted six years later in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. It addresses in turn three different questions concerning the origin of our ethical intuitions, the meaning and status of ethical terms, and the casuistic rule for determining our moral duty in specific cases. His answer to the first question is that our moral intuitions, along with our esthetic ones, are determined by innate structures of our brain that resulted from chance mutations in the distant past that proved beneficial and took hold.