Like ethics of duty, which clarify the meaning of duty without establishing its value, ethics of happiness may show that morality brings happiness, yet fail to demonstrate the value of human happiness itself.
The belief that human existence and happiness have intrinsic value may well be true, but it cannot be taken as a given: it is precisely what evil calls into question, and must therefore be conclusively proven if such opposition is to be answered. To accept it as self-evident is not only to embrace an anthropocentric view in which humanity never questions the value of its own existence and regards itself as the pinnacle of Creation; it is also, and more importantly, to overlook what is genuinely required to refute immoralism.
Ethics of happiness thus fail to answer the question of morality's foundation, since these doctrines are concerned with different questions altogether—'How can happiness be achieved?' and 'What is truly useful?'—and rely on concepts such as 'end' and 'desirable', when the focus should be on 'value'.
It appears, then, that we must look elsewhere for an answer to our question. A hypothesis presents itself: to discover the foundation of morality, should we not conduct a 'genealogy of morality'—that is, uncover its origin? This is the hypothesis we will now examine.