Arguments Agains Mills Theory People Only Do Things for Happiness
Author: Dale Due east. Miller
Category: Ideals,Historical Philosophy
Wordcount: 994
One important question in ideals is what makes people's lives become well for them. Philosophers have proposed various theories almost what things in and of themselves make people ameliorate off, i.east., theories of "well-being."
Many such theories say that pleasurable experiences are at least office of what makes our lives go well. Only practise some types of pleasure contribute more to our well-being than others?
The xixth-century philosopher John Stuart Factory (1806–73) answers "yes." This word explains why.
i. Mill's Hedonism
Mill contends that pleasure is non simply ane matter that contributes to our well-being, it's the only thing. Similarly, merely pain makes united states of america worse off. Manufactory thinks that a person'south life goes well for her just insofar every bit she is happy.
Mill defines "happiness" as pleasance and liberty from pain. In his Utilitarianism, he describes the best life as "an existence exempt as far as possible from hurting, and as rich as possible in enjoyments."[1] This theory of well-being is called "hedonism."[2]
Mill's instance for hedonism comes in Ch. 4 of Utilitarianism, in his so-called "proof of the principle of utility."[3] At that place he contends that "the sole bear witness … that anything is desirable, is that people exercise actually desire it."[4] Because pleasance is the just thing that we desire for its own sake, Manufacturing plant argues, we can know that it'south uniquely valuable.
2. Bentham and Pushpin
An earlier commonsensical philosopher, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), too subscribes to hedonism.[5] Withal, his hedonism differs significantly from Manufactory'south.
For Bentham, how much a pleasurable feel adds to our happiness is strictly a thing of how much pleasure information technology contains. This in plow depends on the intensity of the pleasure and how long information technology lasts. So two factors, intensity and duration, determine a pleasurable experience's value.
Bentham sees the source of pleasure equally irrelevant to its value. He compares reading poetry with playing the mindless game "push-pin."[6] As Mill summarizes Bentham's conclusion, "quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good equally poetry."[7]
3. "Qualitative" Hedonism: A Plurality of Pleasures
While Bentham may believe that pleasure is a unmarried feeling that's present in all pleasurable experiences. In contrast, Manufacturing plant believes that there are distinct varieties of pleasures; a person may enjoy both reading poesy and running, but the pleasures these activities yield can have entirely different "feels."
It's therefore possible that some "kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others."[8] Mill believes that some are; certain qualitatively superior pleasures add together more to our happiness than an equal or even greater quantity of others. For Mill, therefore, the value of a pleasurable experience depends on three factors: intensity, duration, and (unlike Bentham) quality.
4. The Competent Judges Test
How practise we compare the quality of pleasures? Mill says that we must consult people who have enjoyed both. Only they are competent to make this comparison. If they unequivocally desire one more than strongly, then it's of higher quality:
Of 2 pleasures, if there be i to which all or almost all who have feel of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.[nine]
Notation the continuity with Mill's "proof": the sole evidence that ane pleasance is more desirable is that people exercise actually want it more than strongly.
Mill believes that the results of this test are apparent. While virtually anybody has experiences of bodily pleasures that we share with animals, merely some people are sufficiently mentally cultivated to enjoy the distinctly man "pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments" to whatsoever extent.[x] Those who are, he claims, decidedly prefer them:
At present it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of affectionate and enjoying, both, practice give a nigh marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties.[11]
This lets Mill answer the objection that hedonists would approve of a person's living a life "worthy only of swine," every bit long every bit she enjoyed it.[12] His qualitative hedonism can explain why, although such a life would have some value (since lower-quality pleasures accept some value), she'd be far happier and much meliorate off were her life rich in higher-quality pleasures.[13]
One practical result of Mill'southward view is the importance of providing an education sufficient for enjoying higher-quality pleasures to everyone. People lacking such preparation may not appreciate why these pleasures are superior, only they're not competent judges:
It is better to exist a human being dissatisfied than a hog satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a unlike opinion, it is because they simply know their own side of the question.[14]
5. Unanswered Questions
Some important questions about Manufacturing plant'due south views do not receive clear answers. One is whether there are qualitative differences betwixt pains. The other is just how much more valuable than bodily pleasures higher-quality pleasures are. Conspicuously he considers them significantly more valuable; controversially, some scholars believe that he considers them infinitely more valuable.[15]
six. Determination: Is Manufactory's Qualitative Hedonism Plausible?
Mill may seem to underrate the value of bodily pleasures. His view could seem to entail that we should all spend as much time as possible on "rarified" activities similar museum visits and opera, and none on "exciting" pursuits like sports or sexual practice.
However, people with developed faculties can find higher-quality pleasure in various activities and combined with other pleasures. Someone who knows football game well may derive intellectual and artful pleasance from it, along with less refined pleasure in the collisions. Sex tin be both emotionally fulfilling and physically pleasurable. Manufacturing plant suggests that the best lives combine quiet and excitement.[xvi]
It too bears mentioning that Mill had a somewhat unusual life, starting with a childhood that involved little if any play. And so he may non have been entirely competent to approximate some bodily pleasures himself.[17]
Notes
[i] Factory 1969b, 214.
[2] The give-and-take hedonism comes from the Greek discussion hēdonē ("pleasure").
[3] For an introduction to this statement see my Mill's Proof of the Principle of Utility.
[iv] Manufacturing plant 1969b, 234.
[5] In its simplest class, utilitarianism is the moral theory that says that actions are right if they would maximize the total amount of happiness in the world in the long run; otherwise, they're wrong. Utilitarianism is a version of the type of moral theory called consequentialism. For an introduction to that type of theory, see Shane Gronholz's Consequentialism.
[6] For a description see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push button-pin_(game).
[seven] Mill 1969a, 113.
[viii] Mill 1969b, 211.
[9] Mill 1969b, 211. Annotation that Mill admits that even people "with a full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority" of higher-quality pleasures sometimes give in to the temptation to choose lower-quality pleasure instead (Manufacturing plant 1969b, 212). Those who do so as well oft may lose the power to enjoy the higher quality pleasures altogether, since "Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed" (Mill 1969b, 213).
[10] Manufactory 1969b, 211.
[11] Mill 1969b, 211. Note that Mill'southward requiring that people really have enjoyed the pleasance in question, not merely that they've participated in the activity that can potentially give rising to the pleasure. Forcing someone who has not learned to appreciate classical music to sit down through a symphony doesn't make them a competent guess of the aesthetic pleasance that fans of the symphony derive from it. Arguably they're not acquainted with the pleasure at all, fifty-fifty if they're acquainted with the symphony, but they certainly aren't capable of affectionate and enjoying it.
[12] Mill 1969b, 210.
[13] Mill suggests that even before utilitarians similar Bentham were able to answer this objection adequately without introducing the notion of qualitative distinctions between pleasures. They could say, for instance, that we can savour intellectual and aesthetic pleasures for much longer than actual ones, and without the same painful aftereffects (e.g., hangovers) (Mill 1969b, 211). Simply by invoking this notion Mill is able to make an even more than powerful answer.
[14] Mill 1969b, 212. In virtue of his belief that the employment of our distinctly human being faculties produces superior pleasures, Manufactory's hedonistic agreement of happiness bears some resemblance to the Greek philosopher Aristotle's decidedly non-hedonistic understanding (Aristotle 1999, 1–eighteen). While Mill rarely acknowledges Aristotle as an influence, this is one of several echoes of Aristotle's thought in his.
[xv] E.grand., Riley 2003. For a contrasting interpretation, see Miller 2010, 58–nine. Function of what'due south at effect here is how to read the sentence "If i of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they adopt it, even though knowing information technology to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for whatsoever quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, then far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small business relationship" (Factory 1969b, 211). Points of disagreement include 1) Whether Mill believes that the 'if' clause of this sentence is satisfied every fourth dimension that one pleasure is of higher quality than another, or only in certain cases where the qualitative difference is particularly great, ii) Whether to "resign" the higher quality pleasure means to lose the power to enjoy the pleasance altogether or merely to give up only a small amount of it, e.one thousand., 5 minute'due south worth, and 3) What Mill means by "of pocket-sized account."
[16] Manufactory 1969b, 215. Mill might consider it a mistake for a person ever to choose lower-quality pleasures at the expense of college-quality ones. Merely that doesn't hateful that he believes that nosotros should effort to abstain from lower-quality pleasures altogether. Many activities that are just ordinary parts of our everyday lives, like do, involve some lower-quality pleasures. Ofttimes, as already remarked, we can be enjoying lower-quality pleasures in company with college-quality intellectual and emotional ones, and the combination would be more valuable than either alone. And maybe sometimes we just demand to rest our higher faculties for a while, to recharge them for afterward utilise and let us enjoy more than college-quality pleasance in the long run. So enjoying bodily pleasance doesn't always mean enjoying less mental pleasure.
Peradventure it may yet seem like the best life for us is one that involves a flake more actual pleasance than Mill believes. But if he has persuaded y'all that that the pleasures that come up from exercising the distinctly-human being faculties are sufficiently superior to the bodily pleasures that the all-time life is 1 in which the onetime would greatly predominate over the latter, and so he might well be satisfied fifty-fifty if in that location is still some lingering disagreement over just how bang-up this predominance should exist.
[17] Note that while as a hedonist Factory believes that only pleasure (and freedom from hurting) are valuable, his account of the qualitative differences between pleasures holds significance as long as pleasance is among the things that take value, even if at that place are others.
References
Aristotle (1999). Nicomachean Ideals. 2nd edition. Ed. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Factory, John Stuart (1869a). "Bentham." In John M. Robson (ed.), Collected Works of John Stuart Mill vol. X. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 77–115. Originally published 1838.
—– (1969b). Utilitarianism. In John M. Robson (ed.), Collected Works of John Stuart Mill vol. X. Toronto: University of Toronto Printing, 203–59. Originally published 1861.
Miller, Dale East. (2010). John Stuart Mill: Moral, Social and Political Thought. Cambridge: Polity.
Riley, Jonathan (2003). "Interpreting Factory's Qualitative Hedonism." The Philosophical Quarterly 53: 410–18.
For Further Reading
Brink, David (2018). "Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy." In Edward North. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Mill'southward Proof of the Principle of Utility by Dale E. Miller
Happiness past Kiki Berk
"Can They Suffer?": Bentham on our Obligations to Animals by Daniel Weltman
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Dale E. Miller is a Professor of Philosophy at Old Dominion University and the editor-in-master of Utilitas. www.drdaleemiller.internet
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