Mill, Hedonism

Utilitarianism 

The moral theory saying that actions are right if they promote happiness and wrong if they cause unhappiness

Overarching Question

Is happiness (pleasure + absence of pain) the only thing we ultimately value for its own sake?

Main Claim

◦ Happiness, for Mill, is pleasure and privation of pain.

> ‘privation’ is loss/absence/removal, compare with ‘deprivation’

◦ Unhappiness, for Mill, is pain and the privation of pleasure

◦ Mill seeks to justify this moral theory based on his value theory of hedonism

Hedonism

> The theory that pleasure and privation of pain are the only goods

> Everything worth pursuing is only worth pursuing for the happiness it promotes

Supporting Argument - value theory

◦ A more complex value theory: some pleasures are more valuable than others

◦ This value is not about the mere amount of pleasure

> Having more of a low bodily pleasure does not make it better

> Enjoying good art with a friend is more valuable than any amount of low pleasure

◦ A pleasure is more valuable than another pleasure if it is preferable regardless of amount

◦ Mill claims you would not give up the higher pleasures of being an intelligent and discerning human even if, in exchange, you are offered a life of excessive lower pleasure.

Higher pleasure

◦ A pleasure is higher than another if (nearly) everyone who is capable of experiencing both pleasures would prefer any amount of the one over any amount of the other

Counterpoint - choice

◦ Counterpoint: humans often choose lower pleasure over higher pleasure.

> Higher pleasures often require some effort.

> Skip the difficult auteur movie and watch a sitcom.

> Do something unhealthy for simple bodily pleasure.

Rebuttal

◦ Those who slip occasionally know that these are slips.

> And those who slip routinely may have lost the appreciation for higher pleasure.

> They are now on the other side, with the pigs and the fools, who cannot see the difference anymore.

Counterpoint 2 - pig doctrine?

◦ It sounds very unrefined to say that pleasure is our only aim.

> ‘a doctrine worthy only of swine’

> It sounds like gluttony, a classical vice.

Rebuttal 2

◦ Mill’s response: it is the critic’s vulgar conception of pleasure that is the problem, not pleasure itself.

> Some pleasures are not gluttonous at all.

> Humans are capable of refined, noble pleasure.

◦ Mill thinks of intellectual pleasures, artistic pleasures, pleasure taken in friendship, and more.

Counterpoint 3 - displeasure

◦ Mill admits that an intelligent creature may experience more displeasure.

> An animal or fool might simply be ignorant of many things that would cause us displeasure.

Rebuttal 3

◦ The value-ranking of the higher pleasures is so strong that a higher pleasure is worth enduring some lower displeasure.

◦ You wouldn’t choose to be the pig or the fool.

Counterpoint 4 - definitions

◦ Psychologists have another measure of higher and lower.

> Their definition is that a pleasure is “lower” if it needs to be fulfilled before you pursue other pleasures (which are “higher”).

◦ Mill seems to dismiss the importance of having to first satisfy the psychologically lower pleasures

Rebuttal 4

◦ Mill is providing an ideal theory.

> He talks about what one would prefer in the ideal situation where all needs are met.

◦ The persons whose judgments determine what is higher and lower are imagined to be in situations of fully free choice.

Supporting argument 2 - competency

◦ Mill only trusts the value-judgements of those who can recognize the higher pleasures.

> His argument is that everyone competent can tell higher from lower pleasure.

◦ ‘competent’: he means those who can appreciate both the lower and the higher pleasure.

> Mill claims he only listens to those with the most information, which are those who know of both pleasures

Supporting argument 3 - truisms

◦ Why is happiness desirable? Because people desire it.

> No better proof can be given, he claims.

◦ It is a truism that happiness is good.

> And that (all else equal) it is good to have one’s desired fulfilled.

Counterpoint 5 - only

◦ But Mill claims that happiness is the only good.

> And that seems to be much more contentious.

> People desire community, freedom, power, fame.

> And they might be willing to endure a lot of pain for these!

Rebuttal 5

◦ Mill responds: everything good is only good because it is something that promotes happiness.

◦ Whatever pain we are willing to endure for our freedom, Mill says, it is because freedom promotes a greater or higher happiness.

Counterpoint 6 - virtue

◦ People also desire virtue, the absence of vice.

> From ancient times, virtue has been regarded as the core of ethics.

> Virtues: courage, temperance, generosity, honor, honesty...

> Vices: cowardice, gluttony, greed, vanity, arrogance, ...

Rebuttal 6

◦ Mill: the virtues are virtuous because they promote happiness.

> and the vices are vicious because they reduce happiness.

◦ Virtuous self-sacrifice is only good insofar as it promotes

someone’s happiness.

> Otherwise it is just pointles

Supporting argument 4 - money simile

◦ Mill’s point: it is obvious that money has no intrinsic worth beyond what it can buy.

> We are happy to have money because money can be used to fulfill desires

◦ Mill continues to argue that very good means to happiness

eventually become regarded as parts of happiness.

> Money, fame, power, love, freedom, community, ...

◦ So things like money and fame are parts of happiness (having them makes you happy, says Mill).

> But having them makes you happy only because you know that these things allow you to obtain happiness.

> Without this instrumental function, money or fame wouldn’t have any value.