John Stuart
(1808-1873)
Like Bentham, John Stuart Mill was a ultilitarian. In fact, Mill’s
utilitarianism was, to some extent, inherited from Bentham because
Mill’s father, James Mill, was a utilitarian in his own right and served as an
assistant to Bentham. Unlike Bentham, however, Mill thought that it was
important to distinguish between better and worse kinds of pleasure,
writing,
“It is quite compatible with the principle of utility
to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more
valuable than others. It would be absurd
that, while estimating all other things quality is considered as well as
quantity, the estimation of pleasure should be supposed to depend on quantity
alone.”
In other
words, if we think that food, and clothes, and everything else can differ in
quality as well as in quantity, wouldn’t it be strange to think that pleasure
doesn’t differ in quality as well? And if we often care about the quality of
something like food, in addition to its quantity (unless you’re very hungry,
you probably don’t want to have as much food as possible,
regardless of how it tastes or is presented) shouldn’t we care about the
quality of our pleasures too?
How,
though, are we to decide which of two pleasures is of the better type? How can
we assess the quality of pleasure? Mill is about to tell us.
Excerpts from Utilitarianism
If
I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one
pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being
greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there
be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided
preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that
is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are
competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they
prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of
discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure
which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the
preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality so far outweighing quantity as to
render it, in comparison, of small account.
In this
paragraph, Mill gives us his famous “Competent Judge Test.” If we want to know
which of two pleasures – say going to a monster truck rally or going to an
opera – is better, we should seek out people are “competently acquainted with”
both and ask their opinion. If the majority of these people say that the
monster truck rally is better, then the rally provides the better pleasure. If
most of them prefer the opera, the opera does.
This makes
sense. It is, after all, the way we make similar decisions about other things.
If I want to know which of two restaurants is better, I’d ask people who have
been to both. If I want to know which of number of wines is the best, I’d check
with people who have some experience with wine.
Of course,
there is one problem. It might be hard for us to find these competent judges
when a decision needs to be made. If we need to decide between the monster
truck rally and the opera by
Now
it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with and
equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both do give a most marked
preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few
human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a
promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human
being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus,
no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they
should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied
with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess
more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they
have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of
unhappiness so extreme that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for
almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. A being of higher
faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute
suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an
inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to
sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give what
explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a
name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the
least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we may refer it to the
love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the
Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love
of power or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and
contribute to it; but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity,
which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no
means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential
a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong that nothing which
conflicts with it could be otherwise than momentarily an object of desire to
them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of
happiness -- that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is
not happier than the inferior -- confounds the two very different ideas of
happiness and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of
enjoyment are low has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a
highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for,
as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its
imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the
being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels
not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a
human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a
different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.
The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
So these competent judges will always
prefer pleasures that employ their “higher faculties,” such as their
intelligence or well-developed aesthetic sensibilities. Of course they might
“slum it” once in a while, reading a supermarket tabloid when they’re tired, or
enjoying a good burger now and then, but under normal circumstances, they will
opt for War and Peace over the tabloid, and choose escargot over the
burger. And they will without question prefer the opera to the monster
truck rally, so that’s what will give us the higher quality
pleasure, even though we might enjoy the rally more.
Questions for Consideration:
·
“It
is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are
of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the
question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.” This is a very
famous quotation from Mill. How would you explain what it says to someone else?
Do you agree with Mill’s point here? Why or why not?
·
According
to Mill’s account, although we’re always able to determine which of two
activities gives us more pleasure, we aren’t the final judge of which
activity gives us the better pleasure. It might even be the case that
the pleasure we think is better actually isn’t the better
pleasure; we might be mistaken about which of two activities provides us
with the better kind of pleasure. In many areas, we’re able to acknowledge this
distinction between what we like best and what is best. I, for
example, might easily defer to a wine expert and agree that the wine which I
enjoy the most is, in fact, inferior to the wine I like the least. Mill would
say that we can, and should, make the very same distinction about pleasures. I
should be willing to say “Although I enjoy reading Ann Perry novels more than I
enjoy reading Tolstoy, I accept the judgment of literature experts when they
say that the pleasure that I get from reading Tolstoy is a better pleasure than
the pleasure that I get from reading Perry.” Should I be willing to say such a
thing? Why or why not?
So, what do
you think? Let’s try to get a clearer understanding of what Mill is saying by diagramming his argument.