The failure of Mill's qualitative distinction of pleasures

INTRODUCTION In reply to the standing objection that utilitarianism is a pig philosophy, John Stuart Mill

(1806 – 1873) holds that Benthamite utilitarians “have fully proved their case” (II, 4) 1 by pursuing quantitative hedonism which emphasizes the difference of quantity in pleasures 2 . However, he still aims at taking a “higher ground, with entire consistency” (II, 4) to defend utilitarianism by introducing his later-called qualitative hedonism that is based on the difference of quality in pleasures in Chapter II of Utilitarianism. In the essay, I argue that Mill’s qualitative distinction of pleasures is problematic and inconsistent with hedonism, to which he explicitly commits himself. As a result, instead of providing support for utilitarianism, it causes more problems.

Mill’s qualitative distinction of pleasures

Unlike Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832), who sees no difference of quality in pleasures, Mill claims pleasures can differ in both quality and quantity:

“It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone. 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.” (II, 4 – 5) And what is his answer? Or in other words, which pleasures, then, according to Mill, are qualitatively better and worse?

Here is it: “If one of the two [pleasures] 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

1 All references to the book Utilitarianism are to chapter by Roman numeral and to paragraph by Arabic numeral.

2 Hedonism is the doctrine that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic bad. Quantitative hedonism contends pleasures are the same in quality. Their value depends entirely on the quantity of pleasure, which

composes of mainly intensity and duration. Although Mill says quantitative hedonists “have fully proved their case”

as mental/distinctively human/noble pleasures are quantitatively more valuable than bodily/animalistic/base ones in

the sense that they are more instense and/or last longer, quantitative hedonism still faces criticism, notably the

Haydn-oyster objection and Robert Nozick’s experience machine. Utilitarianism then cannot escape the accusation

of being a doctrine “worthy only of swine”. To fend off attacks, Mill tries to find another strategy.

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superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.” (II, 5) This passage is often read as saying: One pleasure is higher in quality than another if and only if at least a majority 3 of the people who are competently acquainted with both always prefer the former no matter how much of the latter is available 4 (Riley, 2003: 410; Booher, 2007). Mill also adds that: “[T]hose 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 (II, 6).” It means the pleasures that are the exercise of higher faculties are higher in quality 5 . Once being made aware of these higher faculties, we do not regard anything as happiness without their gratification (II, 4) because of our sense of dignity, which also makes us never willingly prefer or choose the lower quality pleasures in conflict with the higher, otherwise than momentarily and involuntarily (II, 6) 6 .

Yet since Utilitarianism was published for the first time in 1861, this qualitative distinction of pleasures has attracted a great deal of critical attention, most of which is hostile (Crisp, 1997: 32).

3 In Paragraph 10, he writes: “the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final”.

4 There are several different readings of this passage. The one mentioned above is called the standard reading, which is the most faithful to Mill’s text on quality and quantity of pleasures (Riley, 2003). Other versions include those of

Schmidt-Petri (2003) and Booher (2007). Schmidt-Petri reads Mill as stating that: If some pleasure will be chosen

over another available in larger quantity, then we are justified in saying that the pleasure so chosen is of higher

quality than the other. Meanwhile, Booher provides a “capacity reading” which does not see Mill as comparing two

kinds of pleasures, but as comparing (1) the capacity to experience one pleasure with (2) any quantity of second

pleasure that one could experience in virtue of having the capacity to experience the second pleasure. However, both

fail to receive full or significant support in Mill’s writing. Besides, each of the two has its own philosophical

problems.

5 In Chapter II, Mill draws the qualitative distinction in various ways: Distinctively human vs. animalistic, Mental vs. bodily, Noble vs. base.

6 Pleasure and pain play an equal role in Mill’s utilitarianism as well as in its trademark principle of utility. Nonetheless, although he pays considerable attention to the difference of quality in pleasures, there is very little

mention of the equivalence in pains. He only says that pains are not homogeneous (II, 10) and a being of higher

faculties “is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an

inferior type” (II, 6). For the sake of consistency, I think for Mill, pains also differ in both quality and quantity. Of

two pains, the one that is the exercise of higher faculties is the less disvaluable.

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The problems with competent judges In paragraph 9, Mill calls “those who are competently acquainted with” pleasures competent judges. According to the interpretations of Roger Crisp (1997: 29) and Wendy Donner (2006: 124), their judgments are best understood as being evidential, and thus they may be mistaken 7 . Nevertheless, Mill’s notion of competent judges suffers from several problems, including: (1) vagueness, (2) incomprehensiveness, (3) elitism and (4) paternalism 8 .

(1) Although he suggests several conditions for being competent judges, namely acquaintance with different pleasures, capability of enjoying them (II, 6), self-consciousness and self-observation (II, 12), ultimately it is still not clear what is required for someone to be “competently acquainted” with a pleasure (Schmidt-Petri, 2003: 104) and where to look for him or her in the real world.

(2) There are pleasures and pains that are difficult for human beings to be acquainted with. How can someone be acquainted with pleasures and pains caused by euthanasia? Do they need to die from euthanasia first? Thus, I am afraid, the notion of competent judges cannot solve some moral problems related to issues like euthanasia. In addition, Mill only mentions the case when all or the majority of competent judges can reach a decision (II, 5). But what will happen if they cannot, for example, if half of the competent judges prefer listening to Mozart, and the rest choose Beethoven?

(3) And it is accused of being elitist (Miller, 2001: 12); especially in Mill’s time, farmers, workers who accounted for the majority of the population had little access to activities of higher faculties such as reading poems, novels, etc. or listening to concerts to be competent judges.

The problems of higher quality pleasures

With the standard reading in Page 2, Mill’s qualitative distinction of pleasures results in a lexical ordering 9 of pleasures (Booher, 2007). It means any amount of a higher quality pleasure, no matter how small, is better than any amount of a lower quality pleasure, no matter how great.

7 According to Donner, Mill’s expectation of progress over time has built into it the expectation that judgments are often found to be mistaken. According to Crisp, he is claiming not that the majority must be right, but that it is only

reasonable to respect the decision of the majority.

8 I will mention the charge of paternalism shortly in Page 5 as it is also related to the problems of higher pleasures.

9 A lexical ordering or a lexicographic(al) ordering is an ordering that completely satisfies a first principle before beginning to apply a second. For example: the ordering of words in a dictionary, in which aardvard is always put

before abactus. This term was coined by John Rawls and popularised in his celebrated A Theory of Justice.

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Take for instance, in no case can the mild sensual enjoyment caused by eating apples in my whole life win over the intellectual pleasure caused by reading Chapter II of Mill’s On Liberty. This is quite counterintuitive I must say.

It is noteworthy that although Mill talks about quantity and quality of pleasure, the concepts of quantity and quality are nowhere to be clearly defined in Utilitarianism. Yet, I think, he implies quantity includes intensity (II, 10), permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc. (II, 4). Meanwhile, quality means the “intrinsic nature” of the pleasure (II, 4) in question. Later, in paragraph 8, Mill claims that the higher pleasures are the intrinsically superior pleasures; i.e., the higher pleasures are better than the lower ones in their intrinsic nature. In other words, the higher pleasures, for him, are the higher quality ones. When they are, his qualitative distinction of pleasures suffers from more criticism.

First, it can be accused of paternalism. The judgment of at least a majority of competent judges is called “verdict” of the “tribunal” by Mill and “must be admitted as final” (II, 9). Does it mean people must follow their verdicts like parties involved in a tribunal? If yes, it leaves open a question whether society can legitimately coerce anyone to follow the “verdict” of competent judges and whether he or she finds the preferred pleasures pleasurable. For example, I want to listen to Secret Garden, then the competent judges give their verdict that the pleasures caused by listening to a concert are higher than those caused by listening to an album of Secret Garden because listening to the former is the exercise of higher faculties than listening to the latter. But in reality, I hate concerts and find no pleasures in listening to them.

In Paragraph 9, Mill even considers higher and lower pleasures “both classes of pleasures”, which various critics have pointed out that it seems implausible (Ryberg, 2002: 418). In addition, on the one hand, higher pleasures are more pleasurable, or in other words, more valuable than lower ones; on the other hand, hedonism, the doctrine to which Mill explicitly commits himself, holds that human beings always do or ought to 10 seek more pleasure. As a result, human beings always do or should prefer higher pleasures. Then it might lead to the possibility of what can be called an unbalanced life 11 , in which higher pleasures would be chosen, whereas sensual ones ignored 12 .

10 Ethical hedonism requires that one ought always to prefer more pleasure and psychological hedonism states that one always does prefer more pleasure (Booher, 2007).

11 In his Autobiography, Mill says that after his “mental crisis” in early adulthood which resulted from a hothouse upbringing, the maintenance of a due balance among the faculties in his opinion is “of primary importance” (1873).

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Not to mention, if both the lexical ordering of pleasures and the principle of greatest happiness for the greatest number of people were applied, it would become entirely unworkable to require a person to forego lower pleasures whenever doing otherwise would cause someone else to enjoy a reduced quantity of a higher pleasure (Booher, 2007).

Higher pleasures vs. Hedonism?

By defining happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain and unhappiness as pain and the privation of pleasure (II, 2), Mill describes himself as a hedonist. Nevertheless, his qualitative distinction of pleasures is often accused of being inconsistent with hedonism. By far the most common objection is that he faces a dilemma: either quality collapses into quantity and Mill has made no advance on Bentham, or he can no longer be a hedonist (Crisp, 1997: 32).

As I mentioned above, for Mill, quantity includes intensity, permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc. and quality means the intrinsic nature of the pleasure in question. It is obvious that Mill still keeps the Benthamite conception of quantity in mind and shows no sign of regarding acuteness, intensity, permanency as components of quality. So there is no evidence that quality collapses into quantity. But then, critics argue, Mill has to leave hedonism.

Quality aside, one pleasure is more valuable than another when it is more intense and/or it lasts longer. Yet quantity aside, how can one pleasure more valuable 13 than another if not because it is more intense and/or it lasts longer? His only explanation of higher value of higher pleasures is to appeal to the preferences of competent judges and his following explanation of their categorical preferences is to appeal to their sense of dignity 14 . Nonetheless, the preference of

It leads to another interpretation of Mill’s view which claims that a competent judge will prefer any amount of the higher pleasure (e.g. intellectual insight) once a certain necessary amount of the lower pleasure (e.g. physical

comfort) has been secured (Crisp, 1997: 31). Yet nothing in Mill’s text on higher and lower pleasures shows this.

12 Mill was remarkably committed to a pinched Victorian way of life which emphasized such uplifting activities as reading, writing, studying beauties of nature and performing one’s moral duties. He himself disgusted with the down and dirty sex merely for the pleasure of it (Riley, 2003: 410-411). It is even doubtful that his only marriage to Harriet

Taylor Mill was ever sexually consummated (Anderson, 2006: 22).

13 To explain why higher pleasures are more valuable (quantity aside), in a defence of Mill, Roger Crisp contends that their nature makes the enjoyment of them more valuable. Why so? Crisp replies that it just does and it decides the quality of pleasures. It is a brute fact like the fact that pleasures are valuable as Bentham claims (1997: 34).

14 Mill also appeals to pride, the love of liberty, personal independence, the love of power and the love of excitement in the same way. I just take out the “most appropriate appellation” in his view (II, 6), which is a sense of dignity, for the sake of simplicity.

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competent judges is best understood as evidence of the greater value of the object of their preference (Crisp, 1997: 37; Donner: 2006: 124). Mill himself acknowledges it as “the test of quality” (II, 12). It does not constitute the value of the object (Brink, 1992: 80). Besides, he mentions dignity without showing why and how it contributes to the higher value of higher pleasures. As a result, his insertion of quality into the evaluation of value has been, understandably, charged with introducing a criterion of evaluation other than pleasure. That is, higher pleasures are more desirable and more valuable because of something besides pleasure, not all because of pleasure. And as such, Mill is not revising but rather abandoning hedonism 15 . In reply to the criticism that quality adds a mysterious normative property to the evaluation of value, Wendy Donner argues that Bentham regards the quantities of pleasures not only as empirical facts, but as normative ones, i.e., that in virtue of which the pleasures which have them are good. If this is the way hedonists treat quantity, there should be no reason why they do not do so for qualities. Therefore, claiming that the mere insertion of quality to the evaluation of value undermines hedonism is too strong 16 (1998, 263). However, it could be attacked at this point that quantity itself is not necessary a normative concept whereas quality is always normative. For example, we can discuss the quantity of a composer’s songs without making any sort of normative statement, but to discuss the quality of those same songs is to make

15 It is worth mentioning that Mill’s use of the term “pleasure” is also accused of inconsistency with hedonism. Pleasure in English means not only “pleasurable mental state” but also “pleasure-source” which does or can cause

pleasurable mental states (Crisp, 1997: 26). Nonetheless, hedonism, as traditionally formulated, accepts just

pleasurable mental states as pleasures. Mill does speak of pleasures as pleasurable mental states. For example, in

paragraph 4 of chapter II, he mentions the pleasures of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments. In

paragraph 10, he talks of “the intensest of two pleasurable sensations”. Later, in chapter IV, Mill holds that the

consciousness of virtue is a pleasure (IV, 8).

But he refers to pleasures as pleasure-sources as well. He obviously acknowledges music as pleasure when he writes:

“The principle of utility does not mean that any given pleasure, as music...” (IV, 5). When Mill understands

pleasures in this sense, he is not keeping himself really within the realm of hedonism, as traditionally understood.

David Brink (1992: 73) even interprets Mill as including pleasure sources such as activities, actions, pursuits which

exercise higher faculties in the category of higher pleasures, besides pleasurable mental states. As a result, Mill’s

doctrine of higher pleasures again appears anti-hedonistic. Brink once goes as far as to conclude that “Mill can be

shown to reject hedonism consistently” (1992: 68).

16 Donner (2006: 120) also argues that Bentham focuses on homogeneous, simple pleasurable mental states, whereas for Mill, pleasurable mental states are more complex and heterogenous.

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normative claims. Thus critics might object that the two are disanalagous in important ways (Miller, 2001: 128).

Other recent adherents have attempted to develop reductionist or correlationist interpretations to rescue Mill’s doctrine of higher pleasures (Donner, 1998: 266 – 267). Reductionists such as Roderick Long (1969) and Lanny Ebenstein (1985) claim that quality of pleasure is reducible to quantity or intensity, and so there is no inconsistency. Long proposes an indirect reductive reading. He says: “The superiority of higher pleasures is indeed quantitative, but only indirectly so; in choosing a higher pleasure over a lower one, we are ipso facto choosing a nobler character over a baser one, and it is the pleasantness of the noble character, not of the higher pleasure itself, that provides the needed quantitative superiority” (Long, 1992: 279; quoted in Donner, 1998: 267); whereas Ebenstein contends that “Pleasures and pains differ not only according to duration (quantity), but according to intensity or acuteness - quality” (1974: 54). Meanwhile, correlationists like Richard Bronaugh (1974) maintain that differences of degree of quantity are correlated in some precise way with differences of degree of quality. Quantity is thus an absolutely reliable indicator of quality (Donner, 1998: 267). Yet their efforts fail to find convincing textual evidence and seem to force Mill back into the position of merely making a rhetorical point rather than genuinely making a categorical distinction between quality and quantity.

CONCLUSION

From what I have shown above, Mill’s qualitative distinction of pleasures faces acute problems because of its lexical ordering of pleasures, controversial competent judges, and especially its inconsistency with hedonism. When it comes to criticisms of Mill, unsurprisingly, his qualitative hedonism is one of the most popular topics. Instead of defending utilitarianism “with entire consistency”, it brings more problems than it resolves.

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REFERENCE Anderson, S.L. (2006): Mill’s life, in West, H. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism, Oxford: Blackwell.

Booher, T. (2007): J.S. Mill’s test for higher pleasure, Studies in the history of ethics, URL = http://www.historyofethics.org/122007/122007Booher.shtml (October 11, 2008) Brink, D. (1992): Mill’s deliberative utilitarianism, Philosophy and Public affairs, 21 (1): 67 – 103.

Crisp, R. (1997): Mill on Utilitarianism (Routledge philosophy guidebook), London: Routledge. Donner, W. (1998): Mill’s utilitarianism, in Skorupski, J. (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Mill, Cambridge University Press.

Donner, W. (2006): Mill’s theory of value, in West, H., The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism, Oxford: Blackwell.

Ebenstein, L. (1985): Mill’s theory of utility, Philosophy, 60 (234): 539 – 543. Mill, J. S. (1873): Autobiography, URL: http://www.utilitarianism.com/millauto/five.html (October 13, 2008) Mill, J. S. (2006): Utilitarianism, in West, H. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism, Oxford: Blackwell.

Miller, J. J. (2001): John Stuart Mill on quality and competence (PhD dissertation), URL: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/etd/diss/ArtsSci/Philosophy/2001/Miller/Mill2.PDF (October 26, 2008) Riley, J. (2003): Interpreting Mill’s qualitative hedonism, The philosophical quarterly, 53 (212): 410 – 418.

Ryberg, J. (2002): Higher and lower pleasures – Doubts on justification, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 5 (4): 415 – 429.

Schmidt-Petri, C. (2003): Mill on quality and quantity, The philosophical quarterly, 53 (210): 102 – 104.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES CONSULTED

Bronaugh, R. (1974), The quality in pleasures, Philosophy, (49 (189): 320 – 322. Hooker, B. (2000): Ideal code, real world, Oxford University Press. LaFave, S. (2006): Utilitarianism, URL = http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/util.htm (November 18, 2008).

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Lyons, D. (2006): Review of Rosen's classical utilitarianism from Hume to Mill, Utilitas, 18: 173 – 181.

Malinovich, S. (1972): The happiness criterion, Philosophia, 2 (3): 195 – 203. Martin, R. (1972): A defence of Mill's qualitative hedonism, Philosophy, 47 (180): 140 -151. Miles, T.G. (2006): Utilitarianism and Education: a reply to James Tarrant, Journal of philosophy of education, 26 (2): 261 – 264.

Moore, A. (2004): Hedonism, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/ (November 18, 2008). Riley, J. (2008): What are Millian qualitative superiorities? Prolegomena, 7 (1): 61 – 79. Rosen, F. (2006): Epicureanism and Utilitarianism: A Reply to Professor Lyons, Utilitas, 18: 182

- 187.

Schmidt-Petri, C. (2006): On an interpretation of Mill's qualitative utilitarianism, Prolegomena,

5: 165 - 177.

Talanga, J. (2006): Review of Henry R. West, An introduction to Mill’s utilitarian ethics, Cambridge, Prolegomena, 5 (2): 263 – 268.

West, H. (2006) (ed.): The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism, Oxford: Blackwell.

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