Hedonism

Question 1

Why does Mills distinguish between higher and lower pleasures

Answer 1

Counteracts the cumulative value of small pleasures ability to overcome the value of pleasures we consider more important (1000 chocolate bar vs saving a life)/ justify our intuition about their inherent value

Utilitarianism is too vague to be functional without the distinction of higher and lower pleasure (criterion of correctness difficult to determine)

Question 2

Explain the significance of the Haydn and the Oyster objection

Answer 2

An oyster can live a thousand years and experience equal and low level pleasure every time a wave rolls over its head eventually, due to its long life, the oyster can experience more pleasure than Haydn despite his being of higher intensity.

Introducing higher and lower pleasures creates another parameter: length, intensity and QUALITY

Quality makes it impossible for any quantity of lower pleasure to become more significant than the higher pleasures because they exist on separate planes (separates humans from animals)

Question 3

How does Mill distinguish higher and lower pleasures

Answer 3

what justifies the jump from
lower pleasure to higher is the employment of higher faculties becoming inherently ‘higher’ themselves rather than simply what a majority of people prefer

Love for higher pleasures is fragile hence why we often do not pick them

Higher pleasures are an aspect of informed desires - they are what we truly desire

PERHAPS: lower pleasures benefit the self, higher pleasures benefit others?

Question 4

Problems of higher and lower pleasures

Answer 4

Mills fails to acknowledge that higher pleasures are not always preferred as well as minimising higher pleasures to only intellectual ones

Competent judges

Question 5

How are higher and lower pleasures determined?

Answer 5

By the general consensus of competent judges

Question 6

What are competent judges?

Answer 6

Those who have experienced both higher and lower pleasures

Well informed and not influenced by outside forces

How does the consensus of these judges translate directly into higher value - is it just a preference?

Mill believes the competent judge can choose an action which causes less pleasure if it appeals to human dignity - which Mills believes we all have

Question 7

If higher pleasures are better why do those who pursue them often seem unhappy? (Trope of the tortured academic)

Answer 7

If someone sacrifices their own life they are achieving something which they value higher than their personal happiness

Their decision leads to greater overall happiness for everyone

Question 8

What does Mills believe that pleasure and happiness are?

Answer 8

A state of feeling, with pain and unhappiness on the same scale but the exact opposite value

The utility of these experiences is determined by measuring the amount of the mental state they contain

Question 9

What is utility?

Answer 9

The value of an action

Utility could be both a matter of mental states and a desire-fulfilment (we find enjoyment in many things)

Utility can be either actual desire or what we would desire if we knew what it felt like to have it

Utility May consist of the fulfilment of desire

Question 10

What is the experience machine?

Answer 10

By Robert Nozick

A machine which can make you experience the perfect life - yet most would not plug in

The experience machine exposes the issue of autonomy - human beings have a desire for autonomy over their own fate (arrogance believing that they can do life better or concerned with the authenticity/ deserved ness of the pleasure the machine would generate?)

Question 11

Potential solutions to the problem of autonomy

Answer 11

Not everything which we desire is purely mental states though these matter for our well-being

Perhaps utility consists of the fulfilment of desire

It is necessary that we have the experience of learning in order for us to have fully informed desires, they can’t be prescribed by a machine because we have to have learned to enjoy them and take pleasure in them

Question 12

What is informed desire/ the desire account?

Answer 12

A model used to explain why people sometimes choose actions which promote less utility than others

Suggests that society has not created an environment in which we can be properly informed about our desires and thus informed desires are those we would seek if we had a proper appreciation of the nature of the object of desire

Question 13

What are the three well-being theories?

Answer 13

Hedonism
Desire-based views
Objective list views

Question 14

What does utility refer to in utilitarianism?

Answer 14

Utility is the fulfillment of (informed) desires, the stronger the desire, the greater the fulfilment

An individuals utility is determined not only by the things they know but also those they are unaware of and do not effect them

Question 15

The problem with informed desire

Answer 15

what feature of an action do we desire when informed makes them desirable? why would we need informed desire if we could just isolate this component?

The desire account is flexibly but empty - there is no principle of decision making or a means to resolve conflict between subordinate ends, or even the difference between these ends and the dominant end of humanity or how one leads to the other

Question 16

What is well-being in utilitarianism

Answer 16

well-being is the satisfaction of preferences, well-being is often used interchangeably with utility as the thing which all actions must achieve the most of

Question 17

What is the midpoint between the idea of mental states and the fulfillment of desires?

Answer 17

Enjoyment: we enjoy things beyond purely mental states but it is not as broad as the idea of desire fulfilment which can allow for a multitude of bad things

Question 18

What differentiates Bentham’s utilitarianism from Mills?

Answer 18

Bentham only considers the quantity and duration of pleasure where as Mill adds the component of quality to combat the common criticism that Bentham’s philosophy is “worthy of only swine”

Question 19

The problem with desire, perception and understanding as principles in utilitarianism

Answer 19

there is not way to seperate them out as they all circularly involce one another
IE: we all value excitement but not terror, however an act which one indiviual finds terrifying another will be excited by - it is experienced/ percieved differently by different people

Question 20

Advantages of the informed desire account:

Answer 20

The scope and flexibility is much better than explanations of well-being in terms of desirability features - it explains why not everyones well-being is affected in the same why by certain desirable features

people will adjust their conception of a good life to fit their resources

Allows for pluralism - we can desire many different things and these can be different for different people

desire account focuses more on the combination of goods in a persons life that makes them the happiest rather than the aggregation of large quantities of small pleasures

Question 21

Problem with Mills use of the term ‘pleasures’

Answer 21

interchangably refers to both the activity with the possibility of providing pleasures and the pleasure itself

Question 22

How does Mill account for the value of virtue in and of itself?

Answer 22

We know that something us desirable if we desire it

Our belief that virtue is its own end is because our minds are not formed on the basis of utility not because it is a universal truth

Things such as health, virtue etc. are desirable both as their own ends but also as a part of happiness

We associate these things with pleasure or lack of pain