Higher/Lower Pleasures Flashcards
What did Thomas Carlyle call utilitarianism?
A pig philosophy
Thought utilitarianism was demeaning to the human experience
Explain ‘Hayden and the oyster’?
Hayden, experience many very exciting things and intense pleasures, dies at 77
Oyster, experiences a mild level of sensual pleasure but lives forever.
Which life would you choose? By hedonistic calculus you should pick the oyster…???
What does Mill mean by higher and lower pleasures?
Higher- intellectual activities and persists such as reading philosophy or studying poetry
Lower pleasures, bodily pleasures such as eating and sleeping
Why does Mill place higher pleasures above lower pleasures?
Human beings ‘higher faculties’ for happiness than animals
Higher pleasures, that animals can’t experience have a greater intrinsic value than lower pleasures
How does Mill differ from his godfather Bentham?
Bentham- duration and intensity separates pleasures
Mill- quality of pleasure also separates pleasures
How could you argue for higher pleasures without actually invoking the higher/lower pleasure distinction?
Higher pleasures would have a long lasting impact on a person that would make them more valuable than lower pleasures based purely on duration not quality.
Hayden and the oyster shows this is not going to always be the case. Mill feels need for distinction between higher and lower pleasures.
What is Mill’s competent judge?
Competent judge. Someone who has broad experience of both higher and lower pleasures, and would reject any amount of lower pleasure in exchange for a higher pleasure.
Follows an epicurean theory of life
‘Better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied…’
Pigs or fools cannot judge because they have only known the lower pleasure, only a competent judge is in a position to hold a true view
How does Moore define hedonism?
‘Pleasure alone is good as an end.’
Goes against Mill’s idea of a higher pleasure
How does hedonistic calculus get addressed by Mill?
Higher and lower pleasures
Don’t have to think as much and take time to make decisions
Competent judge helps and you pick higher pleasures.
Can all things be easily defined as higher or lower?
Nope
Crisp whisky example: higher experience of talking about the whisky but also lower experience of drinking it, nobody is going to do the talking without tasting the whisky.
Also pleasure is subjective, only real judge of pleasure is yourself
Issues with the competent judge?
Do these people exist. Have to have experienced heroin or being a philanderer and also higher pleasures like being competent in poetry and Shakespeare
Not really impartial, by definition it seems they have to prefer higher pleasures.
What makes a pleasure greater, the judges arbitration or the fact that they truly are better?
Would we need to defer to the judges every time we make a decision?
Does Mill see pleasure as a mental state?
Doesn’t seem like it, this is how he justifies higher pleasures
Hedonists would see pleasure as a mental state. They ‘value an activities extrinsic value as proportional to the amount of pleasure they associate with it’ -Brink
Mill also thinks amount happiness allowing him to value higher pleasures ‘out of proportion to the amount of contentment or pleasure they produce’
Mill does not value sensuality in the same way, reading a book better than eating ice cream
How does Mill explain why some people don’t seek a life full of higher pleasures?
Go for the ‘nearer’ pleasure - people drink alcohol at the expense of their long term health, although they are aware that health is the higher pleasure
People lose their ability to appreciate higher pleasures when they do not properly cultivate their intellect
Could Mill be described as a hedonist?
Maybe a ‘preference hedonist’
Hedonist who recognises different qualities of pleasure
However mill does not fit the hedonistic spirit of classical utilitarianism.
How does a hedonist avoid the cases of a heroin or sex addict?
Good issue
