Philosophy 361 Ethics Darwall Fall 1997 MILL III I Mill wants to maintain hedonism: happiness or pleasure is the only intrinsic good (for persons). And he wants to argue for this proposition on psychological grounds concerning what people desire (better, can desire). But, unlike Bentham, he doesn’t believe that we never desire to read poetry, be virtuous, listen to music, etc. for their own sake, but only because these cause a further pleasurable feeling. II Bentham was a quantitative hedonist, but Mill was a qualitative hedonist, and their psychological views also varied accordingly. III This is especially evident in Mill's doctrine that pleasures can qualitatively, and that higher quality pleasures are intrinsically better. The context (begins II.par 4) a. Philosophical hedonists since Epicurus have maintained that the good life is much likelier to consist in "pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments" than in bodily pleasures of sensation. However, not because the former are intrinsically better, but on extrinsic grounds: e.g., that they are less costly, more stable and secure, less vulnerable to circumstances, etc. b. Mill believes, however, that a hedonist should, maintain that pleasures involving cultivated intellectual, emotional, and imaginative faculties are intrinsically better. c. The issue that faces him is how he can do this and not fall into intuitionism. So Mill makes his argument on empirical grounds: "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 [NOTE THAT PHRASE WELL-- WHY IS IT HERE? RECALL THAT A CONSEQUENTIALIST (OR UTILITARIAN) THEORY OF GOODNESS IS A THEORY OF NONMORAL GOODNESS], that is the more desirable pleasure." (II.par 6) "From this verdict of the only competent judges I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, . . . apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences [AGAIN, N.B.] 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." (II.par 8) "Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous [COMPARE THAT WITH BENTHAM]. . . . What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced?" (ibid.) d. Mill argues that it is an empirical truth that the experienced generally do prefer a life in which the pleasures of intellect, feeling, and imagination loom large to one simply involving pleasures of bodily sensation. He concludes that the former pleasures are intrinsically better than the latter. It seems that Mill must be making some metaethical assumptions; i.e., some assumptions about the epistemology and metaphysics of value. Both his "proof" of the principle of utility, and his arguments about qualitative differences in the value of experience, seem to presuppose some sort of empiricism about value -- viz., that it is possible to know what is valuable through experience, and only through experience. Does it also involve an assumption about what value is? Well, what might justify Mill's particular sort of empiricism about value. He might be thinking that what it is for something to have value just is for it to be the object of properly informed preference or desire. That would be a metaphysical view, one which would explain his empiricism. Do you think he holds this view? IV Is Mill's theory of value really hedonism? Distinguish: a. Pleasure as what is pleasing or enjoyable (the object of pleasure)= (the object of desire) IV.para 10 b. Pleasure as the state of enjoyment or being pleased. c. Pleasure as the whole composed of both (a) and (b) What is Mill saying is intrinsically valuable? It seems to be (a)? But this threatens to be a hedonism in name only. Or rather it makes any position into hedonism. How does it differ, for example, from the view that what we intrinsically desire, or that what we intrinsically desire when informed, have developed our capacities, and so on is good? V There is, however, another strain in Mill's thought that is much more hedonistic, namely, when he argues that we come to desire things like virtue for their own sake only by association with other pleasures to which they are initially only means. (E.g., his example of money.) Doesn't this seem to suggest that a kind of mistake is involved if we come to value either money or virtue for their own sake? VI Another possibility: Mill could hold (c) (in IV above), viz., that real happiness consists in the enjoying appreciation of what we intrinsically desire (i.e., the combination of (a) and (b).