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b. John Stuart Mill: types of pleasure

John Stuart Mill, Bentham's godson and intellectual heir, was sensitive to the fact that utilitarianism appeared to defend actions that most people felt intuitively were wrong, such as lying and stealing. Accordingly, Mill revised utilitarianism, adding the idea that pleasures and pains could be classified according to quality as well as by amount. He also stressed the far-reaching effects of wrongdoing more explicitly than Bentham did.

Mill's version of utilitarianism rejects one of Bentham's fundamental premises--that all pleasures are equal. Bentham is disturbingly plain about this. He writes,

Let a man's motive be ill-will, call it even malice, envy, cruelty; it is still a kind of pleasure that is his motive: the pleasure he takes at the thought of the pain which he sees, or expects to see, his adversary undergo. Now even this wretched pleasure, taken by itself, is good: it may be faint; it may be short: it must at any rate be impure: yet while it lasts, and before any bad consequences arrive, it is good as any other that is not more intense. Mill contends in his essay Utilitarianism, however, that 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, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone. Accordingly, Mill opens the door for distinguishing what we might call "high quality" versus "low quality" pleasures and pains. Pleasures which Mill regards as intrinsically superior include those associated with intelligence, education, sensitivity to others, a sense of morality and physical health. Inferior pleasures include those arising from sensual indulgence, indolence, selfishness, stupidity and ignorance.

A small amount of high quality pleasure could, then, outweigh a larger amount of low quality pleasure. Similarly, a small amount of high quality pleasure that is accompanied by substantial amounts of unhappiness would count as more pleasure than a greater amount of purer, but lower quality pleasure. When confronted with the issue of who determines the qualities of pleasures and pains, Mill replies: those with experience. "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."

Mill also takes pains to examine the far-reaching consequences of actions. Concerned that utilitarianism might seem to defend lying, for example, Mill argues that the wide-ranging, social harm that it does far outweighs the good experienced by its beneficiaries. "Thus it would often be expedient," writes Mill,

for the purpose of getting over some momentary embarrassment, or attaining some object immediately useful to ourselves or others, to tell a lie. But inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any, even unintentional, deviation from truth does that much toward weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one thing that can be named to keep back civilization, virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends--we feel that the violation, for a present advantage, of a rule of such transcendent expediency is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of convenience to himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each other's word, acts the part of one of their worst enemies. Mill's revisions of utilitarianism would probably take care of the most obvious weaknesses of Bentham's ideas. Mill would probably object to our "Robin Hood" scenario, then, by positing eventual harm to the thief and to society. The thief could become desensitized to the point that he might be less discriminating about the financial status of his victims, more tolerant of a less altruistic brand of thievery, more willing to resort to threats and violence, and so certain of the superiority of his personal moral compass that he becomes dangerously self-righteous. Word of his exploits could lead to his being imitated by others in a way that impedes the broad social benefits that flow from respecting rights of ownership.

Yet even Mill's brand of utilitarianism cannot avoid certain difficulties. First, some questions arise about the mechanism of distinguishing types of pleasures. Mill's reliance on personal experience initially seems sensible. You would hardly ask someone who knew nothing about sound equipment to help you pick out a new audio system. In each case, you trust that these people know that the pleasure you will get from the stereo will outweigh the immediate pain of the high price you're paying. Why shouldn't it be the same with ethics? How could someone who had lived a life of cruel and selfish treatment of others be expected to understand the pleasures that come from being a good and decent person? How could someone who had always been scrupulously honest know the full range of negative consequences that come from lying? Yet recognizing only certain, "experienced" people as qualified to make moral judgments could jeopardize the fair, open, impartial and objective method of assessing consequences that a teleological outlook seeks. Many groups throughout human history have used claims of special moral insight to selfish and unscrupulous ends, defending the superiority of a certain class, race, religion or gender. Subjective decisions are not necessarily arbitrary, but the danger remains that they could be.

The central weakness of Mill's approach to ethics, however, is that as long as an action or policy produces enough high quality pleasure, any action is theoretically defensible. Imagine, for example, that benevolent slavery of only 1% of the world's population for the next century could somehow lead to permanent peace, the end of poverty and hunger, and the discovery of cures for all major diseases. Our slaves would be the subjects of a crash program of social, political and medical experiments sponsored by the United Nations and involving the brightest people from all countries. The aim is to solve the planet's worst problems once and for all. Imagine, further, that once these solutions are found, they are offered free to all countries. It is hard to imagine that the pain and suffering of the slaves would be greater than the centuries of benefits that would be enjoyed by billions of humans to come.

Nonetheless, this flaw should not overshadow the genuine advantages of a teleological approach to ethics. For the most part, it makes great common-sense to link the ethical character of actions or policies to their practical outcome. Bentham's attempt to scrupulously catalog the consequences of actions points out the numerous ways that pleasures and pains can differ. It also imposes an objectivity and impartiality on ethical analysis that protects against prejudice, stupidity or self-interest masquerading as moral wisdom. Mill's revisions of Bentham's ideas enjoy these same virtues, and Mill's discussion of types or kinds of pleasure and pain provides us with yet another important way to identify the consequences of actions.

The difficulty of employing a teleological approach should not be underestimated, however. As Mill's ideas imply, a full account of an action's results means not only careful analysis of the immediate consequences to all involved and astute discernment of the quality and comparative value of the sensations experienced, but an uncovering of the subtle, indirect, far-reaching and long-term results as well. An accurate teleological analysis requires great patience, impressive powers of observation and a keen understanding of how people actually respond to various experiences.

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