Quantity or quality of pleasures
On the axis: The highest good · a life
Is a good life measured by the sum of its pleasures, or are some pleasures worth more than others, regardless of their intensity?
Justification
Against the old objection that brands a doctrine fit for swine, Mill replies that it errs not about pleasure but about man: our higher faculties demand a happiness of another kind. Hence his break with 's purely quantitative calculus: pleasures differ in quality as well, and those of the intellect, the feelings and the imagination intrinsically prevail, because whoever knows both would not consent for anything to sink to the lower. At the heart of the argument lies a sense of dignity that an existence confined to bodily satisfactions would wound, which tilts Mill's hedonism toward a flourishing close to .
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.Utilitarianism, ch. 2
Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (quality versus quantity of pleasures) · Utilitarianism, ch. 4 (happiness, the only thing desirable as an end)
Anchors: Mill
leads to: Bodily pleasures