第110章 Chapter IV(20)

Mill tries to meet this by a famous distinction between the qualities of pleasures.Bentham had insisted that one pleasure was as good as another.'Quantity of pleasure being equal,push-pin is as good as poetry.'(76)Mill now declares that it is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.'We must consider 'quality'as well as 'quantity.'(77)The 'only competent judges,'he argues,are those who have known both.Now,it is an 'unquestionable fact'that those who have this advantage prefer the higher or intellectual to the lower or sensual pleasures.It is better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.If the fool or the pig dissents it is because he only knows his own side of the question.(78)Answers are only too obvious.What is 'quantity'as distinguished from 'quality'of pleasure?The statement,'A cubic foot of water weighs less than a cubic foot of lead'is intelligible;but what is the corresponding proposition about pleasure?Can we ask,How much benevolence is equal to how much hunger?The 'how much'is strictly meaningless.Moreover,are not both Socrates and the pig right in their judgment?Pig's-wash is surely better for the pig than dialogue;and dialogue may be better for Socrates than pig's-wash.If 'desirable'means that pleasure which each desires,each may be right.If it means some quality independent of the agent,we have the old fallacy which in political economy makes 'value'something 'objective.'All 'value'must depend upon the man as well as upon the thing.And this again suggests that neither Socrates nor a Christian saint would really make the supposed assertion.It is not true absolutely that 'intellectual'pleasures are simply 'better'than sensual.Each is better in certain circumstances.There are times when even the saint prefers a glass of water to religious musings;and moments when even a fool may at times find such intellectual pleasures as he can enjoy better than a glass of wine.This seems to be so obvious that we must suspect Mill of hastily stopping a gap in his argument without duly working out the implications.Indeed,he seems to be making room for something very like an intuition.He assumes the proposition,doubtful in itself and apparently inconsistent with his own position,that all competent people agree,and then makes this agreement decisive of a disputable question.

Bentham,from his own point of view,was,I think,perfectly right in his statement.To calculate pleasures,the only question must be which are the greatest pleasures,and the only answer,those which,as a fact,attract people most.If a man is more attracted by 'push-pin'than by poetry,the presumption is that push-pin gives him most pleasure.We are simply investigating facts;and cannot overlook the obvious fact that estimates of pleasure vary indefinitely.Some things are pleasant to the refined alone,while others are more or less pleasant to everybody,and others,again,cease to be pleasant or become disgusting as men advance.To introduce the moral valuation in an estimate of facts to change the 'desirable'as 'that which is desired'into the 'desirable'as 'that which ought to be desired'is to beg the question or to argue in circle.