John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Sport
ABSTRACT: While his own preference may have been for an engaging book over an exciting ballgame, John Stuart Mill’s distinction in Utilitarianism between higher and lower pleasures offers a useful framework for thinking about contemporary sport. This first became apparent while teaching Utilitarianism to undergraduates, whose interest is often piqued by using Mill’s distinction to rank popular sports such as baseball, football and basketball. This paper explores more seriously the relevance of Mill’s distinction for thinking about sport, focusing specifically on his claims about intellectual complexity and aesthetic value. It finds that while the distinction of higher and lower pleasures does support a hierarchy among sports, it remains problematic to assert that any sport could in fact constitute a genuine higher pleasure.
Mill originally offered the distinction between higher and lower pleasures as a way of defending utilitarianism against critics who found it degrading. Because utilitarianism defines moral rightness solely as the net production of pleasure over pain, critics charged that it portrayed human happiness as no different from the contentment of well-fed barnyard animals. To these critics, any moral theory that cast human life as having no end higher than the pursuit of pleasure was surely "a doctrine worthy only of swine".(1) Mill countered that it was actually the critics of utilitarianism who degraded humanity, for they tacitly assumed that humans were capable of nothing more than animalistic pleasures. Mill maintained happiness is indeed a function of pleasure, although humans are capable of higher forms of pleasure than the other animals. Mill writes
Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification.(2)
True human happiness thus requires at least some exposure to activities that gratify the higher faculties of the human mind. And though the pleasure of such activity requires greater effort and even some pain to realize, Mill considered it intrinsically superior to the relatively passive and animalistic pleasures obtained from satisfying one's hunger, thirst, or sexual desire. Thus, unlike Bentham, who thought that the pleasure obtained from reading one good poem could be equaled through playing many games of pushpin, Mill's distinction is qualitative: a higher pleasure can never be duplicated through the simple aggregation of lower pleasures.
Mill posited three distinct sources of higher pleasure: (1) acts involving intellectual complexity (2) acts engaging the aesthetic imagination; and (3) acts engaging the moral sentiments.
...ick, AlexH. Kral, ElizabethA. Erringer, JamesG. Kahn, Collateral damage in the war on drugs: HIV risk behaviors among injection drug users, International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 10, Issue 1, 1 February 1999, Pages 25-38
Kersten, Andrew E. Clarence Darrow - American Iconoclast. New York: Hill and Wang - A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
Bard, Mitchell G., ed. The Holocaust. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001. Print. Turning Points in World History.
IOM (Institute of Medicine). (2011). The future of nursing: leading change, advancing health. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Mill's moral theory is not accurately described. It remains recognizably utilitarian. According to Skorupski, he believes that the “mental, moral, and aesthetic stature”4 is capable for human nature, according to Mill. Utility has a place when Mill states that the greatest of interests is not normally classed “under the head of interest.” 5
Mill made a distinction between happiness and sheer sensual pleasure. He defines happiness in terms of higher order pleasure (i.e. social enjoyments, intellectual). In his Utilitarianism (1861), Mill described this principle as follows:According to the Greatest Happiness Principle … The ultimate end, end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible enjoyments.Therefore, based on this statement, three ideas may be identified: (1) The goodness of an act may be determined by the consequences of that act. (2) Consequences are determined by the amount of happiness or unhappiness caused. (3) A "good" man is one who considers the other man's pleasure (or pain) as equally as his own.
Mill, in response to objections about pleasure, claims that there are some pleasures that are better than others. He states that the life of a reasoning, thinking person is superior to a human, rather than just the appetite of an animal.(513) In supporting this claim, he mentions how those who support a similar view have written before that the pleasures of the mind are superior than the body.(513) To support this idea, Mill mentions the idea of competent judges. For someone to be a competent judge be...
Mill says “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, that is the more desirable pleasure.” (541) The pleasure that people choose over a different pleasure, event though they may undergo more discomfort to get it is the pleasure deemed higher. Moreover, Mill states that people will always prefer the pleasure with the highest appeal, “few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for promise of the fullest allowance of the beast’s pleasures” (541). Since the human already has a higher level of pleasure than that of the animal, the human will never choose to go down a level even if they were promised endless amounts of pleasure
When Towns and Liddle meet they discuss both of their perceptions about rebuilding the plane and keeping hope alive within the group. Liddle says to Captain to Towns that most people need at least one of these three things in order to survive: “someone to love, something to hope for, and something to do.” Liddle pleads with Captain Towns that if he no longer believes in hope than he (and the rest of the group) should focus on something to do, like rebuilding their plane.
John Stuart Mill investigates free will and the reasoning behind making decisions in his theories of utilitarianism. The concept of utilitarianism explained by Mill, is to establish that the actions that causes the greatest happiness experienced by the greatest number of people are just and right. Mill explains that the quantity of happiness, as well as quality is the aphorism of which individuals should abide by. The opposite or reverse of this happiness is therefore considered wrong. Happiness is defined as pleasure or joyous emotion and the absence of pain and sadness. However, it is uncertain as to what is considered pleasure or pain of an individual. Moreover, freedom from pain is desirable to promote pleasure in an individual and this
Dwork, Deborah, and R. J. Van Pelt. Holocaust: a History. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
To begin, the Professional Compounding Centers of America defines compounding as “the art and science of preparing personalized medications for patients” (“What is Compounding?”). Drug compounding has a long history, which has been around for hundreds of years. The University Compounding Pharmacy (UCP) claims that “50% of all prescriptions were compounded in the 1940’s” (“History Of Compounding.”). Pharmacy owners, such as the pioneer Eli Lilly, helped compounding pharmacists get into manufacturing companies to create drugs at a rapid pace. Today, the Board of Pharmacy recognizes roughly 5000 compounding pharmacists, which fill 3% of the 4 billion prescriptions yearly. The UCP has produced over 100 compounding pharmacist technicians and 25 official compounding pharmacists. This organization is one of the largest compounding facilities in the United States (“History Of Compounding.”).
John Stuart Mill claims that people often misinterpret utility as the test for right and wrong. This definition of utility restricts the term and denounces its meaning to being opposed to pleasure. Mill defines utility as units of happiness caused by an action without the unhappiness caused by an action. He calls this the Greatest Happiness Principle or the Principle of Utility. Mill’s principle states that actions are right when they tend to promote happiness and are wrong when they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. Happiness is defined as intended pleasure and the absence of pain while unhappiness is defined as pain and the lack of pleasure. Therefore, Mill claims, pleasure and happiness are the only things desirable and good. Mill’s definition of utilitarianism claims that act...
In Chapter 2, What Utilitarianism is, Mill presents the aforesaid definition of Utilitarianism as the criterion of an action to be right or wrong. We have seen that Utilitarianism puts great emphasis on happiness. »By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.«3 The fact that pleasure is the only good for Mill makes his Utilitarianism a form of Hedonism which is most associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus who claims that »Pleasure is our first and kindred good.«4 The difference to Epicurus’ Hedonism, however, is that »the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned.«5
When talking about pleasure there needs to be a distinction between the quality and the quantity. While having many different kinds of pleasures can be considered a good thing, one is more likely to favor quality over quantity. With this distinction in mind, one is more able to quantify their pleasures as higher or lesser pleasures by ascertaining the quality of them. This facilitates the ability to achieve the fundamental moral value that is happiness. In his book Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill offers a defining of utility as pleasure or the absence of pain in addition to the Utility Principle, where “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 7). Through this principle, Mill emphasizes that it is not enough to show that happiness is an end in itself. Mill’s hedonistic view is one in support of the claim that every human action is motivated by or ought to be motivated by the pursuit of pleasure.