Topic > Jeremy Bentham: A Quantitative Hedonism - 1023

Mill believes that there are higher and lower pleasures. Higher pleasures are intellectual and sophisticated pleasures, while lower pleasures are simple and worldly. In most cases, Mill considers higher pleasures to be stimulating to the mind, while lower pleasures are based only on physical sensations or experiences. Mill also believes that there are some types of pleasures that cannot be compared with each other. You can't compare apples to oranges. Mill demonstrates his thesis by providing an example that ignores quantity to highlight the qualitative differences between pleasures. For this example, the highest pleasure is music while the lowest pleasure is sweets. When you are given the opportunity of a life without music, but have unlimited candy or a life without candy, but have music, more often than not you will choose life with music. Mill uses this example to demonstrate how clear the difference in quality is between these pleasures. The difference in quality between pleasures is so important to Mill that he states that “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied fool” (6). That said, Mill would definitely choose the life of Joseph Haydn. Not only as a successful composer but simply as a human being, Mill feels that