Question

Write a paragraph explaining Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Second, how does Mill think we can know which pleasures are preferable to others. Be thorough, and write for an audience with no knowledge of Mill's writings.​

Answer 1

In his book, "Utilitarianism", Mill discussed the idea of higher and lower pleasure. According to him, Higher pleasure is something that is not physical. It is intellectual in nature, like reading poetry or a good novel. Lower pleasure is sensual. They are physical in nature that we can experience through our sensory system, for example,eating ice-cream,sexetc. According to him, The pleasure we get from reading a good peotry is far better than the pleasure we get from eating ice-cream.

According to Mill, Humans can distinguish between pleasures once they come to know about their higher intellectual faculties. According to him, once we taste this type of pleasure, we will never like to leave them unexplored, thus happiness is excercising our higher faculties. According to him, Lower pleasures are animalistic in nature,higher pleasures are something that only humans can feel, and once we cultivate them,we will always prefer higher pleasure over lower.