John Stuart Mills Difference Between High And Low Pleasures

John Stuart Mill thought to help define utilitarianism by fixing some of the problems from earlier utilitarian theories that his father, James Mill, and friend, Jeremy Bentham, helped create. One of the ways to help utilitarianism Mill found is to distinguish the difference between high and low pleasures. This difference would be separated into intellectual pleasures, such as reading a good book, and sensory pleasures, like eating a savory piece of chocolate. While creating this divide between high and low pleasures, Mill explains that in an intellectual pleasure you would receive not a higher quantity but a higher quality of pleasure. Basically in layman 's terms Mill is saying that no matter how much chocolate you eat or how good it may …show more content…
If the end goal is to achieve the most amount of happiness we should be able to achieve that however we would like. I could make the statement that if I eat my favorite cookies and become happy then my happiness would spread through my nearby family members and friends. If my family goes to work happy they will then create a better work environment for everyone around them. My point is that one person can experience enough low pleasures to create a high pleasure and or do a whole lot of good for others. In the end, that is what utilitarianism is all about …show more content…
I probably do not do enough of them as I should. However, I would assume that attending college, writing essays, and completing research papers would also be a part of the higher pleasures. Therefore I could be doing a fair amount of higher pleasures for myself. That brings me to another point and question. At what point do we know when someone has experienced enough higher pleasures? It could be whenever a specific person has completed a fair amount of higher pleasures and if doing more of those pleasures were to make them unhappy, then that would be enough of them for the time being. Individually, I would not be able to sustain a lot of higher pleasures in a short period of time. This would cause me to get overwhelmed and I would not be able to focus on the greater task at hand. Human beings learn better in this situation. If you study a new subject for a short period of time while taking short breaks to keep your mental state up. You will allow yourself to retain more information about this new subject for a greater length of