great thinkers, great ideas

88 Moral Philosophy: Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong

and it varies only in quantity, not in quality. There can be no

difference between a spiritual and physical pleasure. All plea­

sures are physical, and physical pleasures are the highest plea­

sures attainable. Perhaps some of the feelings that result from

certain physical pleasure could be called “spiritual,” but the

source of those feelings must be sensual.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

John Stuart M ill’s father, James Mill, began an educational
experiment when John was three years old, and John was the
subject of the experiment. The father taught the son Greek, Latin,
logic, philosophy, economics, and mathematics. By the time
John was fourteen he was not only well versed in these subjects,
but had developed the mental faculties necessary to deal with the
complexity of the ideas he had learned. In addition, because of
James’ close friendship with Jeremy Bentham, John at an early
age became the intellectual heir to Bentham ’ s utilitarian philoso­
phy.
After suffering a nervous breakdown at the age of twenty one,
he married, took a job with the East India Company, and began
writing. Late in life he was elected to Parliament, and he
continued writing. It is interesting that much of his influence,
based on his ethical theory, is in the field of political philosophy.
Utilitarianism is his most important essay on ethics, and his
essays On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Gov­
ernment are important political statements, while his Systems of
Logic is considered to be his best work.
John Stuart Mill inherited a philosophy from his father and
Jeremy Bentham, and he remained a utilitarian throughout his
life, but he did make a major break from the theory he had
learned. While Bentham was a quantitative hedonistic Mill
became a qualitative hedonist. That is, Mill believed that while
the basic utilitarian premise is absolutely correct, there are two
kinds of pleasures, physical and intellectual. Each is different,
and one is better. Intellectual pleasures are superior to physical
pleasures because they are the ones that make man the superior
being. Mill contradicted Bentham’s view of sensual pleasure by
stating, “It is better to be a man dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied;