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Reinterpreting the Qualitative Hedonism Advanced by J.S. Mill

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Notes

  1. . See Jonathan Riley, “On Qualities and Quantities of Pleasure,” Utilitas, vol. 5, no. 2, (1993); see also “Is Qualitative Hedonism Incoherent?,” Utilitas, vol. 11, no. 3 (1999); “Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part I,” Utilitas, vol. 20, no. 3 (2008); “Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part II,” Utilitas, vol. 21, no. 2 (2009); and “Justice as Higher Pleasure,” in Georgios Varouxakis and Paul Kelly, eds., John Stuart Mill – Thought and Influence: The Saint of Rationalism (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2010).

  2. See Christoph Schmidt-Petri, “Mill on Quality and Quantity,” The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 210 (2003); see also, Jonathan Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 212 (2003); Christoph Schmidt-Petri, “On an Interpretation of Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” Prolegomena, vol. 5, no. 2 (2006); and Jonathan Riley, “What are Millian Qualitative Superiorities?,” Prolegomena, vol. 7, no. 1 (2008).

  3. See Ben Saunders, ‘J. S. Mill’s Conception of Utility,’ Utilitas, vol. 22, no. 1 (2010).

  4. See David Brink, “Mill’s Deliberative Utilitarianism,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 21, no. 1 (1992), p. 72; see also, John Gray, “Mill’s Liberalism and Liberalism’s Posterity,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 4, no. 1–2 (2000), p. 148; John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 261–263; and Elijah Millgram, “Liberty, the Higher Pleasures, and Mill’s Missing Science of Ethnic Jokes,” Social Philosophy & Policy, vol. 26, no. 1 (2009), p. 327.

  5. John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism,” in John M. Robson, ed., The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Volume X - Essays on Ethics, Religion, and Society, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), p. 211.

  6. See Nicholas L. Sturgeon, “Mill’s Hedonism,” Boston University Law Review, vol. 90, no. 4 (2010), p. 1716.

  7. See ibid., pp. 1715–1716.

  8. Mill, op. cit., pp. 211–212.

  9. See ibid., pp. 211–212.

  10. See Riley, “Justice as Higher Pleasure,” p. 108.

  11. See Riley, “Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?,” p. 355.

  12. Schmidt-Petri, “On an Interpretation of Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” pp. 166–167.

  13. See Mark Strasser, “Hutcheson on the Higher and Lower Pleasures,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 25, no. 4 (1987); see also Dale Dorsey, “Hutcheson’s Deceptive Hedonism,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 48, no. 4 (2010).

  14. See Henry West, An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian Ethics (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 51–52.

  15. See Fred Feldman, “Mill, Moore, and the Consistency of Qualified Hedonism,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 20, no. 1 (1995), p. 326; see also Edward Walter, “Mill on Happiness,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 16, no. 4, (1982), pp. 306–309.

  16. See Guy Fletcher, “The Consistency of Qualitative Hedonism and the Value of (at Least Some) Malicious Pleasures,” Utilitas, vol. 20, no. 4 (2008).

  17. See Jesper Ryberg, “Higher and Lower Pleasures – Doubts about Justification,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 5, no. 4 (2002).

  18. See Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 238–241; see also Alastair Norcross, “Contractualism and Aggregation,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 28, no. 2 (2002).

  19. See Wlodek Rabinowicz, “Ryberg’s Doubts about Higher and Lower Pleasures – Put to Rest?,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 6, no. 2, (2003); see also Gustaf Arrhenius and Wlodek Rabinowicz, “Millian Superiorities,” Utilitas, vol. 17, no. 2, (2005).

  20. Mill, op. cit., p. 211.

  21. Ibid., p. 215.

  22. Ibid., p. 211; see also Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 412.

  23. See Mill, op. cit., p. 211.

  24. See Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 414.

  25. Mill, op. cit., p. 211.

  26. See Jeremy Bentham, The Rationale of Reward (United States: BiblioLife LLC, 2009), p. 206.

  27. Mill, op. cit., p. 211.

  28. See Mill, op. cit., p. 235.

  29. See Riley, “What are Millian Qualitative Superiorities?,” pp. 67, 71.

  30. Mill, op. cit., p. 211.

  31. See Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” pp. 413–415.

  32. See Schmidt-Petri, “On an Interpretation of Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” pp. 170–172.

  33. John Stuart Mill, “Diary,” in John M. Robson, ed., The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Volume XXVII - Journals and Debating Speeches Part II, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988), p. 663; see also Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 415.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 214.

  36. See Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 415.

  37. See Matthew Pianalto, “Against the Intrinsic Value of Pleasure,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 43, no. 1 (2009), p. 33.

  38. See Feldman, op. cit., pp. 318–319.

  39. See Edgar Carritt, The Theory of Morals (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), p. 21.

  40. See Schmidt-Petri, “Mill on Quality and Quantity,” p. 103; see also Saunders, op. cit., pp. 61–63.

  41. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 213.

  42. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 211.

  43. See Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 416.

  44. See ibid., p. 416.

  45. See Riley, “What are Millian Qualitative Superiorities?,” pp. 71–76.

  46. See Schmidt-Petri, “On an Interpretation of Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 173.

  47. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 251.

  48. Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 213.

  49. See Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 415.

  50. John Stuart Mill, “Letter 95. To Thomas Carlyle,” in Francis E. Mineka, ed., The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Volume XII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812–1848 Part I, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), p. 207.

  51. See Geoffrey Scarre, “Donner and Riley on Qualitative Hedonism,” Utilitas, vol. 9, no. 3, (1997), pp. 354–355; see also Wendy Donner, The Liberal Self: John Stuart Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 37–65; and Saunders, op. cit., p. 63.

  52. See Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 212.

  53. See Schmidt-Petri, “Mill on Quality and Quantity,” p. 103; see also Riley, “Interpreting Mill’s Qualitative Hedonism,” p. 417.

  54. See Elijah Millgram, “Mill’s Proof of the Principle of Utility,” Ethics, vol. 110, no. 2 (2000), p. 297.

  55. See Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 213.

  56. See Mill, “Utilitarianism,” p. 213.

  57. See Saunders, op. cit., p. 60.

  58. I would like to thank Brian McElwee, Thomas Magnell, and a number of anonymous referees of the Journal of Value Inquiry for comments and suggestions on previous versions of the article.

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Saunders, B. Reinterpreting the Qualitative Hedonism Advanced by J.S. Mill. J Value Inquiry 45, 187–201 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-011-9274-0

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