I see qualitative hedonism as recoiling from the implications of true utilitarianism. If you don't carve out a special distinction for beautiful things and high-status behaviour - if you force them to account for themselves on their own merits - then baser pleasures win. Specifically, they win in the short and long term but not the medium term. If you're looking to have as pleasurable a day as possible, do drugs. If you're looking to have as pleasurable a life as possible, contemplate sunsets and whatnot. If you're looking to have as pleasurable a universe as possible, tile it with computer chips simulating countless tiny minds experiencing nothing but euphoria.
OK, the last part probably isn't what Mill had in mind, but I do think baser pleasures tend to win in the long-term at a society-wide level (and are justified in doing so from a quantitative hedonistic standpoint).
You mention in a comment:
> But my understanding was that qualitative hedonists think that it's not about the activity--they'd bite the bullet on the experience machine, for example.
Because the entire philosophy is basically an excuse to avoid biting a bullet, I'd guess that in practice qualitative hedonists wouldn't bite very many bullets. Would they be OK with tiling the universes with a mind happily contemplating the exact same piece of music, over and over? Probably not.
Philosophically I'm not fond of this, but in practice given that I think the singularity may well happen in our lifetimes I am against biting bullets for the most part. There is plenty of room in the universe for everyone to win so let's make that happen rather than murder everyone in order to produce more happiness-chips.
No objections & the definition of pleasure is elegant.
As with many things, I think people who make a high/low distinction are unconsciously preachy and motivated by factors that aren't relevant. An example of this would be that they correctly intuit that 'lower' pleasures (eg eating especially tasty fat/sugar derivatives, lying around getting stoned, pursuing a lot of orgasms) can actually lead more easily to misery in the longer term.
I'm always wary of the moral judgements inherent in classifying something as better or worse in and of itself.
The reason that TikTok is a lower pleasure than Dostoevski isn't that the TikTok addict is getting a less valuable hedonistic experience.
This essay is also a good argument for more honest and clearer thinking about pleasure.
I think qualitative hedonism is probably best understood as a kind of (poorly described) hybrid objective list view with a pleasure requirement: "higher pleasures" = pleasure taken in higher activities. These aren't better "in virtue of their sensation" (i.e. qua pleasures), but rather, in virtue of their *objects*.
That seems a coherent view, even if you ultimately reject it.
Well, okay, if you're just defining pleasure that way for technical purposes, then I'd say that since the macroexperience of hiking up a mountain (with the various aches and tiredness as important components) has non-instumental value, it's a sort of pleasure on your definition. That's not normally how we use "pleasure" in English, of course, and I'm not sure what's gained over just saying that the hike has non-instrumental value, but the non-hedonist can play your game. Now, instead of an argument over whether pleasure (+avoidance of suffering) is the only thing with non-instrumental value, we're having the same argument over what kinds of experiences are pleasures.
A year of doing nothing but drugs (with some planning) would definitely be more pleasurable than whatever else you could do, just because of our brain's biology. But there are many ways to spend a year that are more intrinsically worthwhile. Thus feeling good is not equivalent to intrinsic worthwhileness. You also never really argue for this in the post. In your list of reasons for why a mental state is pleasurable proportional to how non-instrumentally valuable it is, 2-4 say that all and only pleasures feel good, and 1 is just a restatement of the equivalence. There's never an argument for the equivalence value=pleasure itself. We agree that intrinsic worthwhileness is the only thing that matters, I just think that pleasure (feeling good) and intrinsic worthwhileness come apart sometimes.
I see qualitative hedonism as recoiling from the implications of true utilitarianism. If you don't carve out a special distinction for beautiful things and high-status behaviour - if you force them to account for themselves on their own merits - then baser pleasures win. Specifically, they win in the short and long term but not the medium term. If you're looking to have as pleasurable a day as possible, do drugs. If you're looking to have as pleasurable a life as possible, contemplate sunsets and whatnot. If you're looking to have as pleasurable a universe as possible, tile it with computer chips simulating countless tiny minds experiencing nothing but euphoria.
OK, the last part probably isn't what Mill had in mind, but I do think baser pleasures tend to win in the long-term at a society-wide level (and are justified in doing so from a quantitative hedonistic standpoint).
You mention in a comment:
> But my understanding was that qualitative hedonists think that it's not about the activity--they'd bite the bullet on the experience machine, for example.
Because the entire philosophy is basically an excuse to avoid biting a bullet, I'd guess that in practice qualitative hedonists wouldn't bite very many bullets. Would they be OK with tiling the universes with a mind happily contemplating the exact same piece of music, over and over? Probably not.
Philosophically I'm not fond of this, but in practice given that I think the singularity may well happen in our lifetimes I am against biting bullets for the most part. There is plenty of room in the universe for everyone to win so let's make that happen rather than murder everyone in order to produce more happiness-chips.
No objections & the definition of pleasure is elegant.
As with many things, I think people who make a high/low distinction are unconsciously preachy and motivated by factors that aren't relevant. An example of this would be that they correctly intuit that 'lower' pleasures (eg eating especially tasty fat/sugar derivatives, lying around getting stoned, pursuing a lot of orgasms) can actually lead more easily to misery in the longer term.
I'm always wary of the moral judgements inherent in classifying something as better or worse in and of itself.
The reason that TikTok is a lower pleasure than Dostoevski isn't that the TikTok addict is getting a less valuable hedonistic experience.
This essay is also a good argument for more honest and clearer thinking about pleasure.
I think qualitative hedonism is probably best understood as a kind of (poorly described) hybrid objective list view with a pleasure requirement: "higher pleasures" = pleasure taken in higher activities. These aren't better "in virtue of their sensation" (i.e. qua pleasures), but rather, in virtue of their *objects*.
That seems a coherent view, even if you ultimately reject it.
Well, okay, if you're just defining pleasure that way for technical purposes, then I'd say that since the macroexperience of hiking up a mountain (with the various aches and tiredness as important components) has non-instumental value, it's a sort of pleasure on your definition. That's not normally how we use "pleasure" in English, of course, and I'm not sure what's gained over just saying that the hike has non-instrumental value, but the non-hedonist can play your game. Now, instead of an argument over whether pleasure (+avoidance of suffering) is the only thing with non-instrumental value, we're having the same argument over what kinds of experiences are pleasures.
A year of doing nothing but drugs (with some planning) would definitely be more pleasurable than whatever else you could do, just because of our brain's biology. But there are many ways to spend a year that are more intrinsically worthwhile. Thus feeling good is not equivalent to intrinsic worthwhileness. You also never really argue for this in the post. In your list of reasons for why a mental state is pleasurable proportional to how non-instrumentally valuable it is, 2-4 say that all and only pleasures feel good, and 1 is just a restatement of the equivalence. There's never an argument for the equivalence value=pleasure itself. We agree that intrinsic worthwhileness is the only thing that matters, I just think that pleasure (feeling good) and intrinsic worthwhileness come apart sometimes.