Topics Philosophers

Question Regarding Mill's (was it?) thought experiment about rather being Socrates dissatisfied than some caged subspecies with a non-ending supply of food. My thought is that the objection "YOU can't be (or justifiably imagine yourself as) someone else" is a non-trivial one. In fact, it seems to me a crushing one to the whole thought experiment. You can't be Socrates; you can't have his wisdom and your consciousness since all of it was a package and defined him, as distinct from you. I also have an inkling that this whole division of someone into parts: consciousness, wisdom, emotional control, etc., is a non-helpful one and gives us the wrong picture of our identities. From personal experience I can attest that the addition of life experience has changed my consciousness, as has the addition of book knowledge. So if I had Socrates' wisdom I would have his consciousness (if we must divide it this way) and I would BE him. Isn't it entirely more productive to think about how WE could be happy as ourselves, than to think about thought experiments that violate the most fundamental laws of possibility?

Accepted:
May 2, 2007

Comments

Your point is well taken. The separateness of persons, the problem of making interpersonal comparisons of happiness, and just plain difference are serious issues, indeed. It's important to use a lot of caution in making judgments about what will and will not make people happier or better off. (And your point about the wholeness of persons is important, as well.)

But I think this cautionary principle can be taken too far. In making moral judgments and public policy it's often not possible to avoid making these sorts of judgments. And even in offering kindnesses to others, selecting gifts, taking their interests into consideration, offering them courtesies, raising our children, don't we try to figure out what will make others happy or better off? Don't we even sometimes argue with our friends, lovers, and children about what will make them happy when we think they're making a mistake (say in marrying the wrong person, or eating too much)--that is, when we think we know better than they do what's good for them? We are, after all, similarly constituted, with similar bodies, histories, experiences, circumstances. I often think we're less unique than we moderns and post-moderns like to believe.

Mill's argument hinges not only, however, upon a common human nature and a shared cultural world but also upon the advantages of experience. That is to say, Mill believed that the wise will have known both the what he called "higher" sorts of pleasures possessed by, say, Socrates AND the so-called "lower" pleasures of children, pigs, and fools. Why? Because every wise person began life as a child, has probably been a fool, and has had some experience of "lower" pleasures. The pig, the child, the ignorant, the foolish, however, will only have known "lower" pleasures; they are ignorant of higher pleasures. In short, the wise know both H-pleasures and L-pleasures, while the non-wise know only L-pleasures. Though I don't think Mill's argumement was only based on empirical considerations, part of his argument is that beings who have tried both H and L pleasures report that H-pleasures are better. They are in a position to know. Those who have only experienced L-pleasures, however, are not qualified judges.