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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Mill's own distinction between higher and lower pleasures concedes that pleasures differ in kind, not merely quantity, undermining hedonism's unity as a single good.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Qualitative differences can reflect quantity measured along different dimensions—complexity, duration, depth—without abandoning hedonism's monistic structure.
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    • 2.Mill's higher pleasures remain pleasures; preference rankings reflect contingent human psychology, not a conceptual flaw in hedonistic theory itself.
      ?

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    • 3.Unity as a single good requires one ultimate aim (happiness), not one type of experience; hedonism can remain unified while acknowledging pleasure's diversity.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.If pleasures differ qualitatively, then pleasure alone cannot explain why we prefer poetry to pushpin—requiring appeal to non-hedonistic values.
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    • 2.Mill's competent judges consistently rank intellectual pleasures above bodily ones, suggesting a non-quantitative evaluative principle governs hedonism.
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    • 3.A unified theory of the good must identify a single metric; qualitative distinctions between pleasures introduce irreducible plurality into hedonism's foundation.
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