Neither Socrates nor the pig could experience both (whole) lives. Mill is thus
wrong to claim that Socrates, unlike the pig, "knows both sides. "

There is a second complication. If one narrows the question from com-
paring whole lives to comparing types of pleasure, or successive styles of life,
does experience settle the matter? Are piggy pleasures--bodily, sensual, and
so forth--in some sense "lower"? Are Socratic pleasures--intellectual, aes-
thetic, moral, and so on--in some sense "higher"? And if we give the com-
parison a sense (say, the more desirable pleasure is the "higher" one) does it
follow that any occasion of a higher pleasure must be preferred to any com-
peting occasion of a lower pleasure? If we do not assume that, our criterion
for comparing pleasures becomes shaky. Mill tells us that the only test for
whether something is desirable is the fact that people do desire it. But what
people desire must surely depend on the competing alternatives of the mo-
ment, their recent experiences of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, felt lack, and
so on, as well as on their general attitudes to different types of pleasure. How
then can we ever be sure that a pleasure is "higher" if that judgment de-
pends on its desirability, and that in turn depends on desires that vary with
circumstances and individuals? The comparison of types of pleasure may
not be much easier than the choice between whole lives.

When Mill tells us that "the sole evidence it is possible to produce that
any thing is desirable, is that people do actually desire it" ( 1961 [ 1861],
363), what is being measured or shown? Is the point psychological or
moral? After all, it can be a surprising lesson to learn just what other peo-
ple in fact find desirable. The range of sexual interests in particular is extra-
ordinary and it sometimes seems that anything one can imagine doing
someone will want, often passionately, to do. It is one of the many valuable
lessons of Freud that reactions of disgust are typically conventional. Thus
necrophilia and bestiality and coprophilia may be minority tastes, but
there are nonetheless some who find such activities appealing, and their
desire is, on Mill's standard, proof of (psychological) desirability. The fact
that relatively few have those tastes has some implications, and the ques-
tion of whether having a particular desire is "good" (moral desirability) re-
mains open. (This is a point much emphasized by G. E. Moore [ 1903] in his
critique of Mill.) On the question of numbers, Mill tells us: "Of two plea-
sures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both
give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to
prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure" (332). This becomes his stan-
dard for "quality" of pleasure. But note that what majority rule seems to be
settling here--as indicated by the setting aside of "moral obligation"--is a
psychological question. How a psychological point, even described as a
point about "quality," becomes a moral measure will need clarification. For
as I said a moment ago, the question of moral desirability, of the goodness
of an object or an activity, does not seem settled by the fact that a few or
that many want it. But that a moral measure is what emerges seems essen-
tial to utilitarianism as a guide to life.

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