Education For All

- What is Mill's distinction between higher and lower quality pleasures? What does it mean to say that the quality of a pleasure is higher, not just that the quantity is greater?
- Is Mill right about the kinds of pleasures that "competent judges" decidedly prefer? Who are these judges, and why should their judgments provide a basis for deciding about the quality of pleasures and the goodness of lives?
- Does Mill's higher/lower distinction reflect an objectionable elitism, and an undue emphasis on intellectual pleasures?
- Is it better, as Mill says, to be Socrates dissatisfied than the fool satisfied? Why? Is that because Socrates has better pleasures, or for some other reason?