The Authority of Competence and Quality as Extrinsic † - forthcoming in

John Stuart Mill’s hedonism is notoriously ambiguous. The most important ambiguity concerns his reliance on an axiologically significant notion of quality of pleasure. (Hereafter: “quality”.) His resulting “higher pleasures doctrine” has given rise to a number of interpretive disputes concerning, for instance, the nature of quality, the relative value of higher pleasures in comparison to lower pleasures, and, indeed, whether the higher pleasures doctrine is ultimately compatible with his professed hedonism. Furthermore, such interpretive disputes are no small matter. Given the role Mill’s hedonism plays in his moral and political philosophy, such disagreement about Mill’s theory of welfare does not portend well for a broad understanding of his considered views. My aim in this paper is not to offer a full account of Mill’s axiology. Rather, I seek to explore one corner of the higher pleasures doctrine, in particular, what sort of property quality of pleasure is. I argue that the only acceptable interpretation of the higher pleasures doctrine treats quality as a property that is (a) independent of the preferences of competent judges, (b) non-phenomenal, and (c) extrinsic to individual higher quality pleasures. My argument for this reading will focus on an interpretation of Mill’s competent judges test: only this interpretation can explain the peculiar trust Mill imparts in these judges when it comes to the nature of human well-being. The plan of this paper runs as follows. In the first section, I introduce Mill’s competent judges and the use to which he puts them, along with two important, but often overlooked, features of their authority. In §§2-4, †I would like to gratefully acknowledge the helpful influence of David Brink, Ben Eggleston, Dale Miller, Henry West, and two anonymous reviewers for the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.