5th BLB Meeting, 9th May. 2017: "Conceiving Infinity and Sensing Self: Examining J.S. Mill’s Test for Basic Qualitative Superiorities"

Organizer: Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai)，Sun Yat-sen University

Topic: "Conceiving Infinity and Sensing Self: Examining J.S. Mill’s Test for Basic Qualitative Superiorities”  

Speaker: Tim Beaumont (Research Associate at the Dept. of Philosophy, Zhuhai)

Time: May 9th, 2017

Venue: Rm 114, No. 16 Building at Haibin Honglou

Abstract 

Jonathon Riley is correct to claim that Mill believes that if one pleasurable experience is of a higher quality than another, any quantity of the former, however small, is preferable to any quantity of the latter, however large. However, Riley‟s explanation of the emergence of such „qualitative superiorities‟ is incompatible with Mill‟s texts, and leaves Mill exposed to the objection that the there is insufficient evidence that they exist. This paper shows how Mill‟s accounts of the possibility of conceiving infinite magnitudes, the fusion of different kinds of pleasures, and the ways in which non-sensory pleasures presuppose a mode of existence united by a sense of self, enables him to avoid the objection. It argues that, even if a majority of competent judges would not accept all of the qualitative superiorities that Mill posits, they would accept the one that he claims obtains between non-sensory and purely sensory pleasures.

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