Why Pleasure Should Be Our Goal

John Stuart Mill is smarter than his critics

A strong Epicurean ally: John Stuart Mill

It is well known that Epicureans believe that pleasure is the human telos, the goal towards which all of our choices should most rationally be oriented. Epicurus doesn’t (in our extant texts) really argue for this position. He seems to think that pleasure and happiness are self-evidently our goal:

We all must study what truly produces happiness (eudaimonia), for when we possess happiness, we wish for nothing else, but when we lack it, all our efforts go to its pursuit. (Letter to Menoeceus 122)

Pleasure is the beginning and end (telos) of a blessed life. (LM 128)

To many, this is indeed self-evident: of course people want to be happy. In everyday life, an appeal to what one thinks will bring about one’s own happiness is generally admitted to be a sufficient reason for choosing a particular course of action. To claim that preferring happiness to unhappiness is an inherently invalid goal is definitely a minority position.

Still, when it comes to philosophical circles, where no claim will go undisputed, it is easy to find people willing to argue that happiness should not be our goal, or should not be our only goal, or should only be our goal if we define it as something clearly distinct from pleasure. Today, I’d like to explain the Epicurean argument for why pleasure is indeed the most reasonable ultimate goal by which we should guide our conduct, and respond to some possible critiques of this position.

Fortunately, one of the more incisive philosophical minds to ever write in English—John Stuart Mill—has already done the job. Unfortunately, his argument for hedonism is one of the most heavily criticized passages he ever wrote. Fortunately, I think those criticisms are wrong. I’m sure I won’t convince everyone that Mill’s position represents the one and only accurate way of understanding human psychology, but I do hope to demonstrate that his arguments are internally consistent, not fallacious in the commonly purported ways, and a perfectly reasonably way of looking at the world, one that needs to be seriously answered if one wishes to dismiss the case for hedonism.

What Mill Says and Why He’s Not Wrong

If you haven’t read John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, you should. It is an approachable philosophical classic that strongly lays out the case for hedonism and makes dozens of penetrating observations in generally lucid prose. Of particular interest (and notoriety) is the opening of Chapter 4, which is worth quoting at length:

It has already been remarked, that questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. To be incapable of proof by reasoning is common to all first principles; to the first premises of our knowledge, as well as to those of our conduct. But the former, being matters of fact, may be the subject of a direct appeal to the faculties which judge of fact—namely, our senses, and our internal consciousness. Can an appeal be made to the same faculties on questions of practical ends? Or by what other faculty is cognizance taken of them?

Questions about ends are, in other words, questions what things are desirable. The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end. What ought to be required of this doctrine—what conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfil—to make good its claim to be believed?

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good.

This is frequently criticized, but, I think, frequently misunderstood.¹ The most common accusation is that Mill is committing the “naturalistic fallacy,” slipping in a conclusion that happiness ought to be desired (one definition of “desirable”), when all his argument entitles him to claim is that happiness can be desired (the definition of “desirable” more correctly analogous to “visible” and “audible”). For all his intelligence and reputation, it is asserted, Mill is committing a rudimentary error of deriving an “ought” from an “is.”

A more careful reading, however, shows this to be false. Mill is quite explicit that he is not offering a formal, deductive proof. He says that he is providing something different—“evidence.” As a first step towards deciding what we “should desire,” it is extremely pertinent to note that any possible candidates must be something “capable of being desired.” What could “worth desiring” or “ought to be desired” mean, if we attempted to debate such a question without reference to what humans actually do desire? Mill therefore offers the claim that everyone desires their own happiness as a premise, not as his conclusion. If humans are incapable of seeing something, it would be nonsensical to propose it as something that we “ought to see.” Likewise with desire: the fact that happiness is generally desired by humans is the only relevant criterion for its initial inclusion in our list of candidates for things that “ought to be desired.”

When we start to assemble such a list of candidate desires, happiness is perhaps the most obvious starting point. In Mill’s view, essentially everyone would agree that they desire their own happiness. In further arguments which I don’t have space to quote here, Mill goes on to argue that all other proposed ends are desired as either means to happiness, or as components of happiness. Virtue, for instance, may be valued instrumentally, as a means to happiness (the Epicurean emphasis). Through education and habit, many people also come to find virtuous behavior intrinsically pleasurable, with non-virtuous behavior producing an immediately painful psychological sensation. If nothing can be proposed that is desired independently of happiness, and accepting that the desire for happiness is indeed universal, then happiness by default can be identified as the most fitting end of human conduct.

According to Mill, then, happiness is the only thing that humans ultimately desire. As another point of terminological clarification with which I agree, it is important to note that both Mill and the Epicureans consider “happiness” and “pleasure” to be essentially synonymous:

I believe that these sources of evidence, impartially consulted, will declare that desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon; in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact: that to think of an object as desirable (unless for the sake of its consequences), and to think of it as pleasant, are one and the same thing; and that to desire anything, except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant, is a physical and metaphysical impossibility.

Here, in short, are Mill’s claims:

1. Everyone desires their own happiness.

2. Everything else we think we desire is valued only as a means to happiness or as a component of happiness. The things we label as “virtuous” or “right” ultimately derive their value because of their tendency to produce happiness for ourselves or others. (This was the conclusion of Sidgwick, Mill’s Utilitarian successor who exhaustively investigated all of the “commonsense” virtues of his day in search of non-hedonistic values.)

3. Everything we desire is by definition pleasant to us. It is impossible to desire something while thinking it (on net) painful. We may be mistaken as to that ultimate net pleasurability, but it is the prospect of pleasure that motivates our desires.

This is, of course, a very bare sketch. I’m not aiming to rewrite Mill’s whole chapter. But since “why should we consider pleasure the only good?” is a common question, and one which has been explicitly argued for by one of the great minds of English philosophy in a way that I find fundamentally convincing, it seems most efficient to say: here is what we think—for the full arguments, see chapter four of Mill’s Utilitarianism.

Some Objections

If you’d like to engage seriously with these ideas, therefore, you really should read Utilitarianism for yourself. Most of the objections one could make have crossed Mill’s mind; he was a very smart guy. But as a preview, we can run through some of the common complaints here.

Misunderstanding what we mean by “pleasure”

First, some will quibble over the word “pleasure,” thinking it implies advocacy for impulsive sensuality, or perhaps for hyper-refined aesthetic tastes. Some will quibble over the word “happiness,” thinking it refers to fleeting short-term mental states. For these people: use whichever word you prefer. Pleasure, happiness, eudaimonia, advantage, utility—Epicurus and Mill use these words essentially interchangeably and in the broadest possible sense.

Second, some will say that they sometimes choose a course of action even though it is not their most pleasurable option, and that therefore they aim at other things than pleasure. The Epicurean and Millsian perspective is that the pleasure of your ultimate choice may have been less obvious or immediate, but that in the end you inevitably chose the option that seemed on net more pleasurable to you. You cleaned the kitchen instead of watching TV? You must have felt the inconvenience, guilt, or shame of the dirty kitchen to be psychologically painful, such that alleviating that pain was a greater net pleasure than you would have derived from watching TV.

This way of framing things is called psychological hedonism. A lot of people don’t like it, because it applies “pleasure” to lots of activities that we don’t—in natural language—refer to as pleasurable. Epicurus and Mill like it, because describing your gratification upon cleaning your kitchen in terms of non-hedonistic ethical obligation towards what was “right” or “virtuous” would be to unjustifiably put a heavy finger on the scales towards viewing that action favorably. We shouldn’t. There is no intrinsic virtue to cleaning the kitchen. If it actually does produce less total pleasure than another course of action, then you shouldn’t do it.

Third, some people point out that different people find different things pleasurable. Are some things good for some people, but bad for others? What if someone says murdering strangers gives them pleasure? Should we call that good?

We would say that there are minor differences between different people and that is fine. Some people prefer chocolate ice cream, while others prefer mint chip. Each are free to pursue their preference. We Epicureans don’t aim to micromanage such preferences, or put precise pleasure scores on different activities.

As for the case of the serial killer, we have two responses. First, extreme skepticism that this applies to most people, especially once you consider the legal and social sanctions. Even if we grant an unusual psychological proclivity towards harming others, any such “pleasure” would have to be weighed against the costs of likely incarceration and ostracism. We would enjoin the normal people of the world to honestly ask themselves whether following some “abnormal” impulse would really bring them pleasure on net. It rarely will.

For the very rare cases where intense psychological abnormality means that an individual derives unsurpassable pleasure from a highly anti-social behavior, any pleasure that they may derive from the activity is presumably less than that of their victims or otherwise affected parties. From the perspective of the community or state, this activity is clearly a hedonistic negative and should be prevented. Nothing in the Epicurean or Millsian endorsement of psychological hedonism prevents the operation of legal and social sanctions that promote the overall happiness.

Wait, so how did you get to universalistic hedonism? Aren’t Epicureans egoists?

In the common, simplified narrative, Epicureans are “egoistic hedonists” concerned only with individual happiness while Utilitarians are “universalistic hedonists” who say we should maximize total happiness of all involved people (or sentient beings). This flattens the diversity within the world of Utilitarians and is consequently another frequent area of misunderstanding Mill.

Psychologically, Mill believes, with Epicurus, that we all inevitably desire our own happiness. We do not, by default, desire the happiness of the whole of humanity. Yes—basically, I’m saying Mill is more of an Epicurean than he is a Utilitarian, as the word is often tossed around. People read him saying this:

… each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. (Utilitarianism, Chapter 4)

Then they assume that he is asserting that because each individual inevitably views his own happiness as a good, each individual is therefore obligated to feel that the good of all humanity is an equally compelling motive to himself personally—i.e. people assume that Mill is committing another obvious fallacy, one of composition. He clarified this sentence, however, in a letter:

[W]hen I said the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons I did not mean that every human being’s happiness is a good to every other human being, though I think, in a good state of society and education it would be so. I merely meant in this particular sentence to argue that since A’s happiness is a good, B’s a good, C’s a good, &c, the sum of all these goods must be a good.²

Mill’s initial claim in Utilitarianism, then, is a simpler one: if we all feel that our own happiness is good for ourselves, we will tend to believe that Sara’s happiness is good for Sara and that Henry’s happiness is good for Henry. If we all share this way of looking at the world, then we will agree that it will be good generally if we can construct “society and education” in such a way that prosocial behavior becomes a source of pleasure to each individual (due to legal sanctions, social sanctions, and psychological habit).

There is nothing in this form of “Utilitarianism” that actually conflicts with Epicureanism, and so in my view there is an underrated amount of common ground between Mill and Epicurus. Generally speaking, Mill focuses more on policy and population-level well-being, while Epicurus addresses himself primarily to individuals, but their psychological theory is very similar.

What about virtue or moral rightness?

It is frequently proposed that objectives other than hedonistic ones have intrinsic worth. Aristotelians and Stoics, for instance, propose that our objective should be to live virtuously. (Conveniently, they say that this will produce eudaimonia as a side effect.) Christians propose something similar, with somewhat different virtues in mind. (Conveniently, they say that the virtuous will receive eternal eudaimonia in the afterlife.) A lot of modern philosophy, broadly speaking, focuses on distinguishing between “right” and “wrong” actions.

The hedonistic response is ultimately fairly simple: everything that is asserted as “virtuous” or “right” derives that status from its hedonistic consequences. If generosity and justice spread pain, we wouldn’t admire them. When a simple rule of right conduct (say, “tell the truth”) seems to have clearly negative hedonic consequences (informing Gestapo agents about hidden Jews), most people’s assurance in the preferability of following the rule is severely shaken.

This is, of course, the most cursory possible treatment of a longstanding issue. Mill discusses the question in Utilitarianism, and Sidgwick spends a few hundred pages of The Methods of Ethics trying to dispassionately consider whether any of the traditional virtues have an intrinsic value apart from their hedonistic consequences. He decides they don’t. The Epicureans agree.

Is “pleasure is the end” unjustifiable moral realism?

Those of a more skeptical or nihilistic bent respond with instinctive aversion to anything smacking of an absolute ethical claim. “Pleasure should be the goal of all human conduct” sounds like such a claim. However, it will hopefully be clear from the above that this Epicurean and Utilitarian formulation is not intended as an appeal to a real “moral truth” floating around in the ideal world. Instead, it is our practical conclusion based on what seems to us to be a widely-held understanding of human psychology.

Skeptical schools, such as the ancient Pyrrhonists, maintain that moral statements are not subject to certain human knowledge. Some say pleasure is the end, while others say virtue is the end—there is no agreement. Pyrrhonists would accordingly argue that all such statements must belong to the unverifiable world of beliefs, rather than that of evident and non-controversial facts. And yet, pragmatically (i.e. in terms of guiding our actions), I think there is little to set the Pyrrhonists strongly apart from the Epicureans.

While Pyrrhonists emphasize ridding our mind of unjustified dogmatic beliefs, they also admit the basic reasonableness of alleviating pain and practicing normal prudent behavior. Hunger and thirst are evident, and it makes perfect sense that individuals are motivated to alleviate such discomforts. Pyrrhonists “live in general conformity with the guidance of our society… seeing that going against the laws and customs produces difficulties,” writes contemporary Pyrrhonist Doug Bates (Pyrrho’s Way, 93). Epicurus makes very similar claims.

I have recently been having some fruitful exchanges with the Pyrrhonist community and look forward to going into more detail on our commonalities and differences soon, but for now I think it is roughly accurate to say this: insofar as Epicurean advice to pursue pleasure and avoid pain is interpreted as being based upon what the Pyrrhonists call “criteria of action” (i.e. appearances that are sufficiently useful guides for our conduct, even if not sufficiently evident to be endorsed as objectively true), rather than upon a “criterion of truth,” they would not generally disagree with the drift of our recommendations. Avoid pain and troublesome disturbance, while enjoying the common pleasures of life—Pyrrhonists do not dispute this as a reasonable set of priorities to guide our actions. While Epicurus does present his claims more absolutely than the Pyrrhonists do, he is concerned most of all with action. If we agree about how to live, then I think the Pyrrhonists will also have good odds of obtaining happiness.

The non-necessity of moral realism for practical hedonism is also the fundamental conclusion of some who take one step beyond moral skepticism to moral nihilism. “I have been a utilitarian since my undergraduate days… But I’ve also been a moral nihilist.” says Walter Veit, for a recent example from Substack. “Of all the ethical theories one might endorse, utilitarianism still offered the metaphysically least objectionable move, simply identifying the subjective values of creatures to the objective values of the universe.” Such a view is perfectly compatible with Epicureanism. To insist upon applying contemporary metaethical labels to Epicurus is ultimately an anachronistic exercise that is just as likely to distort as to illuminate. In practice, you can have the most conservative set of metaethical beliefs possible (i.e. none), and still find that hedonistic criteria are the most reasonable ones for the guidance of our individual conduct and our social arrangements.

In sum, although Epicureanism is often dismissed as offering a shallow and incomplete vision of human life, such critiques are poorly substantiated and usually stem from cursory and uncharitable interpretations of our claims. In reality, we share much of our underlying hedonistic theory with modern schools of thought that—while certainly not universally agreed with—are usually accorded widespread and serious consideration. Contemporary English-speakers who are tempted to casually dismiss hedonistic philosophies should give careful thought to the detailed arguments of foundational modern hedonists like Mill and Sidgwick before making any hasty pronouncements as to the insufficiency of a philosophy oriented around pleasure and happiness.

Hedonistic philosophies continue to be debated, but they continue to find plenty of advocates: Epicureanism should be part of that conversation.

1. The defense of Mill given here is largely in accord with Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, “Mill’s ‘Proof’ of the Principle of Utility: A More than Half-Hearted Defense,” Social Philosophy and Policy 18, no. 2 (2001): 330–360.

2. John Stuart Mill to Henry Jones, June 13, 1868, quoted in Sayre-McCord, “Mill’s ‘Proof’ of the Principle of Utility: A More than Half-Hearted Defense,” 342–343.