Abstract

The traditional interpretation of Mill’s ‘qualitative superiority of pleasure’ urges that pleasures can be qualitatively distinguished in terms of mental or intellectual pleasure on the one hand and physical or sensuous pleasure on the other. The traditional interpretation assumes that Mill, by introducing ‘qualitative dimension’ in his value theory, has stressed upon living a purely intellectual life, ignoring physical or sensuous life. On this understanding, Mill’s qualitative distinction between pleasures has frequently been exemplified as distinction between pleasure obtained from reading poetry, literature etc. and pleasure obtained from physical enjoyment. But, in this paper, I argue that the traditional interpretation actually suffers from a conceptual error. As a result, such interpretation has failed to capture the real essence of the qualitative distinction made by Mill and consequently, his view has been misrepresented through all such examples. Mill’s view can be appropriately understood only in the light of his broad utilitarian perspective.