Mill’s Pig: An Introduction

Abstract “Is it better to be Socrates dissatisfied, or a pig satisfied?” John Stuart Mill’s advice on answering his question was: don’t ask the pig.1 He has a point. It is not that pigs should be assumed to be more biased, or less intelligent, or even less experienced (if one is measuring “amount” of experience by length of life, or by events per day, or the like). The point is that the pig’s range of experience is limited. One can assume that the pig has had all the usual piggy pleasures, but one must recognize that Socrates and humans in general, in addition to enjoying the piggy pleasures, have open to them a whole range of intellectual, spiritual, and ‘‘higher” pleasures. And if one is judging between types of pleasures, one ought of course to give greater weight to the person (or creature) of wider experience, the one who has experienced all the relevant types of pleasures.