In Mill, just as in Locke, (and unlike Marx) we see the ideal. Though Mill was writing decades after the United States had been formed, we see the same ideas of utilitarianism in our constitution. We live and breathe these ideas in America. Each person may seek his own pleasure as he pleases. The only threat, I think, is if the pleasures, or that which the masses seek, is something unjust or ethically wrong, which we have seen.
I'm interested in the discussion of lower and higher, superior and inferior beings. No person holds that the beasts are superior to us overall, for we reason, though they may be superior in certain ways. An example, a silly one I suppose, is that cats can run faster than us, or birds can fly, but they are not altogether superior to us. We are superior because we are capable of intellectual pleasures, and we are the only beings (so far as we know) with such a distinguished conscience. It may be a useless question, but do the beasts have it better off since they aren't consciously unhappy in the way that we are? To use Kierkegaard's words, in despair.
Abbie's
This is a really interesting post to me because I've often wondered the same things about whether the "beasts" have it better off than us. I personally think that they do. We as humans are capable of thought and reflection and having a conscious but most of the time this only aides in making us miserable.
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