Darren Medeiros

Although the notion of the higher pleasures is central to John Stuart Mill’s ethical hedonism, conspicuously absent from _Utilitarianism_ is any substantive explanation of the nature of the higher pleasures, resulting in several interpretative difficulties including the charge that Mill’s theory faces a dilemma that severely undercuts the consistency of his ethical theory. The mystery of why Mill would be so evasive in explaining the higher pleasures can be solved by analyzing the influence of Auguste Comte’s Positivism on Mill—as well as the influence of Plato. I argue that because Auguste Comte harshly rejects the validity of claims regarding conscious intellectual states, it is plausible that Mill chooses not to reveal his understanding of the higher pleasures. And furthermore, Mill does this because, as is shown by his commentary on _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, he does in fact understand the higher pleasures as conscious intellectual states. I offer preliminary analysis of Mill’s expanded view and show how it can resolve some interpretative problems introduced in _Utilitarianism_.