ETHICS promised a cornucopia of bestial pleasures ‘It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.’ Again, no intelligent, educated person would wish, at any price, to become a foolish ignoramus It is ‘better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied’ (U 260) Happiness, according to Mill, involves not just contentment, but also a sense of dignity; any amount of the lower pleasures, without this, would not amount to happiness Accordingly, the greatest happiness principle needs to be restated: The ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of self-consciousness and selfobservation, are best furnished with the means of comparison (U 262) Suppose, then, that a critic grants to Mill that utilitarianism need not be swinish Still, he may insist, it does not appeal to the best in human nature Virtue is more important than happiness, and acts of renunciation and selfsacrifice are the most splendid of human deeds Mill agrees that it is noble to be capable of resigning one’s own happiness for the sake of others—but would the hero or martyr’s sacrifice be made if he did not believe that it would increase the amount of happiness in the world? A person who denies himself the enjoyment of life for any other purpose ‘is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar’ Objections to utilitarianism come in two different forms As a moral code, it may be thought to be too strict, or it may be thought to be too lax Those who complain that it is too strict say that to insist that in every single action one should take account not just of one’s own but of universal happiness is to demand a degree of altruism beyond the range of all but saints Indeed, even to work out what is the most felicific of the choices available at any given moment calls for superhuman powers of calculation Those who regard utilitarianism as too lax say that its abolition of absolute prohibitions on kinds of action opens a door for moral agents to persuade themselves whenever they feel like it that they are in the special circumstances that would justify an otherwise outrageous act They could quote words that Mill himself wrote to Harriet Taylor soon after they met: 226