Pleasure, happiness, or goodness can be measured

Question 1

pleasure, happiness, or goodness CAN’T be measured

Answer 1

Things that are measurable or quantifiable tend to have units of measurement. Time has hours and minutes, mass has grams, etc. There are no obvious units that could measure pleasure or pain.

Question 2

pleasure, happiness, or goodness CAN’T be measured

Answer 2

Further difficulties in the measurement of pleasure and pain lie in the fact that pleasure and pain are often subjective to the individual. We enjoy different things and each of us may have a different pain threshold and be willing to suffer more pain for a greater good. This would suggest that if any version of utilitarianism is to succeed, it would have to be one such as preference utilitarianism that does not require such a measurement.

Question 3

pleasure, happiness, or goodness CAN’T be measured

Answer 3

Assuming pleasure and pain can be measured would require a very simple version of utilitarianism such as Bentham’s, where push penny is as good as poetry’. Yet Mill seems right that there are higher and lower pleasures. How should the higher pleasures be weighted? Are they worth twice the lower pleasures, or three or four times?

Question 4

pleasure, happiness, or goodness CAN’T be measured

Answer 4

Nozick’s experience machine and Moore’s (see page 98) open question argument both raise the possibility that even if we actually could measure pleasure, we are not necessarily measuring the good.