Application: Mill's Utilitarianism

Application: If you use the utilitarianism of Mill as a judgment standard, how would you decide between going to a fun party and Shakespeare play?

Using Mill’s utilitarianism, I would probably go to the Shakespeare play. Mill privileges some pleasures over others, and he would consider the party to produce more “base” pleasure than the Shakespeare play. Of course, most people would think of the party as producing more pleasure. But Mill considers both the quantity and quality of pleasure in his description of utilitarianism. And indeed, he notes that utilitarianism takes into account both individual happiness and collective happiness. Mill would probably think that going to the play would benefit society as a whole because it’s a “higher” pleasure. I’d imagine that he would say that going to the play would help enrich the society’s culture, or something like that.