Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”
- Source
- Utilitarianism
- Date
- 1863
Meaning of “It is better to be a human being…”
Quality matters alongside quantity in judging happiness: capacities for thought, dignity, and richer experience can make simple satisfaction an incomplete standard.
Where does it come from?
Utilitarianism, Chapter II, “What Utilitarianism Is,” Project Gutenberg #11224. Mill’s “human being dissatisfied / pig satisfied” comparison occurs in his argument that some pleasures associated with higher faculties have greater quality, alongside his appeal to dignity and competent judges. It is nineteenth-century normative moral philosophy, not an empirical measure of happiness or human worth.
