The concept of liberal humanism, despite its utility in arguments for human rights, has seen its share of criticism. According to Robert Paul Wolff, "In the more sophisticated versions of liberal philosophy, the crude picture of man as a pleasure maximizer is softened somewhat. Mill recognizes that men may pursue higher ends than pleasure... and he even recognizes the possibility of altruistic or other-regarding feelings of sympathy and compassion. Nevertheless, society continues to be viewed as a system of independent centers of consciousness, each pursuing its own gratification and confronting the others as beings, standing-over-against the self, which is to say, as objects. The condition of the individual in such a state of affairs is what a different tradition of social philosophy would call 'alienation'" (145). This other tradition is Marxism.