The course of our argument has already touched upon the question of differences in quality among pleasures. We have already seen that, even upon the assumption that what is desired is always pleasure, it is in many cases clear enough that it is not pleasure in general that is desired but some particular kind of pleasure, and we have already attempted to show that such an admission really surrenders the whole hedonistic doctrine. If people do as a matter of fact desire pleasures for other reasons than their greater intensity, it is clearly possible that the superior ethical quality or rank or dignity of the pleasure may be one of the determining factors in their choice. That this is so has often been admitted by high-minded Hedonists who have not seen how fatal is the admission to the whole doctrine that what they desire is always pleasure as such. We may take for instance the well-known passage of John Stuart Mill:--(Bk. 1 Ch. 2 § 3 ¶ 1)

Mill's psychological analysis here leaves little to be desired, but he failed to see that a desire for superior quality of pleasure is not really a desire for pleasure. If I drink a particular wine for the sake of pleasure, I of course care for the quality of the wine--its taste, bouquet, body, exhilarating properties and the like, in so far as these conduce to pleasure. But so far only. I should give it up the moment that I found a pleasanter wine at the same price with equally hygienic properties, except in so far as occasional variety may be itself a source of pleasure. If, therefore, I care about philanthropic pleasure merely as pleasure, I should necessarily give it up and take to the pleasures of an animal if I were only satisfied of their superior pleasantness. this is just what, according to Mill, the wise man will not do: few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures^[23]. He admits therefore that such a man desires something other than pleasures. What makes him think the pleasures of the intellect superior to those of a beast is not their intensity as pleasures but their superior nobleness or moral elevation. And that is a consideration which can only appeal to a man who cares about nobleness or moral elevation.(Bk. 1 Ch. 2 § 3 ¶ 4)

Strictly speaking, pleasures do not differ in quality, but only in quantity. Or, to be entirely accurate, pleasure varies only in quantity. In ordinary language we mean by a pleasure a total state of consciousness which is pleasant. But no man's consciousness at any one moment can be full of pleasure and nothing else. There must be something there--a taste or a smell, a perception or a thought, an emotion or a volition--to be pleasant. A man who should for a single instant have nothing in his mind but pleasure would be an impossible variety of idiot: for tihs would imply that he was pleased at nothing at all. The pleasure then of this or that moment of consciousness is an abstraction; it can never exist by itself so long as pleasure is understood to mean the mere quality of pleasing. Very different contents of consciousness--the most purely animal sensation or the loftiest moral purpose--may have this common quality of pleasing; but, so long as they are compared merely in respect of this one characteristic, they can only differ in one way--in respect of the intensity or quantity of this pleasingness; the pleasure varies in degree, not in kind. All this tends to show how completely the admission of qualitative differences in pleasure abandons the hedonistic point of view. As a popular mode of expression, the doctrine that pleasures differ in kind is a true and useful formula; but it should be recognized that this is not Hedonism. For it means precisely this--that we ascribe value or worth to states of consciousness for other reasons than their pleasantness, although a certain measure of pleasantness might be a characteristic of all states of consciousness which are capable of being desired.(Bk. 1 Ch. 2 § 3 ¶ 5)